The title states the bleeding obvious. But can we? Will we?

Given our pragmatic, risk-averse politicians, and a military more interested in recruiting women and crossdressers than it is in signing up able young men, I suspect that the answer is 'no'; Australia has lost the will to fight, both physically and intellectually.

"Australians are determined." What? Australians are now allowing the government to treat them as they choose to treat them and, sadly, the way they deserve to be treated. No way could they resist fair dinkum tyranny. Determination is no longer a word that applies to Australians.

Recognising "that the CCP is a flawed authoritarian entity" is another bleedingly obvious statement that has no practical application whatsoever, given the obvious lack of confidence in Australia and the West in general. Knowing and doing are very different things.

Your heart and mind are in the right place, Chris, but it's all been said before (with fewer words) and we and the rest of the West are still not facing up to reality. Ignore it, don't discuss it, and it will go away is their stategy.

The difference with China, as I see it, is remarkably simpler than the complicated view of our Chris, who considers splitting hairs over this issue achieves enlightenment, it is this; we here, allow ourselves to be ruled by the treacherous class.

After all, who was it that facilitated this disastrous lock-in with the Chinese?

I live in hope that one day in the near future, we that are left alive may have our moment of joy, rounding up the traitors for execution against a brick wall before the football match on Saturday afternoon. Follow the Roman model with its executions in the Colosseum for public joy!

Dan

I love getting critical feedback.

However, ttbn, some of your comments about Australia, including the military, are disgraceful.

as for Dan, a total .... head

Anything you disagree with is, naturally for you, disgraceful, Chris. You must get inundated with disgrace.

I feel sorry for you two guys.

Australians generally love Australia, although many highlight our faults.

But you guys (collectively) hate the military, hate the west, hate the government, hate non-hetrosexuals, hate chinese people, hate sport.

What do you actually like

*…What do you actually like?…*

!Truth and honesty!

Dan

No ttbn, I don't mind u disagreeing with me; that is fine.

But simply bagging everything, as you tend to do with ideas that will never see the light of day, is far worse than my articles with whatever writing and research weaknesses I offer.

If you think Australia and the West are useless, then tell us what they should do.

However, please note: Locking up Chinese here, shutting of trade with China immediately and without international support, and bagging our military, are all ideas and approaches that are probably going to be viewed as mad ideas by most Australians.

As for Dan, he is a lost cause. I advise Dan to watch reruns of Epic Theatre so he can get off with his fantasies.

Hey Dynamic Dan, tell us about "truth and honesty" with regard to the China issue.

Give us the solutions?

Love when people are passionate about issues, so I hope your response goes beyond being a mere tirade about hate, hate and hate

!Truth and honesty!
diver dan,
Successive Labor Govts have legislated against that with PC, aided by reverse Education.

Chris.

I’m actually forgiving of you and your delusions of the perfect life.
And I do actually like you for your honesty, so I don’t feel a need to tirade against you for any reason apart from extracting you from your delusion.

Every day, at least once, I get on my knees and thank God I wasn’t subjected to the brain washing of the education torture chamber, past fourteen years of age.
(I expect you will attempt to use that freely offered knowledge against me, but I care not).

My life ambition has been two fold, work and read.
I’ve consumed huge volumes of literature to fill the empty spaces in my brain. That reading includes every thing I could find of Tolstoy and Solzhenitsyn. I’m midway through 5k pages of the complete works of Thomas Wolfe, everything I could find of John Steinbeck, volumes of religious text, including much from Christian apologetics.
Studied Philosophy of East and West, and much more,
It’s where I am today viz:

*… I live in hope that one day in the near future, we that are left alive may have our moment of joy, rounding up the traitors for execution against a brick wall before the football match on Saturday afternoon. Follow the Roman model with its executions in the Colosseum for public joy!…*

Dan

Chris Lewis,

Coming back all the time is one way to build up what seem to be responses, I suppose. You usually get less than I do to my posts, and that's saying something.

You DO NOT "love getting critical feedback", as is evidenced in your reaction to Dan and me. Like most people with tickets on themselves, you love to be agreed with.

You don't feel sorry for us "two guys". You feel sorry for yourself, and you are sorry that we expressed our opinions.

