If Trump retains power? The predicted senario may well eventuate? And if it does? It will change the dynamics and make our position more precarious than it already is?

And given it does? Make a complete nonsense, straight out of cloud cookoo land, out of our decision to remain a non-nuclear nation! And dismantle our manufacturing sector in favour of service industries!

Cookoo, cookoo. TBC.
Alan B.

Unification would remove an important bulwark against Communist China for the US and, hence, Australia
and the Pacific.

All power to North and South Korea in their efforts to unify! It's the only sensible option and would no doubt have happened long ago if not for the constant interference by the US in a part of the world which is absolutely none of its business.
The US needs to sign the peace treaty which to its great shame it has refused to sign from the time it obliterated North Korea in the early 50s. It also needs to withdraw the crippling sanctions it has imposed on the North for far too long and the threatening military bases and troops it's imposed on the South.
Hopefully, a reunited Korea can stand up to US bullying and can build a strong and independent future for all Koreans.

Ni hao Bronwyn.

It's good to see you expressing your Asian identity to the advantage of China.

You are part of the success story that is the Great Asianisation Period (1980-2020) in Australian history.

If anyone believes that the North will unify with the south for an economic future, does not understand that that is completely counterproductive to China's interests.

And the removal of US bases in th south, completely counterproductive to our interests.

As long as those bases are there we can rearm to the point where we could defend ourselves against a hostile China. ASAP!

In the interim, we should lift our self imposed nuclear ban, buy some nuclear-powered subs off the shelf and arm them with also bought off the shelf, nuclear missiles. I'm sure we can count on Uncle Sam for that and terms!?

Given we do that, no further reason to ban, for peaceful purpose, nuclear energy. And we should allow all the R+D of/on MSR and thorium that the market and our universities want/can bear!

Plus, get an agreement signed yesterday, to become the world's premiere nuclar waste repository. Understanding that this material is unspent fuel that we can very safely spend in MSR technology to provide industrial power for less than 1 cent PKWH! And earn annual billions as the intended consequence!

And compliment that with genuine tax reform that is a flat tax set at 15% that's unavoidable and the only tax we any of us pay above a generous threshold! Plus invest in multible deionisation dialysis desalination plants!

Do that much and prepare for the stampede as the energy dependant high tech manufacture seeks as it will, to relocate en masse, to these shores! along with their tax liabilities! And ditto cashed up self-funded retirees.

And you will have to be really old and really tired not to be employed or retrained on the job!

We could afford to be choosy and opt for partnership arrangements that incorporate, cooperative capitalism/employee partisapation!
Alan B.

Mr Opinionated
I'm not part of anything, Asian or otherwise. I'm as Anglo-Australian as you no doubt are ... not that this is at all relevant ... and not that I need to explain myself to you.
The difference between you and I is that I refuse to bow down to the myth of Anglo-American exceptionalism. I aim for a fair and objective reading of history and current events, as we all should. I can appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of all nations and systems of government and detest the blanket demonising and fear-mongering of particular countries and their people.
Always happy to debate the issues, but in future will treat your personal labelling with the contempt it deserves ... and ignore.

Bronwyn,

We are all Asian now and you need to accept it.

This is the result of the Great Asianisation Period (1980-2020) in Australian history and Australia is now an Asian nation-state.

So stop referring to yourself as an Anglo-Australian and start referring to yourself as Asian. We all need to break away from these racially discriminatory terms like Anglo-Australian, Chinese-Australian, Eskimo-Australian, etc., and see each other as a community of Asians.

PS Actually I'm not Anglo-Australian. I'm Anglo-Danish-French-Irish-Australian - just to give you an idea of how ridiculous these terms have become.

Embrace your Asianess Bronwyn otherwise you will be left behind as some sort of un-Asian racial dinosaur.

Mr O. Disagree with your take and B's analysis. Both of wich are subjective and flawed. When Mandarin is our national language? May see eye to eye with your take. Until then, will remain a Celtic Anglo, spiced/mixed with half a dozen others. That said, we are all Africans are we not? Given the origins of man!
Alan B.

Alan B.,

Yes biologically speaking our species of the genus homo first showed up in Africa about 200,000 BP and left Africa to populate the rest of the world about 60,000 BP.

But the Asianization of Australia during the Great Asianization Period (1980-2020) in Australian history is not about biology but about geography, culture and ethnicity. Under the rubric of Australian Multiculturalism we have been able to make our continent part of the Asian land mass and organise our society as a reflection of Asia. Keep in mind Asia stretches from the Mediterranean to the Pacific and the Arctic to now Tasmania and has dispersed cultures and ethnicities. Australia is now a microcosm of this 21st century Asia.

Alan you must discard you notions of race grounded in Celtic origins and embrace your Asianess. We might live in a congeries of ethnicity and culture but we all now share a common Asian identity in a nation-state that is now welded to Asia for eternity.