In which the pond doubles down with "Ned" and the bromancer ...

 

For just a nanosecond, what with the Emeritus Chairman allegedly having skin in the game because the WSJ had alleged certain things, the pond thought the reptiles dwelling in the hive mind at the lizard Oz might have suddenly taken an interest in the real world, and what's going down in the USA ...

How foolish of the pond ...

They're still all in on China, including the nattering "Ned", the bromancer and the dog botherer. 

Only the Ughmann was up to his usual climate science denying tricks.

Even worse, if you add the estimated timings together, "Ned" and the bromancer alone amounted to 23 minutes in a wasted life.

The pond took a look over on the extreme far right to see if there were any other options ...

Monsieur Dupont blathering on about how risking a legal action by the Cantaloupe Caligula was still the best option for the Emeritus Chairman?

The pond decided to cut its losses this day, and resume play on the Sunday.

Only two could make the cut, the pond would allow only two reptiles this day ...

Unwise, and unwise selection made, amazingly, "Ned" rated ahead of the bromancer because he was just an 11 minute read, a trifle to hardened Everest climbers ...

The header: Xi’s charm offensive traps Albanese between an old ally and a new friend, Labor’s method is to promote good outcomes with China and the US, yet the time will come – and it is soon approaching – when the contradiction leads to a showdown.
The caption: Anthony Albanese’s six-day visit to China sees him assume political ownership of our expanding China ties.
The mystical command: This article contains features which are only available in the web version,Take me there

"Ned" was in full paranoid, hysterical, chicken little mode ...

Xi Jinping is investing in Anthony Albanese – investing in charm, trade and pressure. Albanese’s six-day visit to China sees him assume political ownership of our expanding China ties with their benefits and risks, a restoration of relations secured largely on terms and conditions favourable to Beijing.
China rolled out the red carpet for Albanese. Its tactics of seduction and pressure on Australia fit into Beijing’s drive to deepen China-Australia mutual interests, weaken our security ties with the US and promote regional acquiescence to China’s aspirations as a hegemonic power.

It's impossible to describe fully the risible AI gif the reptiles provided, which saw King Donald sundered and rent and sent off on to his own piece of turf as lighting flashed, TAD-1081 Albo's Relationship with USA and China

It set the tone for "Ned's" piece, which could have been written by AI, trained in pomposity and verbosity, and given special instructions on how to bore the readership to tears ...

The transformation of the relationship from breakdown under Scott Morrison in 2020 to mutual restoration under Albanese in 2025 is one of the most remarkable reversals in Australian foreign policy in the past several decades. China’s media praised Albanese and dismissed Morrison.
But Albanese’s prize comes wrapped in booby traps. For Xi, the so-called stabilisation that Albanese describes is already obsolete. China’s charm comes with growing demands – and Albanese knows this. He is positive yet wary. The reality cannot be disguised – Labor’s success in re-establishing relations means Albanese has a vested interest in their promotion and preservation. This is the exact leverage President Xi seeks.

Remember, this is just the paranoid ramblings of a Murdoch bot, compleat with many EXPLAINER distractions, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets face-to-face with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, marking a major step in rebuilding Australia–China relations. Beyond the diplomatic pleasantries, tough issues were on the table, including military tensions near Australian waters, the case of detained writer Yang Hengjun, and pressure to restore trade ties. North Asia correspondent Will Glasgow reports from outside the Great Hall of the People as Australia navigates a delicate balancing act: re-engaging with Beijing while standing firm on national interests.

Do the reptiles care about the condescending air that hovers around EXPLAINER, a bit like those "Do you want to know more" promos in Starship Troopers ...

 

Actually the pond would usually like to know less ...

Here is the great conundrum of the relationship: the more ties are strengthened in trade, enterprise and people-to-people links, the more Australia’s dependency on China grows and the more sway Beijing accumulates. The Chinese locomotive has an economic power that makes our official policy of trade diversification a daunting job.
The positive optics of the visit – invoking Gough Whitlam at the Great Wall, generous lunches and dinners, compulsory panda diplomacy – cannot disguise the unprecedented dilemma China consti­tutes for Australia: while Beijing has abandoned its previous campaign of coercion, it has not abandoned any of its strategic goals.

The reptiles went the full tourist snap experience, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and partner Jodie Haydon at the Great Wall of China near Beijing. Picture: Lukas Coch / AAP

Does it occur to any of these reptiles that their obsessive fetishising might be its own reward? Stay tuned for a classic "Ned" question ...

