Regardless of how Anthony Albanese’s recent visit to China is characterised by critics, commentators, or geopolitical hawks, one fact is becoming unavoidable: Australia is waking up to reality. China is our future.
For decades, policymakers and media elites indulged in wishful thinking that Australia could somehow hedge its way through growing tensions with China—milking the benefits of economic engagement while parroting alliance obligations to Washington. But the numbers tell a blunt story.
In 2000, China accounted for just 6% of global manufacturing output. By 2030, it is projected to account for an astonishing 45% of global manufacturing.
This kind of transformation is not merely a shift in markets or trade flows; it is an unprecedented restructuring of the very foundations of the modern global economy.
Albanese’s visit signals a recognition that Australia’s economic future cannot be secured by treating its largest trading partner as a permanent adversary. If Australia wants to prosper, it must do so as a partner to China - not a reluctant client, and certainly not a pawn in someone else’s rivalry.
But there is more at stake than trade figures. China’s development trajectory suggests that the so-called “neo-liberal paradigm” of deregulation, privatisation, and market fundamentalism - once held up as the only path to prosperity - is no longer the best model.
As a recent United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) report points out:
“Historically, industrialization has proven to be an effective strategy for reducing poverty, alleviating malnutrition, and creating productive employment opportunities. Countries such as the Republic of Korea and China exemplify how planned development measures and targeted industrial policies can catalyse significant economic and social transformations.”
Australia has much to learn. While the neo-liberal model has hollowed out domestic manufacturing and entrenched inequality, China’s state-directed development has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and positioned it as the engine of the global economy.
That does not mean Australia must copy China wholesale or abandon its democratic traditions. But it does mean we should rethink the frameworks that have left us overexposed, underprepared, and vulnerable to external shocks.
Albanese’s realism is long overdue. In recognising that China is not merely a “market” but the structural driver of 21st-century industrialisation, Australia has the opportunity to move beyond tired Cold War binaries and embrace a future defined by economic pragmatism and cooperation.
The question now is whether our political and media class will follow his lead—or retreat into a rhetoric of dependency and fear, denying the very realities that Albanese’s visit quietly but decisively acknowledged.
Albanese's visit to China is about facing reality
Albanese’s visit to Beijing signals Australia’s belated acceptance of China’s centrality to the global economy—and a quiet rebuke to the neo-liberal illusions that have dominated policy for decades.
Albanese’s visit signals a recognition that Australia’s economic future cannot be secured by treating its largest trading partner as a permanent adversary. If Australia wants to prosper, it must do so as a partner to China - not a reluctant client, and certainly not a pawn in someone else’s rivalry.