A good relationship with its neighbours is essential to ensuring Australia’s peace and prosperity. A strong economy requires long term, secure trading partnerships, open access to markets and dynamic investment arrangements. Equally, regional stability requires that Australia maintains effective national security capabilities in partnership with key countries in the region. In order to ensure our international relations are effective, it is essential that Australia’s government officials and diplomats make sound, evidence-based foreign policy. A comprehensive knowledge of what happened in the past to influence Australia’s present important regional relationships is vital to ensure the implementation of an effective foreign policy for the future.This report task will provide the opportunity to develop your critical reading skills and your capacity to identify and succinctlyexplain Australia’s relations with key countries since 1945,as well as applying scholarly conventions in your written work.
For this task you need to prepare a1000 word country reporton Australia’s bi-lateral relationship withChina .
For the country report you need to provide a report detailing the most important aspects of Australia’s relationship with your chosen country. It is important that you do not write a briefing that is just about the country itself. You will find information on theDepartment of Foreign Affairs and Trade(DFAT) website which may provide a general guide of what you might include. However, this is an official source, prepared by the government
department responsible for international diplomacy. As such, it will necessarily steer away from controversial issues, or seek to gloss over tensions in the relationship. Discussion on these will be found in the required readings. You may also consult the additional reading resources but this is not essential.
Your report should include details on the following:
- Economic relationship
- Strategic relationship
- Diplomatic relationship
The country report must be written in proper prose form using complete grammatical sentences. Dot points are not acceptable. Your country report must be written in your own words.
Structure of the country report
It is important that you set out your report in an easy to follow way. The recommended structure is:
Introduction - a brief outline of what you will be covering in your country report
- The main topic – the importance of this bi-lateral relationship to Australia
- The author’s thesis - why this bi-lateral relationship is so important to Australia’s national interest
- Key points –the 3 main arguments the author presents that demonstrate this position?
Body – discussion of these 3 key points
- Australia’s current economic, strategic and diplomatic relationship with the chosen country in its historical perspective
- Evidence and examples from your sources to support the claims
Conclusion – a brief summary of the recommendations for the future
- Author’s conclusions on what is necessary to ensure the relationship is effective in the future
- Referencing System : Youare required to include a reference list and cite in the text of the report the author, year and page number/sof the sources where your information and ideas come from andmust use the APA (in-text) referencing.