Xi, for the time being with Australia, has substituted seduction for intimidation – smart move. His tactics have changed, his strategy is unchanged. What happens if and when Xi decides that Albanese isn’t delivering?
Beijing’s behaviour shows it has only intensified its strategic goals: running an economic, technological and military strategy to outmuscle the US and replace America as the primary regional power; weakening the US alliance system in the Indo-Pacific; and securing the incremental acquiescence of countries including Australia to its regional dominance.
Former Defence Department analyst and critic of the AUKUS agreement Hugh White told Inquirer: “China’s strategic ambitions in Asia are fundamentally different from Australia’s view about how the region should be. Our vision is that the US should remain the primary player or a primary player.

An obligatory snap of a gesturing Hugh followed, Former Defence Department analyst Hugh White. Picture: Martin Ollman / NewsWire

Woe heaped upon woe in "Ned's" world ...

“But China’s fundamental ambition is to push the US out of Asia and take its place. No matter how we manage this day-to-day diplomatic tension and how successfully we manage it, the fundamental conflict remains the same.”
The key to Albanese’s visit is to pretend the ultimate conflict doesn’t exist – yet everyone knows it does exist.
Labor’s method is to promote good outcomes with China and the US, yet the time will come – and it is soon approaching – when the contradiction leads to a showdown. Albanese, unsurprisingly, is governed by the needs of today, not the uncertainties of tomorrow.
Albanese told China’s leaders that stabilisation would drive “greater engagement” – in trade, tourism, education, culture, climate change, green steel and better investment outcomes. The aim is greater alignment of national interests. While his usual formula included “disagreeing where we must”, public disagreement is largely off the agenda. Labor runs a “softly, softly” stance, reluctant in the extreme to criticise China.

Then came another EXPLAINER, but the pond had already cracked its Starship Troopers gag, The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, is in Chengdu visiting the panda breeding centre. North Asia Correspondent Will Glasgow gives us the latest and breaks down China's panda diplomacy.

"Ned" burrowed on, deep into the mine of despair ...

Both sides played down the differences, from Taiwan to ignoring Albanese’s pledge to take back Darwin Port ownership. Albanese raised China’s lack of notice over live-fire drills in the Tasman Sea and apparently was rebuffed. In his public comments Albanese praised the removal of trade “impediments” on exports of cotton, copper, coal, timber, hay, barley, wine, red meat and rock lobster – as though this was an act of China’s generosity, not the abandonment of its coercive, illegal, trade retaliation aimed to break the political will of the Morrison government, a tactic that singularly failed.
Yet its legacy may benefit China as a reminder of what China might do if crossed. China’s coercion against Australia documents for a Labor government the risks of offending China’s national interest. Don’t think Labor doesn’t feel this.
Former China correspondent and Lowy Institute fellow Richard McGregor highlighted Xi’s investment in Albanese: “Albanese was given hours with the top Chinese leadership in one-on-one meetings and talks over lunch; few Western leaders have done so recently.

Cue another snap featuring a "Ned" informant, Former China correspondent Richard McGregor. Picture: Martin Ollman / NewsWire

"Ned" was now well past a litany of traps and warnings ...

“China is calculating that Albanese will be in office for some years and the restored relationship can go beyond Albanese’s view of ‘stabilisation’ into something more substantial.”
There is no question that this six-day visit is a significant event, laying the basis for an expanded relationship, yet its ultimate meaning is far more ominous.
McGregor said: “The significance of Albanese’s visit might be that the days of Australia’s successful reconciliation of both China and America are coming to an end. This task is getting much harder. China will make more demands of Australia while the AUKUS agreement binds us into deeper military ties with the US. It is hard to see how we can keep riding these two bikes without the risk of collision. What does China do when the US nuclear submarines start rotating out of Perth? There is no apparent answer to what comes next.”
White offered a similar warning: “Australia has always wanted to persuade the Americans we support them against China and persuade China that we aren’t really doing that. This has been the heart of Australian diplomacy since John Howard and for a long time it worked. But those days are now running out.”

Cue another tourist snap, turned into yet another EXPLAINER. Ye ancient cats and dogs and alien bugs, On Anthony Albanese's fifth day of his visit to China, the Prime Minister visited the Great Wall drawing a comparison with former prime minister Gough Whitlam who walked the wall in 1971. North Asia Correspondent Will Glasgow is on the scene with all the latest from the Prime Minister's trip.

On with the waffle and the verbal word salad, without the benefit of any condiments or spices...moving from traps and warnings to compleat cluelessness ...