I don't "hate" the West (which, unlike you, I respect enough to capitalise): I just don't like the way it is headed, and I don't like the people wrecking it; the same applies to the government. I don't hate homosexuals - I don't accept homosexuality (as you don’t accept my right to my own values). I don't hate Chinese people (once again I don't mirror your disrespect and I capitalise their nationality). It's Communism I'm against. You got one only right: l definitely hate sport.

Get over yourself, mate, and don't presume to know what would be seen "as mad ideas by most Australians" until you work yourself out. Haven't you noticed that professional, qualified contributors to OLO, who cop flak all the time, don't feel the need to bite back at dissenting posters? It's because they don't lack confidence in their convictions. You, on the other hand ….

Could not agree more! And that we need to upgrade our self-defence capability that includes as it must, a nuclear capability and nuclear power. And add to that a distribution system that's all underground. Thereby making it and our production capacity far less vulnerable!

Currently, an attack on one or two towers could virtually shut down the entire grid? And with it our forward-looking com, eyes and ears/intell!

That said, no need to rail so publically against an economic and military giant, that has so few scruples!

As one leader observed, use a velvet glove but carry a big stick! And should be our approach also! But now not years down the track when it'll be far too late!

And if the current leaders do not understand all that, then needs must be replaced with those that do, regardless of their political stripes!
Alan B.

Chris.

Now onto historical issues with Chinese.

*…Give us the solutions? ..*

I’ll give you my version based on the practicality of real life and not on theoretical stabs in the dark. The view from the ground.

Taiwan:
The historical significance of this question gives us a lead to a sensible answer.
Taiwan is a losing gamble to the west.
The west, as it did in Vietnam and now Afghanistan, should pull up stumps and accept defeat. It’s a lost cause from the outset. On a par with Hong Kong..it’s Chinese.

Hong Kong.
China only needs put a time line for an exit strategy to objectors of Chinese rule in Hong Kong.
We have no rights of disruption by supporting agitators in their destabilising actions, bleeding all over the spilled milk of Democracy. That’s another war we need not engage with.

South China Sea.
The West should engage with Chinese aggression if it interferes with international conventions of free navigation. The high moral ground.

Chinese in Australia.
I take the view that all Chinese are the enemy, since there is little chance of identifying the good guys. We should assume all are untrustworthy, and deal with them from that position.

There you go Chris, your question answered!

Dan

Aye Chris

Ya feeding peanuts to monkeys.

What do ya expect!?

Thanks for your article Chris and for the commenters.

Based on my limited understanding China needs to be divided up into ethnic self ruling regions similar to ancient times- to cure it's craze for conquest. Sadly many Chinese ethnicity's were apparently wiped from the gene pool during the warring states period- with entire civilizations of women and children literally being thrown off castle walls in the name of conquest. The Mongols of the Yuan and Chuan periods- though fierce in battle- seem to me to treat the Chinese more like the Roman's treated the Greek's and preserved their culture but ruling it.

I've come to believe that every culture needs their own nation. As the Dalai Lama says Europe is for the European's. So multiculturalism is an issue and so is the pervasive Chinese diaspora in the West. But perhaps we can help them retrieve the homeland many of Chinese ethnicity have lost- replace the dystopian Chinese Dengian Communist regime- and create more stability for all. But we can't help everyone. And if we lose our own identity in the process it's pointless. The Dengian's will deterritorialize us out of existence if we let them.

The biggest problem is population. Everyone will have more if we have less population in the world.

Thanks Dan for providing your views on China. All opinions are valid, and all opinions provide some food for thought.

However, I think the last thing the world needs is western societies treating their chinese peoples within as enemies when it probably is the case that most also embrace western systems.

CM, your view is interesting. I still believe that a liberal democracy, if it is good enough, can absorb different cultures and still reach common norms.

Chris,

I might have agreed with most of your points a month back, but the events in Kabul and DC over the past month has changed everything.

Australia and other western democracies were right to resist China's bullying hegemonic behaviours. But all of that was utterly dependent on the fact that the US, ultimately, had our back.

The ascension of Biden raised questions about how dedicated the US would remain in opposing Chinese aggression. See his own comments over the past few years as well as the high likelihood that he had received bribes, via his son, from CCP associated groups.

