Wall St and the Central Banks run the West.China did not bend to their imperialistic will.China kept it's Govt banks.Currently the USA is in Africa with the Kony lies ,Botox Lips and George Clueless trying to get China out of Uganda and Sudan because China is doing exactly what the Western oligarchs have been doing for decades,ie securing their energy supplies.Japan went to war because the US tried to restrict their access to oil.

This will end up as a serious conflict if we all don't awaken.Japan is closing down all it's nuke reactors and importing oil.They are in dire straights.They could well decide join with China,Russia,India,Pakistan,Iran Venezuela,Argentina,Brazil and rid themselves finally of Western Imperialism.This has all been hatched under the noble cause of stopping climate change and over population.Starlin Murdered 20 million,Mao 60 million,Hitler 6 million,Pol Pot 1 million + 2 million of disease and starvation.With perceptions of an over populated planet,no one is safe.

Time to wake up people,the war on terror was a ruse for their New World Order.

It would be good if we were at some point able to reach the understanding that no other country has Australian interests - let alone our "best interests" - at heart.

Ever.

"...two shifts are required... The second is the recognition of our own needs and realisation that not all of our friends will have our best interests at heart."

Nor does it matter, particularly, whether they are regarded as "our friends". The United States sees Australia as one of its Asia Pacific military outposts. Important, sure. But only a bit. Certainly nowhere near as important as, say, Korea or Japan.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/pacom.htm

China sees us - for the moment - as a key component of its raw material supply chain. Commercial interests feature so far ahead of any "military" considerations, that the idea that they may take our military capability into their planning is laughable. We are a footnote only.

The sooner we get away from the concept that we make "friends" with other countries, the more mature and clear-eyed will be our political relationships with them.

I would have thought that our experience of dealing with the UK, as we found ourselves a secondary consideration to their own relationship with what was then called the Common Market, taught us something about the concept of having international BFFs.

Clearly not.

For some, the eagerness to become more engaged with China is borne out of anti-Western,anti-US sentiment which has been doing the rounds in Universities for the last 40 yrs or so, not out of any process of logic or sense of self-preservation. Being an unaligned 'Global' player would leave Australia virtually defenceless.

The author is totally naive to even suggest that a move to China and away from the US could be in some way beneficial to Australia.

If anyone thinks that China is some sort of friend to Australia other than a mineral mine, then they are thoroughly mistaken. The Chinese regime has no friends not even in in China.

Atman.Do you want to align yourself with a system in which Obama has trashed the US constitution and now is a virtual police state invading countries at will for their oil? We should be standing up to Obama like Vladamir Putin,not licking their bootstraps everytime they visit.Nothing changes.John Howard fell over himself pathically grovelling to George Bush.Both him and Tony Blair were found guilty of war crimes in Kuala Lumpa late last year.

We can be friends with China and Russia without being taken over by their political systems.Obama's latest edict is that he does not need permission of Congress to invade a country or go to war.If the US falls totally into a facist state under Obama,we will follow.

Way to go, Arjay, to prove Atman's point for him.

>>For some, the eagerness to become more engaged with China is borne out of anti-Western,anti-US sentiment<<

Your apparently uncritical view of the regimes in China and Russia is either incredibly naive, or thoroughly blinkered.

You are also, as usual, entirely inconsistent in your assessment of the impact on Australia.

>>We can be friends with China and Russia without being taken over by their political systems<<

It is significant that you do not allow the same to hold true for the United States.

Arjay A new world order, what does that mean. Maybe it would be a good idea. With what's happened to Europe something has got to be radically different.
China is our friend because we have what they want.
Obama's authority for war, is contained to Iran.