White said Albanese’s visit meant “Australia-China relations are heading in a positive direction and the settlement with China that Albanese has established is pretty sustainable” – but this only worked if Labor recast its ties with the US by opting out of any Taiwan conflict and extricated itself from the consequences of AUKUS.
Albanese, on the contrary, is pledged to the US alliance, to AUKUS and a strategic partnership with the US. His conservative critics who dispute this are clueless about Albanese – he wants stability with both the US and China – but the days of that stability are coming to an end.
This is the real challenge. And it is where Australia is actually clueless.
The China that Whitlam and Bob Hawke dealt with successfully is long gone. Even the China that Tony Abbott engaged in 2014 is vastly changed.
What was the purpose of Albanese invoking Whitlam’s glory days from the early 1970s, half a century ago? It may work for domestic politics but it is farcical as any sort of China model today. Does Albanese not actually grasp this?
President Xi has transformed China. He has militarised the South China Sea; pioneered an economic and technological policy to achieve superiority over the US; promoted a strategy of creating client states across the region; united with Russia in a closer partnership vital in assisting its war in Ukraine; tightened Communist Party control within China; imposed tighter controls over business; made clear he is ready to use force to take Taiwan; and engaged in a massive military build-up, both conventional and nuclear.

Does "Ned" actually grasp how tedious he sounds? Or how relentlessly tedious the interrupting illustrations are? Anthony Albanese meets Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Picture: PMO

The reptiles are relying on the PMO for their visual fodder, while "Ned" presumably has an endlessly flowing spring as the source water for his hysteria ...

Pivotal to Xi’s strategy is deceiving governments and analysts about what is happening in front of their eyes. For Australia, expanding and deepening relations with Xi’s China is entirely different from the highly sensible policies of Whitlam and Hawke. Yet there seems little or no sign that Albanese grasps this apart from his repeating the traditional rhetoric that Australia and China have “different political systems” and “different values”. This is a truism; it is not the China challenge of today.
That is about power and sovereignty; it is about compromising Australian sovereignty, undermining our ability to shape our own destiny and driving this nation to the point where our governments routinely take the decisions that China prefers.
Some business figures get this, but others are blind; witness Andrew Forrest, who told the media during the visit the task was to strengthen the bilateral relationship “and yes, security becomes a distraction”.
What has happened to the foreign policy and national security advisory process in Canberra? What advice did Albanese get before this visit? How does he intend to expand the relationship with China but safeguard national security from China’s repeated foreign and technological inter­ference? The Labor government gives the Australian public nothing on the most vital questions in this relationship beyond sterile talking points. How does the government envisage its future management of the China relations with its mix of advantages and risks? The only conclusion is this government cannot tackle the critical issues that Australia faces.

So desperate were the reptiles that they recycled that PMO image into yet another EXPLAINER, as if "Ned" hadn't done more than enough explaining, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets face-to-face with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, marking a major step in rebuilding Australia–China relations. Beyond the diplomatic pleasantries, tough issues were on the table, including military tensions near Australian waters, the case of detained writer Yang Hengjun, and pressure to restore trade ties. North Asia correspondent Will Glasgow reports from outside the Great Hall of the People as Australia navigates a delicate balancing act: re-engaging with Beijing while standing firm on national interests.

Then at the next gobbet came the one chance for a bit of comedy ...

Does Albanese ever listen to Kevin Rudd on China? As for the Coalition, does it ever bother to read Rudd? Presumably not. In Rudd’s 604-page book On Xi Jinping, he penetrates to the essence of Xi’s ideological quest to change China’s national direction, internally and externally. Rudd describes this a “decisive turn to a more Leninist party, a more Marxist economy, or a more nationalist and assertive international policy”.
Rudd documents at length the elements of Xi’s more aggressive policy, saying his ideology “still calls for maximum preparedness for the real-world possibility of confrontation and conflict with America”.
Rudd outlines Xi’s major expansion of China’s nuclear weapons; his game plan to use artificial intelligence in military rivalry with the US; his preparations to take Taiwan by force if necessary; his campaign to drive the region to accept China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea; his efforts to undermine Japan’s and South Korea’s ties with the US; his leveraging economic clout to make China “the indispensable economic partner of every region of the world except the United States” and to undermine any “rationale for continuing US military alli­ances”. Rudd says Xi sees making Beijing the “undisputed economic capital of East Asia” is a strategic condition “for eroding the political underpinnings of US regional military arrangements”.

Here we go:

Question: does any of this analysis ever get to Albanese?

Answer: the pond can't speak for comrade Albo or his companions, but it gets the pond regretting it woke up this morning ...

Cue a meaningless snap to accompany "Ned's" sudden existential crisis, the sudden realisation that no one might give a flying fuck about his latest word salad, The national flags of Australia and China flutter at Tiananmen Square this week. Picture: Wang Xin / VCG

Time to crank up from saucy doubts, fears and warnings to essential and unresolved dilemmas ...

