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CHINA celebrates today's 60th anniversary of Mao Zedong's declaration of the People's Republic as a country that, in many ways, would shock its communist founders. This giant nation, closed to the world for its first two decades, has emerged as a global power. Australia was engaged from the start of this process, with Gough Whitlam's trip to China in October 1971 preceding US president Richard Nixon's momentous visit in February 1972. Upon becoming prime minister in December 1972, Mr Whitlam established diplomatic relations, six years before US president Jimmy Carter felt able to do the same.

Yet, even after a 37-year mutually beneficial relationship, Australians hold strikingly ambivalent attitudes to a country that, on many measures, has made enormous strides in that time....