A few days after coming to power in 1972 Gough Whitlam declared that ‘Australia’s real test as far as the rest of the world is concerned is the role we create for our own Aborigines’. More than foreign aid programmes, more than any role the country plays in agreements or alliances, treatment of the Aborigines Continue reading »
International Relations
The US military has released video footage of a Chinese navy ship cutting across the path of an American Destroyer in the Taiwan Strait over the weekend, reportedly forcing the US vessel to slow down to avoid a collision. A statement on the incident from US Indo-Pacific Command says the Chinese ship “executed maneuvers in Continue reading »
The hubris and arrogance of the nuclear-armed states leaves the world exposed to the risk of sleepwalking into a nuclear disaster. The case for nuclear weapons rests on a superstitious magical Realism that puts faith in the utility of the bomb and the theory of deterrence. Here are four myths about the utility of nuclear Continue reading »
Prime Minister Albanese spoke moderately and positively at the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore last weekend, although his address didn’t really live up to its prior publicity. However the main impression from the exchanges at the Dialogue was of the differences between the US and China. Amazingly, the American Secretary of Defence didn’t seem to realise Continue reading »
Every word of Anthony Albanese’s address to the Shangri-La dialogue on 2 June was chosen with care. It was a balancing act, with the Prime Minister poised between peace and war, defence and diplomacy, the US and China, in a high-wire performance his Coalition predecessors wouldn’t have attempted. Has Australia’s approach to Asia changed? Does Continue reading »
Monday 5 June 2023 was World Environment Day. The campaign this year is for action to eradicate plastics in all its forms which pollute and destroy. The campaign is led by the United Nations Environment Protection agency (UNEP) with the title and hashtag of #BeatPlasticPollution. The UNEP website and its social media messaging proclaim: This Continue reading »
Interpretations are being offered about prime minister Albanese’s speech to the so-called Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore. This sounds like an Asian event but is hosted each year by the International Institute for Strategic Studies of London, an august and AUKUSian institution of such eminence that I was once invited to join. I declined. Life Continue reading »
Such terms and phrases as a rules-based system, de-risking, democracy vs autocracy, and coercive behaviour are not exhaustive but still expose obfuscation and double standards. Politicians campaigning for election love to use buzzwords and catchy phrases to explain what they stand for and what their policies are. They do that because they assume, probably rightly, Continue reading »
The Chinese character for China, denotes China as the middle kingdom and understandably so: It borders 14 sovereign states. To the north- Russia, Mongolia and Korea (since there is no formal separation of North and South Korea). To the west – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan To the south west – Pakistan, Afghanistan To the south – Continue reading »
Somewhere, somehow, China became the number one enemy of the world, or at least to the world that is run by the USA. For many the ‘reason’ has been the challenge that China poses to US economic hegemony, but might not America’s fear of China be based on ideological causes; a battle of ideas? Why Continue reading »