Australia

Wow, viewed in this light, this article is needlessly incendiary. Thanks for context.

Canada increased military cooperation with Australia in the Indo-Pacific already in 2024, the EU is seeking a new defence alliance with Australia. And so did South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and a lot of others with shared values.

As an addition: Nato is not destroyed. Canada and the EU partners will have to rethink its cooperation, but this is what they have already been doing for some time. Australia is certainly one partner in this new global security architecture.

If the alliances in Asia break down the same way NATO is being destroyed then Australia is better off playing nice in waters it definitely only has a indirect stake in, even if it rankles.

Its best to lean forward, Australia doesn't want to be jumping in when Indonesia is feeling on the backfoot. Aus wants to be pushing robustly for uniform rules of the sea across the board.

Whats the difference in international waters in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean? Its legally nothing, they're governed by the same law of the sea agreement.

As the article discusses, if you don't push your opposition, cynical actors will take advantage and establish as much dominance as possible.

Timor Strait, sure. South China Sea...only if all the others with an interest there are aligned and want us there (Korea, Vietnam, Phillipines, Japan etc)

Australia should be acting as a convener for South-East Asian, Pacific, and East Asian countries but you're essentially right, Australia has to respect the sovereign wishes of each other country where clear lines of sides are marked, but where there is grey, Australia must act to minimise the potential for China to dominate it's (China's) rivals or neighbours in the region.

Australia is not alone, i'm pretty sure a shit load of countries including Canada would immediately declare war on China. It would be the last thing they ever did.

Japan, a tiny country, easily conquered China in the 1930s.

That is because China is so corrupt none of it's military equipment works well.

The armies are underfed and poorly trained

and it's NOT 1 billion. China lies about it's population just like it lies about everything else. It lies so it looks bigger and more powerful than it really is and to make statistics look better.

China is indeed our largest trading partner but the Australian approach is a bit more nuanced. Previous experience has taught that China will try to control if they perceive weakness. We had a trade "dispute" (deliberate chinese sanctions) because they objected to Oz politicians discussing the source of covid. We diversified. But we didnt roll over.

There is a current conflict between the fact we have heavily aligned with the US post WW2 and them going fascist while the majority of our markets are in Asia.

We cannot simply kowtow to China, it straight up doesnt work and isnt respected. But we can no longer rely on the US as an ally and need to strengthen our ties locally.

I'm hopeful that Japanese & Korean defence overtures with Europe, and European ties with Canada & UK will draw together a "free world" defence alliance against the fascists and dictators.

Here's hoping its only a cold war.

Nope. For many reasons, getting with China means certain vassal State.

For instance, Australia's current stance is that its only arguable whether Australia is a vassal Sate with the USA. Its definitely a close relationship, but on balance i think it comes out more a major-minor partnership, at least in this and since WW2's strategic moment.

So stripping out cultural alignments, for only a second, it comes to a question of whether status-quo economic relationship is more valuable to the senior partner (Aus-China), than a strategic partnership to the senior partner (Aus -USA).

This makes it really easy, in an economic relationship you can get by with slaves in a worst case scenario, on the other hand you always need a certain goodwill from the minor country people to have near alignment with the major partner's goals.

Putting the cultural alignments back in and it makes it difficult to see a closer alignment with China in the near future for Australia. Interestingly, i think the more culturally diverse we get the more we will in fact align with a country like the USA, not this fascist populism that has overtaken everything at the moment, but the general direction.

The theory that tying economies together stops war is just a theory, and i don't think with a huge amount of evidence. I mean USA and USSR never went directly to war, and they had very limited trade. France and Germanic peoples went to war plenty, lots of trade reliance.

Portugal and England being famous allies, largely to their interlocking trade balances, among other geopolitical traits, might send this little argument down the toilet though, so maybe be a trade relationship ends up pretty net-net in the calculus for war.

Edit: Maybe it comes down to the reliance of the country on the type of traded good. Does its trade ceasing damage the importing country ina material way?

This has nothing to do with the economy in the first place, but it is a good point to reduce dependencies.