https://www.scmp.com/rss/507016/feed Michael Pembroke is a former New South Wales Supreme Court judge and the author of America in Retreat: The Decline of US Leadership from WW2 to Covid-19, released in Australia as Play By The Rules: The Short Story of America’s Leadership from Hiroshima to Covid-19. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com The United States has far more to gain from cooperation with China than it will achieve by confrontation. Fortunately, Antony Blinken, the new US secretary of state, is not a biblical literalist like his predecessor Mike Pompeo. But underlying the American opening statement at the recent China-US talks in Anchorage, Alaska, was a fundamental misconception of the state of global play in the 21st century. The world has changed. The US is no longer the undisputed global leader; it no longer... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/united-states/article/3127040/alaska-talks-showed-us-attitude-china-and-world?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/united-states/article/3127040/alaska-talks-showed-us-attitude-china-and-world?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 26 Mar 2021 17:30:13 +0000 There is excessive anti-China rhetoric currently in Australia and possibly insufficient realism about the mixed legacy of the United States or the dangerous situation in which current US anti-China policy places Australia. As Peter Hartcher, international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald, wrote recently: “The American ‘beacon on the hill’ is growing dim. Australia needs to light its own way.” In 1945, Franklin Roosevelt’s America led the world in establishing the institutions that... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3107246/why-australia-must-steer-clear-americas-moral-crusade-against-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3107246/why-australia-must-steer-clear-americas-moral-crusade-against-china?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 28 Oct 2020 01:45:08 +0000 The times are changing. In Washington recently, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne reiterated that Australia would make its own decisions in its own interests. Former prime minister Kevin Rudd observed that the Australian foreign and defence ministers “probably got the fright of their lives” when they were “fully and comprehensively confronted with” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s thinking. In a radio interview this month, Rudd observed that the Australian delegation poured “huge... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3099203/chinas-rise-why-us-advocacy-confrontation-leaves-asia-cold?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3099203/chinas-rise-why-us-advocacy-confrontation-leaves-asia-cold?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 Aug 2020 17:30:10 +0000