Let’s not ‘snap back’ towards China

The one thing Australia can’t do as we get the pandemic under control is ‘snap back’ to the old ways of doing business with the one-party state that is the People’s Republic of China.

Australia should invoke the ANZUS treaty

Scott Morrison has called the ANZUS Treaty ‘the single most important achievement’ of the Liberal Party in any term of government. He can now use that achievement to show solidarity in the fight against COVID-19.

The death or rebirth of America?

The spiraling death toll in the USA, and the bumbling reaction of the Federal government, has prompted many commentators to predict the eclipse of America as a major power, but the COVID-19 crisis is more likely to revitalise that nation’s inherent dynamism.

Australia needs a national mobilisation committee – right now

Coronavirus is primarily a public health crisis, but it is also wreaking havoc with our financial, political, economic and social systems. Government as usual is not an option.

Coronavirus and the death of Xi’s ‘China Dream’

Globalisation was already ill and Coronavirus is killing both it and Xi Jinping’s ‘China Dream’. That’s big news for Australia’s economy and security in the future.

Getting our own house in order

Strengthening Australia’s democratic institutions will help ensure that Chinese state and corporate interference does not divide our society or undercut our national interests.

The reality of Chinese influence in Australia

The corrosive issue of Chinese state interference in our democracy needs to be handled in a calm and orderly way, but the government must also be honest and open with the Australian people about the challenge we are facing.

Facing facts over China

Instead of looking to some ‘Beijing happy-o-meter’, we need to define our relationship with Communist China as China defines its with us – through decisions and actions rather than words.

Unplugging the Chinese outrage machine

We must not allow the CCP to create a world beyond its borders in which we all feel compelled not to think – and so not to say – what Beijing doesn’t want to hear. And we need to see this paranoid CCP behaviour for what it is: weakness and anxiety masquerading as power.

Lessons from the ANU cyberattack

Australian National University Vice Chancellor Brian Schmidt’s public release of a detailed report on the damaging cyberattack on ANU systems and data marks a refreshing shift in behaviour on cybersecurity for Australian public institutions.

Australia’s China policy emerges in the USA

Rather than join the USA’s trade war against China, Scott Morrison used his state visit to call for broader international action to curb China’s economic, political and military assault on the wider world.

Why the Solomon Islands and Kiribati switched sides

Kiribati and Solomon Islands have switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China and the move is about more than the Chinese Communist Party’s relentless campaign to isolate Taiwan.