There are two lessons only:

Never again become involved in foreign countries militarily.

Never believe the claims of the so-called elites and bleeding hearts that we owe anything to the citizens of those countries, or that we should bring them here instead of leaving them to sort out their problems in their own country.

Beg pardon. We have another lesson.

Never again trust America, the country that gets us into these futile wars. Never thought I would say that - but along came Biden and the huge lunge to the Left of the Democrats.

Biden has just said, "America in future won’t ‘remake’ other countries."

Sounds good in one way, but it also sounds as though the US will be reneging on its "Western leader" role, and will not be of much use to us. Our closer neighbours, Indonesia, Japan and India will have to be our mates in future.

ttbn. give it a rest, u really talk bs at times. The West, including Australia, will never do what you want.

Chris,

You do have knickers in a knot this morning, poor bubby. You really need to get out of your kindergarten bubble.

Yes, I am a bit fired up, I have to admit.

I have been writing my feeble efforts about China on here for a long time, long before the loony right got onto the issue.

So, because I try to find a moderate approach to the issue which expresses my passion for liberal democracy and recognises the reality and horror of the CCP, I do get annoyed with simple tirades about how useless Australia is.

There, that is my gripe.

The author is plain wrong. Autocratic powers sometimes support each other. Sometimes they don't. As I remember autocratic Nazi Germany and autocratic Soviet Russia in WW2 fought each other. Democratic Finland joined forces with autocratic Nazi Germany. Reality is complex.