Yes and what U.S. weapons can defend us that the wests adversaries have not already learned to overcome ttbn?

If Ukraine and Israel cant defend against Russia and Iran what makes you think Australia a huge land mass, can somehow defend against China?

And what are we fighting over anyway?
The issue of retaining the U.S. as the global reserve currency and how they can bully and stand over other nations with it by tying the worlds trade to their currency via SWIFT and the petrodollar?
- They're both already well on the way to the dustbin of history, China has CIPS, it's better and the payment system is already in 192 countries, and America has been booted out of the Persian Gulf.

We'd be fighting for something that's already happened but something America just refuses to accept.
The worlds moved on.

You need to very carefully separate the issues of defending Australia ourselves and what's in our best interests from the separate issue of getting dragged into the U.S. wars of empire that it now can't win.

I'm interested in the first issue, but certainly not the second.
We have no money for military we spent it all committing to stupid submarines that we won't get until this part of history is done with, and if America fails we might never get them at all.

That China is an expansionist state is unassailable. That they intend to own an/or strategically dominant their neighbours via ridiculous claims like the 9 dash line is clear. That their neighbours intend to resist becoming vassals of the Han is also, for now, obvious.

When you have a hegemonic state in your midst, the options, history shows, is to either acquiesce or resist by uniting against said state. China's neighbours are doing the latter.... as they should if they esteem freedom and their own welfare.

A Chinese victory in these struggles will overthrow the current world order and that's where Australia comes in. Our entire national being is predicated on the existence of the current arrangements. Its why we fought in wars that were apparently unrelated to us like the Boer and WW1. If the Chinese hegemony were to eventuate, it would mean a very different future for Australia, a further decline in our economic well-being and a diminution in our freedoms.

But the idea of China waging war on us directly is fanciful. They won't. They can't. It's just sabre rattling. We have much to fear from the Chinese seeking to re-establish the Han as the paramount arbiters of world power, but direct military action isn't it.

As to them circumnavigating Australia, its just more of that fear-mongering. They sailed solely in international water and have every right to do so, just as we have every right to sail up the Taiwan Strait. You can't support one right and deny the other.

But sailing in our region was triggering for some which of course means it'll happen again the next time the Han want to rattle some cages. By far the better solution would have been to ignore it or adopt a policy I saw some advocating. How would it have humiliated China if Albo (or someone competent) had merely opined that they were lost and then made official offers to the Chinese embassy to help them find their way home. That would have been far more effective as a way to counter what was just a propaganda exercise.

Hi Trumpster,

"Its why we fought in wars that were apparently unrelated to us like the Boer and WW1." Unlike YOU, I didn't fight in the either the Boer War or WWI, and the Forums Old Fart brigade dodged both wars as well. So what's the problem?

"So what's the problem?"

No problem. Just pointing out that Australia has always had an interest in preserving the current world order because our entire standard of living is based on it. Sorry the point was too complex for you.

Yes, its terrible the way China has started wars in the Middle East, and elsewhere, backed the Zionists with their murder and genocide of the Palestinians. Put the world economy in peril from tariffs and oil shortages, tried to take land off other countries. Set up 800 military bases around the world to attack anyone they want. Yes, China is a very dangerous country.

Agree Trumpster?

"That China is an expansionist state is unassailable."
I don't think their moves into the South China Sea were expansionist, I think they were defensive.
You'll need more proof to make that case.

I think that the Chinese seeking influence over their neighbours doesn't necessarily have to be nefarious in nature either.
If I was them, I could see sense in wanting that influence to block the West from using these nations as it's beach heads in their region in the case of a conflict.

"A Chinese victory in these struggles will overthrow the current world order and that's where Australia comes in. Our entire national being is predicated on the existence of the current arrangements."

The current arrangements...
- Have reached their use-by date.
I feel like you're trying to make an argument to try to 'stop the tide from coming in', meaning there's nothing anyone can do to stop what is going to happen, America will continue to decline and their position will continue to weaken.

I'm not a financial person.
But if U.S. bonds are being sold off that means there's no demand.
Which means they can't raise money even when they issue new bonds at a higher rate; Which means they have to run the money printer, which means inflation and higher interest rates.
What happens when all these countries sell their U.S. bonds and for gold, because holding the gold is more profitable than holding the bonds, and China and Russia are holding tonnes of it.