China’s growing power is reshaping the region. Australia should respond with diplomacy and stronger economic ties rather than military confrontation it cannot hope to win.

Greg Sheridan has always been provocative. The foreign editor of The Australian is well known for his strident view urging Australia to fully embrace American military power. One recent sermon focused on the need to support the US Navy base at HMAS Stirling. “Frankly”, he writes, “I’d much rather entrust Australia’s security to the US Navy than to the Albanese government”.

Sheridan then moves to flattery for Labor’s resident Kentucky Colonel, aka the Minister for AUKUS, Richard Marles. Marles, he says, has “done quite well on the critical question of US alliance management”. Despite his distaste for most things Labor, Sheridan concludes that Marles is a good fit for the job at hand - kowtowing to the US military and its boss, the belligerent Pete Hegseth. He claims we don’t need to pretend that Stirling is an Australian military base because “we actively and happily shelter under the US extended nuclear umbrella”. Sheridan proposes that the US and Australia should now draw up “common battle plans” to prepare for conflict with “the only candidate for adversary - China”.

There is no doubt China has developed its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) land, navy, air force, marines, rocket force and cyber warfare capabilities to now claim military ascendancy in the South China Sea and beyond. In June the Lowy Institute in Sydney released a well-researched analysis of the PLA’s military strength entitled “Understanding the Chinese military threat to Australia”.

Authored by Sam Roggeveen and David Vallance, the study is good work. It explains China’s rise and President Xi Jinping’s aim to complete China’s “great rejuvenation” by 2049, the 100th anniversary of Mao’s revolutionary victory. By then, the authors assert, China will be a prosperous, technologically advanced and........

© Pearls and Irritations