“The East is rising and the West is declining.” This was a popular refrain in Beijing when China recently marked the 100th anniversary of the ruling Communist Party. Party leader Xi Jinping himself used the phrase in a speech in March.

The idea that the US-led West is waning and a China-led East is ascending to world leadership is common in Australia, too. In fact, I have written in this newspaper that the United States is likely to decline as a strategic power in Asia, and that therefore Australia is increasingly on its own.