On various measures, the Albanese government has been a lot more successful than its Morrison predecessor in dealing with Beijing, although this has partly been because it’s in China’s interests to be more accommodating.

The trade relationship has been normalised, with China progressively lifting all those restrictions it had imposed when the Coalition was in power.

The Chinese government had been furious with Scott Morrison’s pressing for an independent inquiry into the origins of COVID; earlier, it hated Malcolm Turnbull’s introduction of legislation to combat foreign interference.

The Labor government has also done a much better job than the Coalition in shoring up Australia’s relationships in the Pacific, a point reinforced this week with Anthony Albanese’s Pacific tour that included announcing an alliance with Fiji.

In the Pacific, Australia’s diplomacy is in direct competition with China’s, to boost our influence and keep theirs at bay, to the extent possible.

There is always a wall the Australia-China relationship will hit, as each country is fully aware. China is a great power, intent on doing what great powers do – asserting itself (as that other great power, the United States, has been doing conspicuously under the Trump presidency).

We can’t know where, in the long run, Chinese assertiveness will take that country, or leave us. For Australia, this means pursuing the positives but preparing for possible (or, if you are a pessimist, likely) negatives.

This week, China put its assertiveness on display, with its missile test in the Pacific.

The test came on the day Albanese and Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka were unveiling the new........

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