Coming from a country in ASEAN which is vary of Australia’s attempts to integrate into East Asia, it would be good for Australia to address these issues pragmatically and realise that it is a ‘middle power’, nothing more. Any wrong move would send the wrong signals to other developing countries in the East Asian region and confirm existing views of Australia.

Peter notes:
“…But they do affect the strategic importance of the Australia government’s not boxing us into a choice based on an increasingly false dilemma, repeating some of the mistakes we made on Japan a few decades ago.”

It would be good for all to understand these ‘false dilemmas’ and disprove them. Clearly, these false dilemmas have some currency in Australian policymaking.