As Prime Minister Gillard commemorates ANZAC Day today, her Korean hosts might be pleased to know that in the event North Korea provoked a full-scale war with South Korea a majority (52%) of Australians are in favour of joining other allies like the United States in sending military forces to defend South Korea against North Korea, according to a Lowy Poll released today.
And if China — Australia's largest trading partner — intervened to support North Korea against South Korea, even more (56%) were in favour of sending Australian forces to help the South.
The nationally representative opinion survey also included a number of findings on China. The results reflect some of the complexity of the Australia-China relationship.
On the one hand, for example, three-quarters of Australians (75%) say China's growth has been good for Australia. On the other hand, almost half (44%) say it is likely China will become a military threat to Australia in the next 20 years (with both results similar to those we recorded last year).
The results also continue to show most Australians (57%) believe the government is allowing too much investment from China.
There was also some modest improvement in sentiment towards China in some areas. A slightly smaller majority of Australians (58%) disagreed that Australia is doing enough to pressure China to improve human rights (down from 66% in 2010) and this year 50% of Australians agreed Australia should join with other countries to limit China's influence (down from 55% last year).
The poll of 1,002 adult Australians was conducted by telephone between 30 March and 14 April 2011.
For future poll updates follow Fergus on Twitter @FergusHanson
