Australia calls itself the Pacific's partner of choice. But is the relationship built on mutual understanding, or is it driven by Canberra’s anxiety about China? 

Professor Joanne Wallis, the author of a new book with Jack Corbett, Neighbours, joins the Lowy Institute’s Serena Sasingian to discuss Australia's uneasy colonial history in the region, the gap between its "Pacific family" rhetoric and its strategy of denial, and why aid hasn't bought the influence Canberra hoped for. 

Wallis makes the case for a different frame altogether: not family, not chessboard, but neighbours.