Dear o sung wu,

I'm going fine mate, I hope things are flying okay for you at the moment too.

Really I'm not all that smart so I'm going to quote from a far brainer bloke than I.

Quote 1

“The notion of government allowing a 99 year lease of the Port of Darwin to the People's Republic of China, to me is tantamount to lunacy ! To sell our top, primary agricultural land, to them is bad enough, but our most northerly Port, is a monumental strategic error of epic proportions. I suppose one thing is now abundantly clear, Australia and China will never go to war against each other - why should they, they already own us, 'lock, stock 'n barrel' ! What a bloody embarrassment !”

Quote 2

“This current LNP government have completely lost their way, as far as China is concerned ? There's no doubt we should encourage foreign investment into our country, but never ever sell off anything of strategic value, including prime agriculture land, or our best Dairy, cattle or sheep properties. In fact everything we export, whether it's iron ore or something else, we should endeavour to 'value add' to it in some measure, in order to get a greater slice of the cake the other end.

I dislike our untrustworthy Prime Minister immensely, enough said about him ! But I'm equally disappointed with Mr Scott MORRISON as our Treasurer, notwithstanding he performed well as our Immigration Minister. Clearly, he seems well out of his depth in his current Portfolio ?

I really don't know gentlemen, everywhere I look I see ineptitude by our stupid government.”

End quotes.

And I happen to fully agree with that bloke and given the “lunacy” and the “ineptitude” and the recognition that the sale of the Port of Darwin “a monumental strategic error of epic proportions” by a “stupid government” don't you think it might be time to give someone else a go?

By the way in case you don't recognise the quotes that bloke is you.

In 2020, Michael Evans, Military Studies at the Australian Defence College, wrote that, outside of expert circles, "few Australians seem to grasp the implications of the major strategic changes that seem likely to transform our fortunes for the worse. Western liberal globalism is "slipping into the pages of history", and competition between great powers has returned in the form of the rise of a "revisionist China", that is determined to assume global superpower status, and become "the hegemon of Asia".

A Sino-American struggle will "directly and fatefully" involve Australia. The West has unwittingly (or dim-wittedly) sown the seeds of its own destruction by fostering the rise of an illiberal and revisionist China, whose vision of the world is "inimical to democratic norms and values".

o sung wu

Good riposte. It's a pity that SR doesn't have the intellect or experience to get the message.

Joe Biden has announced at the Quad meeting that the US will act if China attacks Taiwan. No more guessing about it. We will have to do what we can to help, because, as Greg Sheridan recently said, despite all the big talk over the last 9 years, our defence depends entirely on America.

Don't hide your light under a bushel, osw; you have experience and nous. Keep posting.

The idea is for an Indo-Pacific version of NATO

Some do not seem to understand that China has a built in acceptance
that just like the countries bordering the Sth China Sea, all other
countries are inferior and are Vassal states of the Central Kingdom.
Sure that is an historical accetance that has bled over into our times.
It can be seen in China's behavior to the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia.
Just because Indonesia and PNG lie between China and us
does not shield us, maybe it did in historical times but not now.

The one bright hope I see in the Pacific is that Chinese police
and/or troops will think they can treat Islanders like Hong Kongers,
but if they do I think the Islanders will kill them all.

Hi there STEELE...

Thank you for your kind words ol' mate - I rarely hear support for any of my belief's and aspirations for our great Nation. Notwithstanding, I believe, most of the good people on this forum, are all fundamentally one. I think the majority of us are on the same page, in terms of the big picture, and how we wish to accomplish an efficient government. It's the mechanism of how those aims should be achieved, in a climate of a bunch of narcissistic mentally challenged politicians.

As an aside - That fool who sold off the strategic port of Darwin, irrespective of his political colours, should be run out of the country, on the business end of an L1A1 SLR!

Second aside - Texas! And 21 souls dead? I thought I saw the end of that crap in South Vietnam.