Australia should seek cooperation with China, not confrontation: media

Photo taken on Nov. 2, 2020 shows the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia. (Xinhua/Bai Xuefei)

"The diplomatic deep-freeze hurts Australia more than it hurts China," said a recent opinion piece by the South China Morning Post, adding, "in using ideologically driven groupings like the Quad to exclude China from regional discussions, and in so doing risk confrontation with Beijing, Canberra only hastens the onset of a new cold war."

BEIJING, April 29 (Xinhua) -- Australia should seek cooperation with China, not confrontation, said a recent opinion piece in the South China Morning Post.

"There is nothing for Australia to gain from being excessively confrontational," said the opinion published Tuesday.

In the opinion, author Ciara Morris, policy officer at Australian independent policy institute China Matters, noted that the main purpose of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), an informal strategic dialogue between the United States, Japan, Australia and India, is "containing China."

However, simply following the policy of Australia's alliance is "a dumbing-down" of its own diplomacy, and does not serve Australia's interests, Morris wrote.

"Australia's economic ties with China are too strong. A conflict would be crippling," she wrote.

"The diplomatic deep-freeze hurts Australia more than it hurts China," she wrote, adding, "in using ideologically driven groupings like the Quad to exclude China from regional discussions, and in so doing risk confrontation with Beijing, Canberra only hastens the onset of a new cold war."