The Taiwan test

The USA has been careless in allowing the Chinese to almost monopolise the world supply of rare earths, but China has been negligent in becoming dependant on Australia and Brazil for its iron ore imports.

Australia needs to make plain to the Chinese that the freedom of Taiwan is non-negotiable, and that it will use all its economic levers to damage the Chinese economy if it tries to take Taiwan by force. It also needs to step up diplomatic efforts, particularly through resource rich countries, to apply equal pressure. It's not easy, because Chinese pressure has so far ensured that only a small handful of countries recognise Taiwan as a separate country.

However, were Taiwan to fall to China, given the defence assurances the US has made to it, the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific would definitively shift in China's direction, and the USA would be confirmed as in decline. This would be devastating not just for the security of Australia, but for that of our neighbours as well.

We have briefly lived in a unipolar world where the USA reigned supreme. The US is relatively weaker, but it doesn't mean that China should, or will, become the dominant pole. We are once more entering a world where alliances between more equal powers will determine how the world is governed. Taiwan is the first test of how that world might work out.