Albanese’s visit merely highlights the essential and unresolved dilemmas that Australia faces. The economic reality is that President Xi and Premier Li Qiang offer Albanese an opportunity he can hardly reject. China’s leaders are focused on the big picture. Xi said China wanted to “push the bilateral relationship further” and “no matter how the international landscape may evolve” the two nations should uphold this new direction “unswervingly”. That is, Australia and China should be tied together. Li talked about the “new momentum” in relations.
Yet the language conceals the reality. Australia and China aren’t tied together, though Albanese’s method of minimising any public criticism of China only distorts the picture. As McGregor says: “With Trump in the White House, China is back to the game of a decade ago or so ago, when they hoped they could use the massive economic partnership to prise Australia away from the US”, and while “Albanese will disappoint Xi on that issue” Beijing will keep working at the job.
The reality is that the Albanese government is standing firm on removing Darwin Port from its Chinese owners, it maintains its naval transitions through the South China Sea, conducts exercises off The Philippines with Japan and the US, and above all upholds the AUKUS agreement.
That’s a suite of positions that China loathes but is prepared to temper its views about in the hope of making progress with Albanese courtesy of pressure, tangible enticements and charm.
And Albanese was charmed – too charmed.

Too charmed? He should have turned to the mango Mussolini for a wild-eyed embrace? China’s President Xi Jinping welcomes Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the Great Hall of the People. Picture: Lukas Coch / AAP

"Ned" then tried on a gentle form of billy goat butt, in the style of "to be fair", when the whole point of the hysteria is to be completely unfair...

It is a story we have seen before. Whitlam’s visits to China in 1973 as prime minister and in 1971 as opposition leader, laying the basis for the establishment of diplomatic relations, were epic events. This is the legitimate stuff of Labor legend. The risk is creating the false suggestion that Australia can re-create such glory days. But they are gone in a far harsher and tougher Australia-China relationship.
To be fair to Albanese, he tried to negotiate a middle path, applying to China his usual refrain “not getting ahead of ourselves”. He described his personal relations with Xi as “warm and engaging” but dodged the question on whether he trusted Xi, saying instead “nothing that he has said to me, has he not fulfilled”. Asked whether he believed Australia could win in the “strategic competition” it has used to characterise relations, Albanese chose the path of evasion.
Reflecting on the visit, White said: “Albanese in his first term wanted to avoid the appearance of going too far with China and exposing himself to domestic criticism for being too soft. But he has moved on from that. I believe this is a significant visit because it shows Albanese far more confident about warming up ties with China without paying any domestic political price. I think China has got what it wanted from Albanese’s visit but I don’t think what it wanted has been to Australia’s disadvantage.”

Cue a final turgid snap, a bit like the whole piece, Anthony Albanese and China’s Premier Li Qiang inspect the Honour Guard in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Tuesday. Picture: Lukas Coch / AAP

Then it was on to the final gobbet, the final sprint to the top to finish off this Everest climb...

This would accord with Albanese’s analysis. But as White recognises, the pivotal question remains: what happens when Albanese fails to satisfy Xi’s demands?
Albanese’s visit confirms that the security hawks who insist that the Prime Minister prioritise security over economics are preaching a doomed cause. This is hardly a revelation.
Trade Minister Don Farrell has said our China trade is worth nearly 10 times our US trade and provides 25 per cent of our export dollars. Australia won’t decouple from China. It won’t bow to any US pressure to limit economic ties with China. The core position was enunciated by Farrell post-election: “We don’t want to do less business with China, we want to do more business with China.”
That’s Albanese’s mission, tied to a domestic political spin. Hence the business delegation with him.
What will the Trump administration make of Albanese’s visit, if it has time to make anything? There is one certainty. The architect of the AUKUS review, anti-China hawk and Pentagon official Elbridge Colby, will become only more suspicious of Australia. The juxtaposition of Albanese’s six days in China with its leaders and without any meeting with Trump creates an optic that won’t help Albanese or Australia.
The irony is that Albanese has put China relations on a stable forward path when American relations are clouded in uncertainty courtesy of Trump’s punitive tariffs, his unpredictability, the AUKUS review and speculation about our stance on Taiwan.
There is an urgent need for a Trump-Albanese meeting to bring clarity to the issues that now impinge on the alliance.
The pivotal question for Australia is how US policy in Asia will be sorted. That means a resolution of the obvious split in the Trump administration. That’s between the conventional anti-China hawks who want strategic deterrence against Beijing and the isolationist lobby – with Trump as its likely proponent – who believe in economic and technology rivalry with China but shun any notion of military conflict over Taiwan or anywhere else involving China.

There's an urgent need to meet the Cantaloupe Caligula? Isn't he busy suing "Ned's" boss and the rest of News Corp?

Hasn't he got troubles of his own?

The pond just needed a break, because consider this. 

The pond rated the bromancer as second, because he beat "Ned" by a whole minute, with the reptiles rating him a twelve minute read.

