Joe,

I'm sorry to hear that you are too stupid to comment.

david f,

You can bet London to a brick that China will make sure it lets all the criminals and crime lords from both HK and the mainland free to go to Australia as refugees.

Isn't this what happened with Cuban refugees to the US: Castro opened all the prisons so that all the sh!t could leave by boat for Miami with the result that MIami became one of the principal crime centres in the US?

I think Xi will be thinking along similar lines to Castro: The adage is 'Two Communists DO make a wrong.'

david f,

It was Regan who triggered the collapse of the USSR in the 1980s.

He put so much money into the Star Wars program that the Soviets had to match him $$$ for $$$ to stay in the arms race.

The USSR could not keep up with the US and as a result its economy went into a downward spiral and collapsed (or imploded as you call it.)

And along with its economy the Soviet polity or empire just unravelled and the rest is history as the saying goes.

You're right in saying that the economic and political circumstances were in place but it was definitely Regan who brought it unstuck.

I don't think it's enough to know how to play the game
regarding chess or car racing or any other activity
that involves trying to beat an opponent.

One has to study how they think and anticipate their moves
in order to win. The same is true in business, and politics.
Some do it subtly and others are more aggressive.
But knowing your opponent gives you an advantage.

China is already studying, analyzing, and slowly getting to
know us, our structures, how we work, think, and they are
able to anticipate our actions. Their Confucius Institutes
exist on every Australian university campus. Their students
are here and can report back. Do we really want to give
them an advantage over us - at our expense?

We need to know how they think, in order to anticipate the
best way to deal with them.

Would China allow us into China to study them? Would we be able
to have Institutes in their universities? Or for that matter
would we be allowed to travel freely throughout China - as
they do when they come here?

So who has the advantage?

It's not enough to just "play the game". It how you play it.
And for that knowledge of your opponent is necessary and
critical.

Mr O,

Reagan played a major role, but David is right to point to whole range of factors, including its own corruption, ineffiencies and poor productivity in a system that hardly inspired innovation.

As far as the fall of the Soviet Regime goes.
There were many factors involved from
Gorbachev's reforms to the rise of nationalism
to the end of the cold war, arms race, end of
ideological confrontations, emergence of new
countries, new alliances (Baltic with NATO) and
so on.

The web tell us that - it was most importantly -
Gorbachev's reforms. His decision to allow elections with
a multi-party system and create a presidency for the
Soviet Union that began a slow process of democratization
that eventually destabilized communist control and
contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.