Australia's China
Changing Perceptions from the 1930s to the 1990s

First published in 1996, Australia's China explores the Australian encounter with China from 1937 to 1972.

Lachlan Strahan (Author)

9780521484978, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 1 January 1996

392 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.57 kg

First published in 1996, Australia's China explores the multifaceted and dynamic Australian encounter with China from the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 through the Cold War to the Australian recognition of the PRC in 1972. Going beyond conventional policy studies, it traces the patterns in Australian reactions to China from the grass-roots to official circles, highlighting the centrality of images concerning the exotic, disease, sexuality, the frontier, and China as a paradise/anti-paradise. In responding to China, Australians revealed something of themselves, and this book maps the formation of Australian conceptions of identity in the context of a cross-cultural encounter which was variously cooperative, enriching, baffling, and antagonistic. But there was no single Australian conception of China. Rather, competing perceptions jostled in a shifting dialogue.

Introduction
Part I. 1941–1949: 1. The rise and fall of our valiant ally
2. The den of iniquity
3. Lepers, madmen and demons
4. Keeping China at bay
Part II. 1950–1989: 5. The Chinese anti-utopia
6. The dread frontier
7. The Chinese paradise
8. An alternative new China
9. The den of iniquity revisited
10. Reckoning with China
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Australasian & Pacific history [HBJM]