COVID19 leaves the world in shock and the struggle with the invisible enemy continues around the world. The crisis is seen as an opportunity to prove the resilience of authoritarianism and failure of democratic leadership that could take authoritarian soft power diplomacy to new heights.Competitors to the liberal order are treating the coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to exploit for their advantage. It proved the falsity of European "fairy tale" to stand united and extend aid to other countries in dire need of assistance. Authoritarian China would not be averse to the perpetuation of non-democratic government, the prospectus being that it would seek to provide these regimes with moral, but also financial, assistance.The COVID-19 pandemic is erupting at a period when totalitarian governments were still threatening liberalism. Now, liberal-order competitors are using the coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to leverage it for their benefit.

This dissertation advances a novel epistemological, methodological, theoretical and empirical analysis for understanding China’s sharp power toward Taiwan and Australia. The epistemological contribution is made through the development of a mixed (positivist, post-positivist) methodology for understanding not only China’s engagement with Taiwan but also of Australia’s strategic importance to Beijing. The theoretical contribution is manifested in the development of the mixed theoretical analysis of realist “stick” and the social constructivist “carrot” approach in understanding China’s attitude towards Taiwan. Positivist and anti-positivistic theories are deployed to advance a critical appreciation of soft-hard power respectively, the thesis seeks to locate the notion of sharp power in epistemological terms. The empirical contribution to knowledge is achieved through the development of a novel framework from an empirical analysis of China’s sharp power in Taiwan and Australia.