Tasmania

On 18 November 2014, Xi Jinping arrived in Tasmania for a five-hour visit. State government policy and politics had been oriented around his visit for more than a year before, and it remained the most important event in Tasmania–China relations for several years afterwards. The visit also highlighted specific features of state-level paradiplomacy, in which both Tasmania and China sought to institutionalise a relationship but were constrained by history and ideological imperatives and policy capacity on both sides. The result is a relationship that’s characterised by a partial institutionalisation that has generally failed to achieve what either side has promised and has been overtaken by broader issues in Australia-China relations.