What absurdly closed minds to the facts.

It was this lot who handed the Port of Darwin over to the Chinese, whose former ministers ended up in high paying jobs for the Chinese like the ex foreign minister Downer on the board of Hawawei.

This was a crowd that signed a trade deal with China which has allowed them to staff mines with virtually all Chinese workers and to build an airfield in WA capable of landing fighter jets.

It was this lot that was so far up Trump's backside that they trashed our trade relationship with China with little to gain except for Morrison getting a pat on the head, including Morrison taking the lead on pushing for the inquiry on the origin of covid.

Then when an election was lined up they ramp up the rhetoric thereby further damaging relations with intemperate language.

Australia deserves some one with a bit of maturity to deal with the Chinese and so far Albo is looking the goods with measured but firm responses.

So how about you lot sit back and see how the adults handle it now.

o sung wu,
I very much agree that we should avoid war thorough thorough preparation. But if you agree with ttbn's drivel then I strongly disagree with you about what that means. Militarism is at best inefficient, but probably also ineffective as China will always have more military spending power than we do.

Rather than making futile attempts to prevent China asserting its influence, we should be making much greater efforts to prevent China's influence from being malevolent.

ttbn's concern about dealing with the Solomon Islands,"without a defence minister of Dutton's calibre" would be laughable if it wasn't so serious. What happened in the Solomon Islands has proved Dutton's calibre to be small bore.

Political Analyst, Joe Siracusa, says that America will be very wary of Penny Wong at the next Quad meeting. Labor’s foreign policy has a 'subtle' and 'nuanced' feel about it. I take that to be a polite way of saying it's hard to know what Labor really thinks and means on foreign policy.

But, credit where credit is due; our new government has sent the boat from Sri Lanka back.

Dear Aidan,

Yes who can forget these three flogs joking about rising sea levels in the Pacific.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/video/2015/sep/11/peter-dutton-overheard-joke-rising-sea-levels-tony-abbott-video

That really wouldn't have gone down well with any of the island nations of the region.

As McGowan says the bloke just isn't that smart either.

I also think there are some questions about his wealth levels too that hopefully an ICAC might look into. His willingness to do immigration deals for mates needs scrutiny as well.

Very glad to see his hands off any levers of power.

G'day STEELEREDUX, how's life treating you my friend?

You know ol' mate, I know you're one smart cookie, far cleverer than me. But sometimes I wonder why it is your seem to have the intellect of a friggin' brick. Worrying more about which political party did what to whom?

Fact: China, is our greatest military threat, at this time. And with the largest land army on the face of the globe. If, they were to attack Taiwan, or any nation in the Asian area, it would result in a world war, dragging in the US with that elderly gentleman Mr Joseph BIDEN (ret) Cmdr. in Chief, at it's head. The Chinese army would literally sweep down our continent, destroying all resistance, in its path, and there'd be nothing to stop them.

And that crazed intellectual Pygmy, Vladimir PUTRID, would likely press that little red button as he promised, if anyone dared to interfere with his plunder of the Ukraine. And here we sit with a Defence force numbering less than 60k able bodied men and woman, to defend our nation NOT the population, but our natural resources.

If we don't immediately commence to significantly increase our defence capacity by compulsory National Service together with a massive recruiting drive - then my good mate we're f ked completely. Forget the submarines, we needed them yesterday. I'm dunno?
I'm a dum bum , so how is it, me and few others can see it. Why not the majority?

Invoking the return of The Yellow Peril and sabre rattling was a failed political strategy, like that report of Sri Lankan police putting people on refugee boats timed to arrive during the election campaign.

One of their vessels sailing far off our coast was deemed "aggressive" but apparently Australia participating in naval war games near their seas was not.

The failure of diplomatic relations with China was the result of Morrison going out early on a limb to please his American masters by demanding an investigation onto the origin of the Wuhan virus, rather than waiting some sort of combined international response. Then as some of our markets with China dried up the USA stepped in and grabbed them. Clever stuff.

Hopefully some degree of sanity will eventually return.