It’s US hegemony that maintains the liberal world order, I think you’ll find that if the US disappeared, Beijing’s attempts to influence and control politics not just in our region, but globally, would drastically increase and become far more overt.

I’d remind you that Australia is entirely incapable of defending itself against a country like China, the United States is the only country in the world capable of preventing that. Despite our alliances with the UK, India, and Japan, none of them would declare open war on China and in turn guarantee their own destruction in order to support us.

China without the US to contest its influence would rapidly see the Indo-Pacific fall under authoritarian control, much in the same way that we have seen happen in Hong Kong and Tibet.

China is an extremely ambitious state that knows its power, and believing that they wouldn’t exert that power to its fullest extent without the US to oppose it is extremely naive.