We should get down to brass tacks. What is the specific, concrete threat that China poses to Australia? What, exactly, do we worry it could do and why do we think it may do it?
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The government isn't saying. As with the specific purposes of nuclear submarines, it cannot talk about the nasty details, because doing so would only make our relationship with China worse.
By now, most Australians feel the danger in their bones: China is a giant, authoritarian and aggressive country not very far away, so it simply must be dangerous - somehow. Part of that feeling is a cultural memory of how Britain and France could have avoided World War II if only they had stood up to Hitler earlier than 1939.
But the lack of specific discussion leaves plenty of room for other Australians, especially those who dislike the US, to dismiss or ignore the danger.
If you listened carefully to Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong's speech at the National Press Club this week, you could hear vague allusions to the threat. If you didn't want to hear them, they were easily missed.
"Our focus needs to be on how we ensure our fate is not determined by others, how we ensure our decisions are our own," Wong said, enigmatically.
"Others" meant China.
So here's the concrete risk that ministers can't go anywhere near describing:
If China gains enough power over us, it may choose to dictate the actions of our government, of Australians generally and of some of them in particular. In the worst case, it could abolish our democracy and replace it with a regime that it could directly manipulate, quite plausibly a police state.
On the way to that possible dark future, we would lose control over our decisions gradually, as our government increasingly bent the knee in response to rising Chinese power - economic power and, most decisive, military power, the threat of brute force.
Another risk is that China could similarly but more quickly gain such power over Australia's friends, such as those in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
In seeking control, one of China's objects would be economic: gaining advantageous trade and business opportunities at our cost. Another would be political, to ensure that Australia or other countries gave it no trouble internationally. And a third, not to be underestimated, would be pure nationalism, the satisfaction of being the top dog.
If you think all that is wildly speculative then you have never picked up a history book in your life.
Only in the 20th century did a substantial number of major powers limit their ambitions for controlling weaker countries. China is not one of those better behaved major powers.
How do we know? Why should we worry it may try to control us and our friends?
One answer is it's national mentality.
Fifteen years ago, when I was living in Beijing and trying to tell sceptical friends in Australia that the rising Chinese power was dangerous, I often used this line: "China doesn't look at the world as Australia, Spain or Japan do; it looks at the world as the kaiser's Germany did."
China sees other countries as enemies or rivals or at least as something to be exploited. It approaches the world in zero-sum terms: "if you lose, we win." It is never benevolent, though sometimes it feigns benevolence in crude attempts to gain influence.
That's why it's almost friendless.
Its us-versus-them mentality is related to its frightening nationalism, which is partly natural and partly pumped up by Chinese Communist Party propaganda to strengthen support for the regime.
Sometimes popular nationalism is too much even for the CCP. Especially before Xi Jinping became president a decade ago, social media would occasionally erupt in anger over anything that seemed to be a concession in foreign affairs. For many Chinese people, the government wasn't being tough enough.
Next, "control" is the CCP's middle name. Domestically, it compulsively exerts control of anything that could help or harm it. That compulsion extends internationally in its relentless attempts at gaining political and economic influence in other countries - including Australia, as we finally worked out around 2017.
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We see no limit to how much influence China wants abroad. It's always going for as much as it can get.
From Beijing's point of view, power that it can exert through economic dominance and bribery, as it is increasingly achieving in the Asia-Pacific region already, is all well and good. But the decisive way to make another country obey is to loom over it with military power.
The Chinese armed forces are mostly shaped for the national priority of taking control of Taiwan, including deterring US attempts at defending the island.
But the massive and growing Chinese navy is increasingly designed for distant operations. In particular, China is building costly aircraft carrier battle groups. They would be doubtfully useful in a Taiwanese War but would be ideal for threatening weak countries in South-East Asia and - the US navy and air force permitting - further afield.
Finally, China is willing to take territory. In the South China Sea, it is attempting the largest territorial seizure since Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. And it is using force to achieve that goal.
Altogether, then, we are facing an enormous, nationalist power with a 19th century attitude to international affairs and a ravenous appetite for control.
We can't be sure of what it will do if it is not resisted and contained, but the possible outcomes are terrible. We must activate every aspect of our national power to protect ourselves.
- Bradley Perrett was based in Beijing as a journalist from 2004 to 2020.