This was like climbing Everest and then saddling up to climb the tallest peak on Mars, courtesy Uncle Leon ...

The header: Albanese spends week praising regime behind ‘most dangerous strategic circumstances in 80 years’, Anthony Albanese’s self-indulgent visit was propaganda gold for Beijing but did nothing for our interests.
The caption for that endlessly repeated image: Anthony Albanese and President Xi Jinping during the PM's trip to China. Illustration Geordie Gray
The dire proposal: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

What to say that the bromancer hasn't already said at huge length before?

The pond made a huge mistake getting up this morning ...

In terms of Australia’s national interests, Anthony Albanese made a huge mistake in conducting such a high-profile, lengthy, substance-free trip to the People’s Republic of China.
Australia got nothing from the trip, not a single concession to any of our interests. Beijing got everything it wanted.
It was a characteristic Australian mess, falling for flattery and flim-flam while neglecting key national interests. The visit lacked substance but was propaganda gold for Beijing.
The timing was terrible. It badly distorted Australian diplomacy. And six days – the longest single visit to any nation by the Prime Minister – was simultaneously cringingly subservient and foolishly self-indulgent.
The single biggest economic issue didn’t get a mention at all. That is Beijing’s predatory pricing and wholesale destruction of Australian industries through industrial policies that make a mockery of the international trading system.
Albanese has rightly criticised Donald Trump’s tariff unilateralism. He hasn’t said a word about Beijing’s practice of massively subsidising industries, selling products below costs, until competitors are driven out of business and it can pitch prices at any level it likes.
This is not only an economic disaster, it also is increasingly a strategic threat, as rare earths and critical minerals demonstrate.

Yeah, yeah, traps, warnings, disasters, threats, saucydoubs and fears and another tourist snap, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and partner Jodie Haydon arrive in Beijing on Monday. Picture: Lukas Coch/AAP

By this point it should be clear that the pond is well over making any notes, the pond's main aim is simply to make it to the end...

The pond is so fatigued it's not going to make a joke by showing a snap of overalls to signify the overall big picture...

But before we leave the big picture, consider this visit in the round.
Albanese went to the PRC having been unable to meet Trump. Trump is surely a difficult president. But Australia has core interests with the US far beyond any we have in Beijing. Whatever Albanese thinks of Trump personally, he has an obligation to manage the US relationship in Australia’s national interest. Trump cancelled a scheduled meeting with Albanese. It’s impossible to believe that if Albanese made a proper government to government request to meet Trump in Washington, this would be denied.
Naturally Trump would raise Australia’s laughable defence budget. If Albanese actually believes 2 per cent of GDP is adequate, he’d be the only person on the planet to do so, though of course Beijing is delighted that Albanese followed its advice to spurn the Trump administra­tion’s call to do more in defence.
Either way, Albanese should be willing to talk to Trump about it. He needs to have an agenda for Trump. In a hugely asymmetric relationship like that between Washington and Canberra, the initiative mostly lies with the smaller partner.
Meanwhile, the AUKUS agreement is in obvious trouble, and Albanese is unable to argue its merits in Washington or to the Australian people, much less to the leadership in Beijing. Hugging pandas in Chengdu, striding in Gough Whitlam’s fatuous footsteps along the Great Wall of the People and demonstrating tennis skills, are no doubt more agreeable than trying to rescue AUKUS in the US, but they’re not a legitimate priority for an Australian leader. The timing of the Beijing frolic was dismal. So was its structure. In northeast Asia there are two nations with which we share profound values and interests, Japan and South Korea. A swing of six days could have been divided between these nations and the PRC.

A difficult president? He's planning to sue the socks off News Corp. It's not enough that he's taken Colbert down, he's gunning for all the reptiles, and yet the bromancer is sublimely unaware, and concerned only for others, Detained Australian writer Yang Hengjun.

What about Ukraine? What about Gaza? What about the rest of the world?

Relax, you're cocooned in the hive mind ...

Instead, the Prime Minister spent the week praising the wonders of the regime that has created what so many Albanese government officials and appointees have told us are our most dangerous strategic circumstances in 80 years.
While Albanese was in Beijing, the Australia-US joint military exercise Talisman Sabre was being conducted around northern Australia. Australia’s elderly defence assets – undergunned and antique Anzac-class frigates, for example – have become so feeble they mostly can’t be sent into war zones. But they can exercise militarily. The purpose of Talisman Sabre is to enhance allied interoperability and to signal to others – mainly Beijing – steadfast resolve and deterrence.
The failure to mention the key issue of Beijing’s predatory pricing and the failure to secure a single concession of any consequence from Beijing demonstrated the resolve of a marshmallow suffering a crisis of confidence.
Albanese failed to win the release of wrongly imprisoned Australian writer Yang Hengjun, preposterously charged with espionage and detained more than six years. He failed to win the slightest undertaking of better conduct from the PRC in its live-fire navy exercises conducted without notice to Australia, and its other aggressive military actions.
Albanese was perhaps embarrassed into having to raise these issues publicly at all. In Australia, and even in Beijing, he constantly argued the PRC navy was operating within maritime law.
This is a foolish distinction. It’s possible to be intensely intimidating and conduct highly dangerous manoeuvres while technically staying within the law.
Which genius decided to have this visit while Talisman Sabre was unfolding? The truth is, nobody sees the PRC President, Xi Jinping, at a time of their choosing. If you get to see the PRC President, it’s at a time the President chooses. The Beijing bureaucracy choreographs state visits meticulously. Perhaps Beijing decided, exquisitely, to host this visit while Australia’s military exercises were under way.

