There’s no more familiar voice in Australian broadcasting than John Laws. Now almost 90 and still on the air,he has lost none of his characteristic alpha male belligerence.
He disapproved of the West’s courting of Ukraine. But when Putin did invade,he switched to advocating Ukrainian membership of Nato – for Kyiv,it turns out,has a pretty good army.
The 100-year-old former secretary of state has been pushing the US to take a more conciliatory approach to China.
There are hopes Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing could set the stage for a meeting between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden later in the year.
The German-born diplomat is concerned,saying we are “in a classic pre-World War I situation” and are “on a path to great-power confrontation”. Happy birthday.
While Putin claims to be open to negotiations,he showed his real agenda this week with deadly airstrikes on the southern city of Kherson. But the West will not abandon Ukraine.
When Whitlam visited in 1971,four years before I became China correspondent,MacMahon sneered that he’d been taken for a ride. I’m sure Wong’s visit will be different.
Is everything fixed? Of course not. Even with patient and effective diplomacy,there will still be disagreements.
Australia and the West are continuing to miss the bigger picture about China’s imperialistic plans. Time is running out.
The former US secretary of state said the meeting between Biden and Xi was the first step towards reducing conflict between the two superpowers.
Fifty years ago,a junior Australian diplomat learned about Henry Kissinger’s covert mission to Beijing. What happened next had real consequences in Canberra.