THE HOT SPOT
Want to understand why our government does what it does? Immigration, treaties, defence, which nations we line up with — most of it makes sense once you see it as global positioning against China.
Our number one trading partner. It is madness for Australia and for the region. But the American posture is America first, and it does not intend to accommodate China’s rise — which means Australia and the Asia-Pacific wear the consequences.
We have lost a good deal of our sovereignty in the process. For decades this country stayed at arm’s length from American adventures elsewhere in the world. Now the Asia-Pacific is the focus, and a war here would hit us harder than any of those did.
The South China Sea is the hot spot — the most likely place a regional war starts. So how do we stop it? How do we reverse a direction someone else has designed for us?
By building a united Asia-Pacific peace union. And the South China Sea is exactly where that has to happen — the place of greatest friction is the place where a shared arrangement is worth the most.
Two memos set out the problem and the answer: