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At the beginning of 2023, Australia’s relationship with the People’s Republic of China appeared to be
one of hostility across the board, in both military and economic terms.
In March, the Nine newspapers ran a series titled ‘Red Alert’, premised on the claim that China and Australia could be at war within three years. The allusion to communism was presumably intentional, even though it is now almost impossible to detect any trace of revolutionary fervour amid the old-fashioned nationalist rhetoric emerging…