Yesterday’s statement by Defence Minister Richard Marles that Australia’s geography and continent would be crucial to any United States prosecution of a war against China will go down as a dark moment in Australia’s history.

A moment when an Australian Labor Government intellectually ceded Australia to the United States as a platform for the US and by implication, Australia, for military engagement against the Chinese state in response to a threat China is alleged to be making.

And ceding the continent to the United States devoid of an electoral authority — a month after an election where the government had the opportunity — but declined to make explicit, its strategic intentions and policies.

Declined to let the public, the Australian community, be party to its strategic thinking and intent.

Instead, as Defence Minister, Marles reveals his and the government’s fatalist thinking at a sleazy conference, run exclusively by The Australian newspaper – “sleazy”, in that guests invited to the conference were chosen and assembled according to the paper’s view of their collective propensity to subjugate Australia’s interests to those of the United States.

And without one solid or reliable word as to the “threat” or nature of the threat China is supposedly making to both Australia and to the region.

The fact is, China has not threatened Australia militarily nor indeed has it threatened the United States. And it has no intention of so threatening. Every person attending The Australian conference knew this to be so.

China’s singular crime is to have built an economy larger than the United States, with industrial breadth and depth that the United States not only does not possess but cannot hope to emulate.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.