Why AUKUS Matters
The deal is a belated response to the Chinese Communist Party’s mushrooming belligerence.
When a team of Victoria police officers made the decision to fly a Chinese flag over their station at Box Hill one autumn day in 2019, they managed to inadvertently capture the strange moment Australia was living through. They had hoped to “honour … the local police station’s strong relationship with the local Chinese community.” They honoured no one but the Communist Party, which was busy extending its tentacles into all areas of Australian life. The date? The 70th anniversary of the Party’s assumption of power in China. The flag? A symbol of the Party, not of China, and the mark of a long, covert, multifaceted war waged against liberal democracies like Australia’s. That red square stirring in the Box Hill breeze represented Beijing’s imperialist advance, but it also became the occasion for widespread outrage. Australians were waking up to the secret war at last.
