For some time, US President Barack Obama has been engaged in conversation with China's President Hu Jintao about the direction and pace of reform in Beijing's economic policy and acceptance of intellectual property standards.
Both leaders represent goals and interests that are both worthy and not so worthy. Obama is attempting to recreate jobs for dispossessed Americans, while Hu Jintao wants to keep China's industrialisation on track so that hundreds of millions of Chinese will continue to rise from poverty. But Hu Jintao appears prepared to break the established international rules, and Obama is beholden to the wealthy Americans who call the shots.
Because the pace of China's response is not acceptable to the US, it is possible the conversation will die and a new cold war will begin. The US Jesuit peace activist John Dear wrote in an email to Eureka Street at the weekend: 'This is the beginning of the end for you all.'
A cold war would end the friendship with China that Obama refers to in his speeches. It would promote fear through military coalitions, force deployments, proxy wars, espionage, propaganda, arms races, rivalry at sports events and technological one-upmanship. This serves the interests of neither side.
Australia will be a significant player in any cold war that eventuates between the US and China, with the positioning of 2500 US Marines in Darwin by 2017. The strategy is part of Obama's effort to protect US jobs and intellectual property rights, and is not necessarily in Australia's interest. For example, satisfying demands of the wealthy US pharmaceuticals lobby is likely to lead to higher prices for generic medicines here.
It is regrettable that the Gillard Government has set Australia on this unexpected path. This has occurred not only without an electoral mandate, but also in the absence of national debate.
If large numbers of Australians are worried about the threat to Australia's sovereignty posed by a few thousand asylum seekers arriving by boat each year, surely they would have wanted to be consulted on the use of Australia's territory in a potentially game changing US posturing exercise against China.
Australians taken aback by the precipitousness of last week's announcement will want to send a message to the Government. The best way to do this would be through media and community debate that embodies the spirit of the conversation between Obama and Hu Jintao that urgently needs to be preserved. Good conversation clarifies what each