Cue another still to add to the visual monotony, Xi Jinping meets with Albanese in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Picture: Lukas Coch/AAP

If only they'd kill off AUKUS, to put an end to the reptile hysteria and to the pond's overwhelming sense of ennui ...

Come on Elbridge, do your thing ...

The visit was much disrupted by the occasional hint and question from US Under Secretary of Defence for Policy Elbridge Colby, who is conducting a review into AUKUS.
Colby is rightly concerned that his own nation, the US, is failing to build nuclear submarines fast enough to credibly sell three to five to Australia in the 2030s. He’s concerned Australia’s preparation for AUKUS is inadequate and our dismal defence budget indicates a lack of seriousness.
There has been much controversy about Colby apparently asking Canberra what it would do if the US were involved in military conflict with Beijing in defence of Taiwan. If Colby is asking Canberra to commit in advance to going to war in hypothetical future circumstances, his request is absurd and unreasonable.
However, while we know Colby has had some pretty unsatisfactory meetings with Australian officials, we don’t know exactly what he’s asking.
It may be there’s a more subtle and limited request involved.
A disturbing paper in considering this comes from a former deputy assistant secretary of state under George W. Bush, Evan Feigenbaum, now vice-president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

A source of saucy doubts and fears, Elbridge Colby is examining whether the AUKUS agreement still aligns with the priorities being championed by the US President.

If it must be so, then so it must be ...

In Beneath the Mateship, a Quiet Crisis is Brewing in the US-Australia Alliance, Feigenbaum praises growing co-operation between the two allies over many years. But now, he says, there are serious conflicts of expectation that could easily lead to crisis. The first is the Trump administration cannot accept that Australia, unlike every other serious US ally, spends only 2 per cent of GDP on defence.
Though Feigenbaum is full of goodwill for Australia, he concludes Canberra must spend more because “Australia under its current budget cannot afford both the full scope of investments envisioned under AUKUS and the other needed investments in conventional capabilities”.
He also sees disagreement over precommitment on Taiwan. US military planners naturally include all their military assets located in Australia when they plan for any contingency involving US forces in the Indo-Pacific, especially over Taiwan. However, no Australian government would cede sovereignty by writing a blank cheque of precommitment.
Another difficulty is over Australia’s military geography, which is relevant to northeast Asia, but Australians may see that as far away.
Next is US force posture. In any conflict the US would seek greater access to Australian facilities. Feigenbaum acidly notes the vagueness with which Australian defence documents talk of contributing to US-led deterrence without ever saying what that might mean. Feigenbaum is too polite to say it, but Albanese government speeches referencing deterrence are even vaguer.
Finally, Feigenbaum nominates “coalitional defence”. Australian attitudes to helping Washington in any conflict will depend on how broad a coalition the US has built. Yet such coalition building seems antithetical to Trump.

Is it o'clock time for a snap of champers Pete, in company with a fiendish snow dome collector? It is, it is, US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth and Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles in Singapore in May. Picture: DoD

On and on the bromancer went ...

Feigenbaum contrasts the US-Australia alliance with the US-Japan relationship where operational roles in potential conflict are well thought through in advance. Feigenbaum sees danger in the public spat between US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who called for Australia to lift defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP, and Albanese, who tartly replied Australia would make its own decisions. That appealed nationalistically but typically avoided all substance. Feigenbaum suggests there “has been too much rah-rah and too little intellectually honest self-reflection”.
Feigenbaum is encouraged, however, by the Australian Chief of the Defence Force, Admiral David Johnston, who told a recent conference: “Perhaps finally we are having to reconsider Australia as a homeland from which we will conduct combat operations.”
If Australia were waging combat from its own territory, who would we possibly be fighting beside and who would we possibly be fighting against?

