[cknight]

It seems our governments tried to walk a fine line for a while with China, because the trade dollars were so good. That's all a bit out the window now. They've slapped us (economically) a few times over the last couple of years but I don't think they can go too much further down that route - they still need a lot of the stuff we're digging out of the ground.

With little for Australia left to lose trade-wise, doubling down on the US relationship makes sense. We're so intertwined already, we may as well get any more benefits we can out of it. The more the US has sitting in Australia, the more it's in their interests for us to be safe and stable.

Pity about France but it seems that project was not going well anyway. If we're going to waste money we may as well get better kit out of it (eventually).