Relationship with China challenging: Carr

Foreign Minister Bob Carr says Australia shouldn’t have to decide between China and the United States in setting foreign policy.

Senator Carr said Australia’s relationship with China was challenging, given that for the first time “the nation with which we have the major economic relationship is a nation with different values”.

He said Australia did not need to choose between aligning itself with the US or China.

“There are other narratives in the Asia-Pacific,” he told ABC Television on Wednesday.

“It’s not all (about) this geostrategic competition between our ally the United States and our economic partner China.”

He said it was no revelation to China “that a rock-solid cornerstone of Australia’s security is that relationship we enjoy with the United States.”

“This is in the Australian DNA,” Senator Carr said.

On Tibet, he said it would be difficult to convince the Chinese to be more attentive to human rights concerns “if the demands for Tibetan autonomy become a demand for Tibetan independence”.

“There’s no country in the world that recognises that,” Senator Carr said.

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