Well said, Graham. Only a 'lunatic' would think that the climate change scam was a bigger threat than Communist China.

Agree absolutely and entirely with Graham's comments on B!

This smacks of 1938 as Hitler took and took what he wanted. Until we were forced into a war!

All the reassurances back then made to buy more time for the madman to continue to build up his military machine and territorial gains.
Alan B.

Graham Young

For someone who runs and moderates an opinion column, your comments are very intemperate - maybe a wine too many last night?

<< Hard to know what you mean by the US having a long history of those things. A couple of presidents have been assassinated and there was a civil war, but nothing to compare to the civil war in China ... >>

I wasn't referring to civil history. I was referring to the broader geopolitical situation, which given the context of the paragraph in which the sentence was situated would have been clear to most readers. And besides, that is what this article is about ... the so-called threat of China to the rest of the world, not what China might have done within its own borders. And BTW, if I could be bothered to go so far off topic, which I won't, I could certainly compile a long list of atrocities committed by the US on its home soil.

As for the hard to know what I mean comment, let me clarify.

Coups – The US has endeavoured (and mostly succeeded) in overthrowing at least fifty foreign governments (most of them democratically-elected) from the end of WW2 up until the turn of the century. And it hasn’t stopped since.

Assassinations – There have been more than fifty assassination attempts, most of them successful, made by the US on world leaders from the end of WW2 up until 2011. And the pattern hasn’t changed over the last decade.

Bombing – The US and its allies have dropped an average of 46 bombs per day on at least thirty countries since 2001. It averaged one every twelve minutes in Trump's first year. And these were only the ones reported in the US Airpower Summaries which Trump ended in March 2020. The bombs are now dropped without public record.

China has no such history. It respects the sovereignty of other nations and expects others to reciprocate. If you're going to continue promulgating the fear-mongering that China is threatening to invade, you need to start putting forward some evidence.

Bronwyn.
What about Manchuria, Mongolia and Tibet.
David

DD: Above is a less than comprehensive list of Chinese incursions through legitimate loop holes in Australian FI rules.

Spot on.

Anywhere China goes is a Military Base. The Belt Road System is a device to get 3rd. World Countries indebted to China then take over.

The Chinese Government & the Military are the one entity. They are inseparable.

Many years ago I had a Sesawa (Seychelles) girlfriend. Her father escaped from the Island when it went Communist. The Seychelles Government imported Tanzanian Military to keep a watch on the Police. Then they employed Chinese Military to watch the Tanzanians. The Seychelles Government leased the Dock to the Chinese.

In Australia, Darwin is leased to the Chinese. I have it on good Authority that it is a Chinese listening Post for top Secret Base at Pine Gap. They know that. ;-)

Of course the Chinese want to get into the Pacific. Just like they claim All of the South China Sea they will start to claim No Fly Zones anywhere they set up Bases. That's what they do.

How is Darwin port a listening base for Pine Gap when Pine Gap itself is a listening base for global communications?
It's also a key component in the American early warning system of detecting missile launches and is thus a first-strike target in case of war. It also means our own capital cities would also be first strike targets to ensure alternative telemetry signalling is cut off from the US mainland.

It's interesting that people like Trump who publicly railed against the Chinese had no problem shafting his local steel and aluminium producers in favour of Chinese suppliers. Likewise his Trump brand line of executive clothing line (as well as Ivana's brand of shoes) are made in China.

Likewise it was our own country that happily outsourced our manufacturing, jobs (and emissions) to China and leased Darwin port as well as Newcastle port which is owned by The Infrastructure Fund and China Merchants Port Holdings Company.