In the disastrously organised and implemented withdrawal from Kabul, the US has shown all, but especially its foes, that it's a paper tiger, unwilling and incapable of using its overwhelming force advantage to achieve its aims. The US might have the biggest defence force on the planet but it is led by people no longer able to use that force.

The upshot for Australia is that, if we elect to oppose China, we do it knowing, or at least doubting, the ability of the US to back us. A coalition of Australia, Japan and India might be a check on China, but not an effective foil.

China is effectively offering Australia vassal status to imperial China. Its an offer we cannot wantonly reject. While the future dominance of liberal democracy in the world is no longer certain, it isn't obvious that adhering to China would mean we had to surrender our internal liberties - although it should be noted that, over the past year, it is clear those liberties aren't a first-order priority for most Australians.

We shouldn't be precipitous in our decisions here. There remains a chance that the US, post 2024, will stage a come-back. So we shouldn't burn bridges in the hope of that eventuality. But equally, we shouldn't be going out of way to tweak the oriental nose. From where I sit, China is way in front in the battle for global dominance, and we need to work out where we fit in that world.

mhaze, thanks for your excellent comments.

I sort have shifted as well. It may well be that the CCP keeps gaining influence for a while yet, although I hope it does not happen.

However, there will indeed come a point when the US (and allies) will have to take a stand.

It will depend on how far the CCP is prepared to rock the boat, and how far the West is prepared to stand up the CCP.

Let's hope that the clash does not lead to war.

Frightening as it may be, about the only kind of war we could hope to win against China, & perhaps Russia, would be a full house total war. The west, IE. the USA is no longer capable of being ruthless enough to win the "bush fire" type gorilla war, of the type we have been fighting the last couple of decades.

Clear earth is the only way to fight insurrection, & we can't do it with one hand behind our back. Multiculturalism mixed with welfare is what will kill us, with an ethnic fifth column, combined with our own foolish woke citizens making us ineffective in gorilla war, plus military & industrial strength.

Our defense forces in the west have become led by the woke, more political effective, as usually happens in peace time. China & Russia would be now led by the politically well connected, & may be even less capable of becoming effective quickly, it would be a race to eliminate the useless top brass, as it was with the allies in WW11.

Lets hope we never find the answer, as a modern war would be quite unpleasant, particularly us, with our stupidity of being armed to fight the last war, rather than a nuclear one of the future.

I'm damned if I can see how we can be more resolute against china, armed as we are with nothing more effective than spears & boomerangs were in 1788.

mhaze- As they said in DuNE- "for the father nothing"- the same looks to be true of Australia.

Chris Lewis- Thanks for your comments. We'll just have to see who is correct in time.

I consider your embracing of criticism as a sign of character.

There are many small things that those of non-British ancestry just don't appreciate. Multiculturalism in a sense is just another way we have handed up our rights to those that think they know better about how we should live.

Some of the comments look similar to lines out of 'Animal Farm'- the animation seems to be accurate- but perhaps not G rated. Napoleon plays the diplomat while preparing the dogs.

CM, yep the world did become a far better place when influenced by the British traditions.

Heaven help us if such traits are lost.

We can only do what we can to stop China, which is probably not a lot.

But we must do all we can to keep our conscience clear.

This means, stop supporting China by buying their products, cheap as they might be.

In any case, we should produce our own fuel and manufacture our own goods. I don't think that China will attack us directly, militarily, in the foreseeable future, but it is only a matter of time before they blockade supplies, especially oil/petrol supplies, turning back or sinking oil-tankers on their way to Australia: without the fuel to transport food, there will be starvation here (not to mention the stampede when toilet paper runs out!). This must be our first and urgent priority - to restore local oil drilling and refineries.

We may also look at gaining influence over PNG, turning it into a buffer zone to protect Australia rather than a threatening Chinese foothold. It would cost, but is one of our best possible investments.

As for Chinese people already in Australia, they are our guests and many of them came here for refuge: so long as they are not found to identify or cooperate with the CCP, they must enjoy the benefit of the doubt and be very welcome (still they should not be allowed into sensitive key security or infrastructure positions).