Not the time to deal out Beijing

Furthermore, while China is not a democracy it is certainly not the rigidly Marxist-Leninist state of 30 years ago.

There is much at stake here for Australia. China has almost single-handedly driven Australia's recent prosperity and relations have broadened and deepened immeasurably over the past decade. It does not make strategic sense for Australia to allow itself to be linked to an alliance which China will undoubtedly view with suspicion and hostility.

To characterise an unwillingness to join the alliance as servile kowtowing to China, appeasement or the loss of a historic opportunity, is absurd. Acknowledging the importance of our relationship with China should be a self-evident nostrum of our foreign policy in the 21st century, which does not preclude us from making independent judgments about China's policy or criticising Chinese behaviour when criticism is warranted.

The real problem with Cheney's proposal is that it betrays the same kind of fundamentalist mindset that gave birth to President George W. Bush's axis of evil speech and ultimately led the US and Australia into the Iraq misadventure. In this black and white world, China is seen as a threat to be contained rather than a re-emerging great power which has legitimate security interests that ought to be recognised and accommodated.