There is no shortage of analysis of what Australia did wrong to China to cause Beijing’s wrath, and no shortage of advice on how Canberra should set the relationship right. But underlying the criticism is a failure to recognise the nature of the China threat and the US resolve in meeting that threat.

The critics blame the Morrison and Turnbull governments for the decline in relations and assign virtually no agency to the Chinese government of President Xi Jinping. But it is Beijing that is bent on upsetting the regional status quo.