Australia faces no credible military threat from China. The real danger lies in uncritical alignment with US strategy, fear-driven rhetoric and the steady erosion of national sovereignty.

The only potential China threat we face is acting as a proxy for the US.

On cue the Five Eyes and our intelligence agencies with the encouragement, particularly the Murdoch media, propagandise about the China threat. The China hawks have not been able to provide any credible evidence for this threat. But they keep repeating the fear mongering China threat.

We are being led in our anti-China hysteria by the United States which is not concerned that China will attack us, or even the United States, but is concerned that its world hegemony is being challenged.

That is why the US is persistently goading China into conflict and possible war. And we follow along.

What the United States really resents about China is that it is successful after almost two centuries of poverty and humiliation.

China has certainly changed but the problem is the US refuses to change and accept the fact that it’s no longer the sole hegemon.

Both major US parties have a common view about the ‘China threat’ and heavily influenced if not controlled by the military/industrial complex supported by a compliant media. We follow like a patsy.

The United States is by any measure the most aggressive and violent country in the world and will not accept a multi-polar world where countries large and small can live in peace together. The US has a dogmatic and self- righteous view that it is ‘exceptional’, a ‘chosen people’ and should set global rules for everyone.

It parrots endlessly about ‘a rules based international order’ to replace the UN order. That is really code for US hegemony and domination. And to top up its cynicism, the US then cherry picks the rules that it decides to support.

The US is a dangerous ally, as Malcom Fraser warned us many years ago.

With the complicity of our Ministers, senior public officials and journalists our national sovereignty is being seriously eroded. Our military is being fused with the US.

In the 19th and 20th Century we were drawn into United Kingdom’s Imperial wars. We are now drawn into the United States’ imperial wars. We allow others to control our thinking and behaviour.

Our ‘leaders’, like Richard Marles, have been on an American drip feed for so long they have an instinctive Washington mind set.

As China reasserts its historic world role there is no doubt that Chinese influence and footprint is growing in our region, but there is no evidence whatsoever that we are under military threat from China. Yet the assumed military threat from China guides almost everything the Albanese Government does and says on strategic and defence matters. And our captured journalists join the anti-China throng. There is almost a new daily China threat.

China has neither the intent nor the capability to attack us. But as a settler society we remain fearful of our region with echoes of the yellow peril and White Australia.

China does not have a history of military aggression beyond the defence of its own borders. It has only one foreign base in Djibouti, mainly for anti-piracy purposes.

In contrast, the US has over 800 overseas bases including in Guam, Diego Garcia, ROK and Japan that ring China. The US fleet, with our support, regularly patrols off the China coast.

Our Poseidon aircraft based in the Philippines patrol up and down the South China Sea dropping sonar buoys in support of the US. Yet our media have hysteria about Chinese vessels operating in the South Pacific.

The US would be apoplectic if Chinese vessels patrolled off the Californian coast and the Florida Keys. Or if China had B-52 type aircraft based in Mexico!

Not surprisingly, China is determined that it must have the military capability to defend its homeland. However, it does not project its military power around the globe as does the US. Americans assume that a rising power like China will act aggressively as it has. There is scant evidence that China is behaving like the US. China has not been engaged in military activity for the past 40 years. In that time, the US has overthrown numerous governments and illegally invaded many countries.

China has a large and diverse population in areas such as Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. It has land borders with 14 other countries. Not surprisingly China focuses on domestic issues and the protection of its borders.

If China was an imperial power, it would have swallowed up Mongolia long ago, a democratic, mineral rich state which is more than twice the size of Ukraine.

Japan is the only country that has threatened Australia. China never has. Japan occupied large parts of China in WWII and was responsible for the deaths of over 20 million Chinese people. Careless of its aggressive history Japan is again leading the anti-China frenzy.

Many commentators in Pearls and Irritations have disputed the ‘China Threat:’

Joseph Camilleri Since 1949 China has engaged in few combat operations outside its borders. It is now well over 40 years since China has been at war. By contrast, the United States has repeatedly embarked on military interventions across the globe.

David Goodman Fear of China is not new in Australia. It was a driver of Federation at the end of the 19th Century and the first act of the new Federal Parliament was long recognised as ‘The White Australia Policy.’

Geoff Miller It is almost impossible to imagine any realistic circumstances, short of general war in the Asia-Pacific, under which China would launch a military attack on Australia. … The basic fact is that China has become the major resident power in the Asia-Pacific region and is, and will remain, active in it, and we simply must accept and get used to that.

Colin Mackerras China has not initiated a war since 1979, when it imposed a very short punitive war against Vietnam. But Chinese troops made no attempt to seize the Vietnamese capital or change its government. This is in sharp contrast to American behaviour.

Cavan Hogue No country is interested in invading Australia although there is a widespread assumption that China is hostile. Chinese hostility arises from our alliance with the USA.

Teow Loon Ti I have never felt that China was an enemy to Australia. In fact, I have always sensed that the idea of China as an enemy is a manufactured idea, and a convenient tool, to serve a range of needs ranging from Australia’s own domestic politics; insecurity as a Western nation adrift in an Asian region; an attempt to help maintain US hegemony in Asia to serve our security needs.

Kishore Mahbubani America’s behaviour during its period of emergence as a great power conforms to the historical norm. China’s behaviour so far, defies the norm. Of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (who represent the great powers), only one has not fought a war in 42 years; China. Indeed, China has not even fired a bullet across its borders since a naval skirmish with Vietnam in 1989

Geoff Raby China is a constrained superpower. Historically, China is still an empire with vast unresolved territorial issues inside its borders – Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan and now more recently Hong Kong. These unsettled areas from Beijing’s perspective threaten China’s territorial integrity.

As former US Ambassador Freeman said in Pearls and Irritations on December 7, 2025, Ceding the future to China

China does not seek to conquer or abridge the sovereignty of its neighbours. It is not engaged in a search for Lebensraum or foreign colonies. It has no theory of “manifest destiny.” Its “warring states” period – in which it resembled Europe or India in the viciousness of its internal rivalries – is long past. It is unlikely to follow either our path or that of other civilisations.

Tragically, whatever the source of our current approach to managing relations with China, it is not expertise. We are now led by “China hawks” who have never been to China or studied it but who are convinced they know everything they need to know about it. Our president’s first and only visit to China was as president – in the security cocoon and perceptual bubble that presidential visits involve. Neither our secretary of state, who was sanctioned by Beijing for his vituperative comments about it, nor our ‘secretary of war’ have ever been to China.

The architect of the administration’s trade and investment war on China, Peter Navarro (also known as ‘Ron Varro’) made his career with decades of China bashing but had his first and only visit to China in 2018. He has not been back.

The small army of China hands that used to populate our diplomatic and intelligence services has been decimated. Those who remain have no real input into China policy. In any event, there is no coherent policy process in today’s Washington in which their expertise might play a role.

China is only a threat to Australia if we continue to act as a proxy for a dangerous and erratic US.

We must diplomatically and strategically disengage from the US. And energetically build security in our own region.

This is an update of an article posted on November 11, 2022