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Comment by mytailorisrich | Hacker News Reader

It seems to me, reading on the relation between Australia and China, that Australia tends to have a superiority complex. Australia is a country of 25 million: they are no match to China or any other major powers, so whilst it is of course right for them to defend their interests I don't see how their current aggressive rhetoric can lead to anything positive.

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Australia doesn't have an independent foreign policy. This deal just shows who is in who's pocket. Australia has no choice because it can't defend itself. It has no military capability to defend against any enemy.

It means we Australians are destined to follow the US again into whatever conflict the US finds itself in. Because if we don't, we're on our own, and a very big (geographically) and soft target.

You're right but I don't think that this implies that they have no choice but to be an American 'protectorate'. It obviously used to be a British colony (and obviously is still formally part of the British Realm) and IMHO effectively switched to being an American 'protectorate' during WWII.

Having the technology to sink the massive kind of surface fleet an adversary needs to reach Australia, guarantees Australian freedom, independence and self determination. Australia has friends in the world with no desire or interest in oppressing them.

I've had this discussion a few times. I don't think we live in the same world any more, where physical invasion of country is advantageous. What exactly are we defending against?

I just don't see the Chinese trying to invade and control Australia. What would they get from that? All the resources? They already get those - and it's a lot cheaper to just buy them than it would be to keep a hostile invading army in place to dig them up themselves. China even operates some mines on Australian soil already (with all-Chinese staff, flown in direct from China). What on earth could they take from us that we won't sell them freely?

Australia is a US naval/supply/intelligence base, and that's it. The only militarily interesting targets in the country are owned by the US.

I think the Kiwis got the right idea here. The only way to win this game is to not play.

Subs could be useful to protect/attack shipping or military assets that are protecting/attacking shipping.

It does seem improbable that we will see large scale land invasions of developed countries. However, European nations also thought that was improbable pre-WW1. It's not crazy to err on the side of caution here. After all you could ask the same questions about the Chinese military build-up --- no-one's going to invade mainland China, obviously.

NZers definitely don't want to be in the nuclear sub business but I think the majority of NZers are concerned about the direction of the CCP and are happy to be part of ANZUS and Five Eyes. Sure, we want to keep taking China's money but if push comes to shove there's no doubt which side we're on.

It’s a lot more strategically complex than that. Fo example, America manages the majority of its signals intelligence for a large chunk of the Asian content through various faculties such as pine gap [1].

You’d be foolish to postulate that geopolitically charged agendas are driven by a simple explanation such as “a superiority complex”.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap?wprov=sfti1 https://maps.apple.com/?ll=-23.799000,133.737000&q=Pine%20Ga...

Of course the US are powerful, and in fact pretty much control Australia, which is indeed a small country. Australia is getting a bit ahead of itself if they think they are a match for China. I think Australia would be foolish to believe that being best bud with the playground's biggest bully means that they can freely do as they please and that it is useless for them to remain civil to others.

Your statement is contradictory - on one hand you agree that the US values Australia therefore justifying their decision for this agreement, and on the other you say Australia is independently matching itself to China - it’s not appropriate or correct to selectively choose parts of either statement because they are are in fact mutually exclusive relative to your argument. Either Australia is a puppet of the US and therefore by postering towards China it is not an AU vs CN issues but instead a US vs CN (via AU) issue or somehow Australia has managed to convince US to give them top secret technology and have independently decided to tackle CN. Over to you - which is it?

Australia is a puppet of the US and at the same time is having a "complex of superiority" (which permeates the West as a whole, to be fair), because who are those 'Chinamen', anyway? Nothing contradictory, there are several aspects at play, but I am foolish as you say.

Considering the history of Australia the hypocrisy is grotesque, and this just shows that the bad old habits die hard.

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