The pond did note that the bromancer seemed significantly short on EXPLAINERS, but the inclination to tedious explanations continued,

Article IV in the ANZUS Treaty states that any attack in the Pacific area on a member nation would be dangerous to all treaty parties and each would “act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes”. Then Article V says: “an attack on any of the Parties is deemed to include an attack on … its armed forces”. ANZUS would thus cover a PRC attack on US forces going to help Taiwan.

Sky Noise joined in the sinister explanations: Sky News political reporter Julia Bradley says a Chinese businessman, Wang Yongxin, allegedly tied to the Chinese Communist Party, has been linked to property deals at the Kembla and Newcastle ports. "Mr Wangs son, Wang Zhongdong, who is director of the company Port Kembla Group, he purchased the Port Kembla site back in January," Ms Bradley said. "The purchase for the site … was for commercial reasons related to endeavours in the green energy space. He's also denied any link to China's United Front, the communist party's foreign influence arm. "It's unclear whether the deals were reviewed by the foreign investment board, so far, no commentary from the government as to those purchases."

Say what? We might not commit to a war with China by Xmas? Where would that leave the reptiles' very own Reichsmarschall des GroßAustralisch Reiches?

No treaty actually pre-commits a nation to war. If Russia invaded Estonia tomorrow, fellow NATO members such as Britain or Spain, or especially the US, would still have to make a decision to take military action or not. We know Colby has had some unhappy meetings with Australian officials, but we don’t know exactly what he said. If he’s calling for more integrated joint planning for the possibility of conflict, that’s reasonable.
All militaries, including Australia’s, have many plans they hope never to implement. Having the plan doesn’t mean any government’s decision has been made for it in advance. It just means the military can act effectively if government tells it to.
It may be Colby is forcing us to confront several dimensions of reality we routinely avoid. We’ll certainly get no enlightenment or leadership on anything like this from the Albanese government. That Albanese feels no inclination to lead an AUKUS conversation but would rather be hugging pandas is a sign of poor priorities.

Cue a sign of megalomania, a wide embrace, Australian businessman Andrew Forrest, Albanese and BHP Geraldine Slattery at a press conference after a Steel Decarbonisation Roundtable in Shanghai. Picture: Lukas Coch/AAP

The pond hopes things will be better on Sunday, but fears not ...

There was nothing of any consequence achieved for Australia in this visit. The so-called economic side of the trip was a mixture of fantasy, farce and harmless jawboning. The fantastical idea that we will one day sell green iron and green steel to the PRC, which will pay a premium so it can get closer to meeting net zero emissions in 2060, has no purchase on reality.
You can see why business would go along with it, though: better keep onside with governments and their ephemeral rhetoric, there may well be big subsidies on offer, and so on.
Meanwhile the PRC is deliberately destroying Australian industries through predatory pricing. The PRC, much more than Trump, has destroyed the global trading system. Brendan Pearson, former Australian ambassador to the OECD, wrote this week that the OECD estimates Beijing subsidises its manufacturers 10 times more heavily than Western nations subsidise their manufacturers. The OECD further estimates that by 2030 the PRC will control 45 per cent of global manufacturing.
The PRC method is simple. It identifies one strategic sector after another. With concessional financing from state banks, below-market energy prices, reduced costs for all manner of business inputs, plus the guaranteed home market, PRC companies can always undercut their competitors. No Western firm can ever meet the “China price”. When competitors are driven out of business, PRC companies move the price back to profitable levels.
By then they own the market. Deindustrialisation caused by the PRC has hollowed out the economies of European nations and the US. In exchange, these societies have got cheap Chinese goods. Australia also suffered this process, but we gave up manufacturing long ago. Now, manufacturing accounts for only 5 per cent of our economy, one of the lowest levels in the OECD.

This might well rate as the dullest pond outing with the reptiles of all time, what with all the pomp and circumstance, The Prime Minister and China’s Premier Li Qiang inspect the Honour Guard in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Picture: Lukas Coch/AAP

After the pomp, time for more hysteria, and of all things, a visitation by the liar from the Shire ...

While this deindustrialisation has been socially harmful and economically damaging, it also has big strategic consequences, especially in strategic industries.
Nothing is more strategic than rare earths and critical minerals. These are essential for countless hi-tech applications, including many military technologies. A substantial quantity is needed to make the high-performance magnets that go into our F-35 air force fighters. The PRC completely dominates this trade and has forced other suppliers out of business.
Former prime minister Scott Morrison tells Inquirer: “China massively subsidises production to block out competitors and this gives them their dominant position. This is exactly what China has done on critical minerals and rare earths for 20 years. China’s plan is to dominate, control the price, block out rivals.”

You can't sink much lower than the liar from the Shire, so it was time for another tourist snap, Albanese with partner Jodie Haydon, ‘striding in Gough Whitlam’s fatuous footsteps’ along the Great Wall of China. Picture: Lukas Coch/AAP

Then it was on with more ranting...

