Sister Province-State Relationship Between China And Australia And Its Role In Their Economic Cooperation

The major objective of this study focuses on the analysis of the economic role played by the Sister Province-State relationship between China and Australia at both the local and national levels. By probing into the past, present and future of the six sister relationships between them, the study summarises the trade-related outcomes generated by the relationships and the potential cooperation aspects. Different from other research on this topic, this paper makes a systematic and profound study on the relationship from an economic perspective rather than a much broader one.In reviewing the history of each of the six sister ties, the thesis will elaborate on their various activities over the past decade and evaluate, on the basis of the outcomes and China-Australia bilateral relations in general, their prospects. The reason for writing this paper is to address the research gap since the new millennium, by assuming that the sister ties will remain active and promote the foreign affairs even 20 or 30 years after the establishment of their sister relationships. The paper is expected to influence Australian government policy-making for financial backup and more attention. Based-on the historic review and government official website review, the paper thoroughly describes the outcomes of trade and investment since 2000. Among the six Sister Province-State relationships, two of them, namely Queensland-Shanghai and Victoria-Jiangsu, due to their activism and more exposure of media, have been studied closely in independent cases to learn their pattern of economic cooperative activities initiated by the relationship.It is claimed in the study that the sister relationships strengthen the sub-national communication between the local governments and serve as a connection or network for foreign companies, especially small and medium sized enterprises, to access the overseas markets. It is very likely to see the bilateral sister relationships move to the multilateral regional interaction.It is a pity that we have no access to the information about trade and investment between the state and its sister province, or more precisely we have no approach to separate one state's economic performance in a single province. However, the originality of the paper boils down to its exploration of the successful economic cooperation outcomes and its assumptive prediction of Victoria-Jiangsu-Aichi (Japan) sister relationship as a highly interactive triangle. The trends of the six sister relationships between Australia and China will remain active and have more productive economic cooperation and institutional expansion in the future as they will be further spurred by the well conceived business plan designed by the local governments on both sides.