China

[LP]

They are building a naval base in Cambodia and it's clear they intend to isolate Taiwan from other nations and then create a blockade of sorts and make it impossible for them to function and then force a takeover.

Some think China already run Taiwan, and the protestations are just a smokescreen.

Many see Taiwan as China's enabler, the tool China maintains and uses to bypass most international law, be it human rights, patents or finance. The USA and Britain (probably the whole Five Eyes) turn a blind eye to this because it works both ways, China steals global IP, but everybody also gets to covertly see what China is up to. Nobody can plug Taiwan's leaks.

But for Australia while it pays at a certain security level it really hurts business, exports and innovation, because pretty much as soon as some product gets developed China has stolen the IP via Taiwan and Taiwan remains outside of the treaties and protections, not obliged to conform to global patents or laws. The problem is Australia isn't economically big enough to matter, so it has no leverage outside of what Britain, the EU or the US chose to do for us!

Australia has been either negligent, stupid or racist for too low ignoring it's powerful neighbours, who equally see China as a threat. We should have established a strong SE Asian economic zone years and years ago, and turned Indonesia, Malaysia and The Philippines against a common enemy. Then negotiated with India as a block of nations. Instead we have allowed China to infiltrate those economies and they have as a result made Australia a regional political pariah.

PS; I'm all for the Submarine deal, not because we need them, but because of the alliance it establishes, the ties it strengthens. In comparison France gives us nothing, we could buy 10x as much from France and they are more likely to throw us under the bus when the shizen hits the fan, the EU and many of it's member states are fundamentally untrustworthy because they are flaky sellouts.

As for the anti-nuclear sub protestors, I've no interest in the anti-nuclear parrots. In any case, the tell that the deal was done happened straight after the election, when labour announced the purchase of missiles that are useless when housed on a conventional platform. If the platform cannot loiter indefinitely the missiles are worthless, so it's a huge tell the deal will proceed.