For Australia, a key focus of its foreign policy should be how to balance its economic ties with China and its cultural ties with the United States; appeasing both without getting in the middle of an ugly tug-o-war that forces Canberra to take sides.

The ABC has partnered with a Chinese media company to open a web portal for Australian content in that country, becoming the first mainstream media organisation to launch a registered web portal in China. The managing director of the ABC, Mark Scott, and its chairman, Jim Spigelman, opened the portal in China on Wednesday and were congratulated by Tony Abbottfor strengthening Australia’s ties with China.

An Australian government initiative branded as the InnovationXchange will broker partnerships between business, civil society, philanthropy, and academia in order to tackle problems in developing countries in the Australian region. The InnovationXchange is said to draw on the model for developing innovation in Silicon Valley technology startups. It will be licensed to embrace more financial risk than a normal government bureaucracy in trying new solutions.

The cuts will send Australia tumbling down the ladder of global big-heartedness. We'll drop from being the 13th most generous donor among wealthy industrial nations to 19th, at today's levels for other donors.

China's new Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a very big deal for Asia's economic future, but the way its establishment has played out makes it an even bigger deal for Asia's changing political and strategic order. And Canberra's announcement last weekend that Australia will join the AIIB despite the objections of the United States may come to be seen as marking a  historic shift in Australian foreign policy.

Just a few days shy of China’s end-of-March deadline for founding membership in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Australia confirmed that it will join the AIIB. Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s government announced over the weekend that it had chosen to sign on to join the bank as a founding member, becoming the latest U.S.-allied state to join an institution that some in the United States see as a competitor to U.S.-led international financial institutions, like the World Bank.

It is important to appreciate that cricket has for many years been the lifeblood of the Australia-India relationship. Historically, it has often been said that the Australia-India relationship is based on three things: cricket, Commonwealth and curry. 

Welcome to the world of Qianlong (pronounced Chee-ann-long), China’s longest serving emperor. Qianlong (1711-99), who reigned from 1736 to 1795, is one of the most important figures in Chinese history. And this month he’s coming to Australia.