‘I will be 70 in January and I have never feared so much for the Western world’s future’

I would feel much more comfortable if Greg Sheridan and Peta Credlin were in the cabinet and Peter Dutton was the prime minister. History is rhyming. Australia is patently not ready to act. Its Defence Force is inadequately and inappropriately equipped for war with China. The US has a president who appears to be losing the intellectual plot and, like Neville Chamberlain, is losing the global existential struggle with the US’s euphemistically named “strategic competitor”, China.

So, in this scenario Xi Jinping is Hitler, Czechoslovakia is Taiwan and the First Island Chain is Poland. If Taiwan is deserted by the US, like Afghanistan, then the whole of Southeast Asia including Australia will become part of the Chinese Celestial Empire and, unlike in World War II, there will be no United States to rescue us. Xi won’t make the same mistakes that Hitler did. In Paul Keating’s words, he will “do the world slowly”. “Today Asia, (eventually) the world.”

Jim Wilson, Beaumont, SA

Peta Credlin, Greg Sheridan and the Defence Minister in The Australian on Thursday all emphasised the obvious fact that China is no longer emerging but is now a formidable military and economic power. China has been emboldened by America’s poorly planned exit from Afghanistan and by perceived social divisions within relevant Western democracies. It is the lack of unity within America and also, to a growing degree, here in Australia, that could be the ultimate gift to a confrontationalist China. The lack of unity or purpose needs to be overcome urgently if the West is to deter China. If the commonwealth parliament could muster a bipartisan approach to military spending on relevant military assets it would help to drag the public out of its daydream and realise that there is a paramount threat to Australia’s future – and it’s not climate change.

Jerome Paul, Exeter, NSW

I will be 70 in January and I have never feared so much for the Western world’s future. The Cold War was a doddle compared with the threats facing us today, from the Afghanistan debacle, to the insidious spread of woke culture to the hysterical calls for Australia to get rid of our coal industry and destroy our economy while China builds 127 more coal-fired power stations.

Europe and the UK are useless, with Boris Johnson going woke on emissions and cutting further the formerly impressive British armed forces. At the same time, Johnson has advertised a number of diversity positions in the National Health Service at $150,000 a year. Talk about butter before guns.

The US has had three dud leaders in a row and the British have not had a decent leader (with the honourable exception of Tony Blair) since Margaret Thatcher. One has to wonder whether the West deserves to survive with “leaders” like this.

Scomo needs to step up to the plate, go to Glasgow, push the facts and call out this crap for what it is. The question is, does he have the intestinal fortitude to do this? If he does he will not only be doing Western democracy a service, he will be enhancing his re-election chances.

Bill Stefaniak, Narrabundah, ACT

Just not cricket

In an interview with SBS, a Taliban cultural spokesman, Ahmadullah Wasiq, said ,“I don’t think women will be allowed to play cricket because it is not necessary that women should play cricket. In cricket, they might face a situation where their face and body will not be covered. Islam does not allow women to be seen like this ... It is the media era, and there will be photos and videos, and then people watch it. Islam and the Islamic Emirate (Afghanistan) do not allow women to play cricket or play the kind of sports where they get exposed.”

Since Australia has a game arranged in Tasmania in November against the Afghan men’s team, surely the World Cricket body will implement its constitution rule for every country to have both male and female teams. Australians who feel helpless about the Afghan situation can demand that the game be boycotted, using this rare opportunity to influence the Taliban. The power of sporting boycotts was demonstrated over apartheid. How could we allow the white flag of the Taliban to fly in an Australian city?

Julanne Sweeney, Eden Hills, SA

Peter Jennings (“A cricket Test of the Taliban’s PR”, 8/9) invites us to Cubanise Afghanistan in the same way as the US has kept Cuba in purdah for the past 50 or so years. He says we mustn’t play them at cricket. Sure, the Taliban are terrorists and women have gone into reverse but what’s not playing a game of cricket going to achieve? Virtue signalling, that’s all. What have the Afghan cricketers done to deserve such rejection? And what has the US lock-in achieved for the Cuban people or the US? By ostracising smaller countries such as Cuba and continuing to deal with the likes of China and Russia the US lives by double standards.

Paul Everingham, Hamilton, Qld