søndag 13. juni 2021

Stuck between China and the US, Australia must choose its best friend

Australian Premier Scott Morrison says the world has not faced a period of such global upheaval since the 1930s. Then, it was a time of depression, still reeling from World War I, the 1918 flu that had killed more people than the war was still virulent, fascism was sweeping Europe and the world was sliding to another catastrophic conflict.

Today we are again ravaged by pandemic, the past two decades have seen global financial collapse, terrorism, endless war in Afghanistan and across the Middle East, millions of refugees on the move looking for a new home, resurgent extremist politics, retreating democracy and rising authoritarianism. And the biggest challenge of all: the return of China to global power.