Australia in a Disordered World

Everything Australia has achieved—prosperity, stability and strategic freedom—has been underwritten by a great power that shared our values. First it was Britain, then the United States. But with the second Trump administration, that arrangement is now uncertain—and there is no replacement. What we do know is that the period in which US power underwrote the liberal democratic principles that have shaped global norms since 1945 is over. A historical aberration at an end.

But while US uncertainty is deeply destabilising, there is a greater threat to Australia’s liberal democracy: China’s intentional, coordinated effort to replace the existing international system with an order that preferences the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian interests. The threat is accentuated by our tying of our economic fortunes to an authoritarian state that doesn’t respect our democracy, national values or sovereignty. Indeed, it actively seeks to undermine them.

We must avoid the trap of false equivalence. The socio-cultural convulsions afflicting the US may make it unreliable, but it is China that is unmistakably threatening. The US undermines confidence; China seeks to undermine the system itself. The US is drifting to an unknown destination; China has spent decades enacting a plan to reshape global norms to privilege authoritarianism.

China’s strategic intent: a system built for authoritarian dominance

President Xi Jinping’s frequent invocation of ‘great changes unseen in a century’ reflects the CCP’s belief that global power is shifting in China’s favour, enabling it to correct what it views as historical injustices and reclaim a central role in global affairs. China’s economic weight underpins this ambition. The Belt and Road Initiative was its first major effort to reshape international norms, later reinforced by the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilisation Initiative and the Global Development Initiative. In 2025, these were joined by the Global Governance Initiative, forming the pillars for an alternative, Sino-centric world order, which Beijing claims will benefit humankind.