This process was evident in the devastation of the Australian nickel industry and in the extreme challenges and costs Australia is encountering trying to develop its rare earths industry.
Morrison, freed from office, speaks plainly, but he’s not making a partisan point. Resources Minister Madeleine King, in commenting on the closure of BHP’s nickel operation in Western Australia, said: “Because of an opaque market and a combination of Chinese investment of gargantuan proportion into Indonesia nickel mines … there was a steep decline in nickel prices which led to the closure of Nickel West.”
The nickel refining processes the PRC used in Indonesia are hugely energy intensive. For those still clinging to the fantasy of Beijing as a hero of net zero, it’s droll to note Beijing financed coal-fired power stations in Indonesia to power nickel operations. Beijing floods the market when a competitor looks as though it will establish a beachhead. This makes the competitor unprofitable and convinces investors the sector’s too risky.
A huge worldwide copper shortage is forecast as copper is central in electricity and the great decarbonisation requires vast new electricity supplies. Yet Townsville’s copper smelter could go out of business. The Albanese government is stumping up billions of dollars in subsidies to smelters and refineries.

The pond realised it had made a mistake. 

You could go much lower than the liar from the Shire, you could join the Canavan caravan and celebrate the coal that batters, Matt Canavan wants Australia to ‘fight back and protect other key metals industries’.

That grim sighting made the pond tune out completely. Put Aussies first? MAGA moron down under? Say no more, though the bromancer will keep on saying ...

Former resources minister Matt Canavan (how can the opposition allow him not to be on the frontbench?) tells Inquirer: “China has a clear strategy to monopolise key industrial commodities. They have already done it to nickel, which cost 10,000 Australian jobs. We need to fight back and protect other key metals industries before we lose more jobs to China.” He estimates another 6000 Australian jobs are directly at risk right now because of Beijing’s predatory practices.
In an important paper for the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Gracelin Baskaran demonstrates how Beijing drove down the price of nickel, lithium and neodymium-praseodymium oxide, the critical rare earth involved in high-performance magnets, to drive competitors out of the market. She thinks the only effective response is for the US and its allies to establish an “anchor market” that allies rare earths.
Morrison makes a similar argument: “The only way around it is to set up a secure supply chain with a guaranteed price. I would say to the US that co-operating with friends and allies works well in producing military security; co-operating with friends and allies would work well in producing economic security.”
Asked to compare his time as prime minister with today, Morrison says: “China’s plan back then was to isolate us from the US by bullying us. Their plan now is to isolate us from the US by charming and flattering us.”
Rare earths are so expensive partly because while digging them up is easy enough, transforming them into usable metals is extremely challenging technically.
The problem with what both Morrison and Baskaran propose is that Trump has shown little ability to rally and organise allies. His trade actions have been scattergun and not discriminated between US allies and strategic competitors.

Cue yet another tourist snap, presumably designed to induce nausea and hostility in the hive mind, Hugging pandas in Chengdu is ‘no doubt more agreeable than trying to rescue AUKUS in the US’. Picture: Lukas Coch/AAP

It was, mercifully, the last snap, and this was the last gobbet, and with apologies to Johnny Mathis, the pond sensed that it had been on an interminable journey to the twelfth of never ...

Albanese has plenty of criticism of Trump’s trade policy but nothing to say, in Beijing or in Australia, about PRC industrial policies that wipe out whole Australian industries. You’d think between gushing about pandas and performing devotions to Gough it might be worth a sentence or two.
Similarly, while official Australian policy, even today, is aimed at diversifying trade, this trip, if it has any effect on trade at all, will intensify Australian dependence on China. We have failed at trade diversification, which is one reason Albanese should be in Japan, South Korea and India. But Beijing is diversifying away from us.
In 2023-24, our iron ore exports were worth $138bn, a fifth of our total exports. Iron ore, coal and gas between them constitute nearly half our total exports, making us a dangerously narrow economy.
Beijing will move away from Australian iron ore as soon as it can, whatever fantasies it spins Albanese. Beijing now controls Simandou mine in Guinea that will come online this year. It has invested in a lot of African mines. The move away from Australian iron ore will probably be slow, gradual and remorseless. It takes time to build up new supplies. And the Pilbara is a kind of iron ore logistics paradise. But the trends are moving against Australia.
With apologies to Johnny Mercer, Albanese’s self-indulgent and at times fatuous homage to the PRC did nothing to eliminate the negatives, accentuate the (real) positives or latch on to the (Australian) affirmative. Instead it was all about “Mr Inbetween”. Wholly befitting a nation that sleeps while history marches.

After all that, the pond can only offer the wan hope that tomorrow is another day, and meanwhile, here's a comic to enjoy for the closing off of the hive mind this day ...