In the time since the last Parliament sat, the whole world has changed – again.

Donald Trump has flip flopped on Ukraine and Russia. Trump became NATO’s “daddy”. Israel’s war on Gaza has reached a point where even the New York Times has been forced to publish a piece calling it a genocide. ICE is now the largest law enforcement agency in the US, with our great “ally” allowing masked men to snatch people off its streets and disappear them. 

Israel launched strikes against Iran. which international law experts said were not lawful (even as our government couldn’t). The US backed Israel’s new “humanitarian” aid system in Gaza and starving Palestinians are being massacred while attempting to access basic supplies. There are apparently still, no red lines.

The US issued more tariff threats, which included impacts to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and Australia’s medical export industry.  

The US put sanctions on human rights defenders, most notably Francesca Albanese. There have been threats to universities, to the free media, to dissenters, to protesters.

The US Supreme Court reined in the power of lower courts to impose injunctions preventing the government breaking its own laws. Elon Musk and Trump have split.  

Trump is turning on his own support base. The Pentagon is reviewing AUKUS to ensure it meets its “America first” mandate with the threat of conditions, including forcing Australia to lift its defence spending to a figure of the US’s choosing, and pre-commit to a war with China. 

The US has …

The list goes on and on, but the point is the same. The world, as it was in March 2025, is no more. And it will continue to shift as the US continues on its unreliable, increasingly authoritarian and mercurial path.

Which made Anthony Albanese’s trip to China all the more important.

The most insightful piece about those six days was written by the ABC’s Bang Xiao, who did what so few in Australia’s political media are able to – zoom out to the bigger picture. And not just for what the trip meant for Australia, but what it meant about what China was signalling, a perspective too often missed by US-pilled defence stooges in the domestic landscape.

Xiao made note of the oft-used phrase Albanese (and Penny Wong) have used about how an Albanese government will approach China: “We will cooperate where we can, disagree where we must and engage in our national interest.”

He also pointed out that Albanese said it while on Chinese soil and in the presence of leader Xi Jinping, a sign he suggested, of “diplomatic maturity”.  

If only Australia could apply that same maturity – and message – to America. 

For decades, Australia has been told to be afraid of China because of some omnipresent threat, the kind of existential omnipotence only America could protect us from. 

But if you begin to see China as a risk instead of a threat, then it is easy to see why Albanese would take the opportunity to take the next step in strengthening Australia’s relationship with the emerging superpower, particularly given America’s decaying empire. 

It seems logical that America must also be subject to the same message – that we will cooperate where we can, disagree where we must and engage in our national interest.  

As the world continues to shift and bend around America’s decline, perhaps the Albanese government could pay attention to 2020 Wong, who said that Australia must take risks and have the confidence to “shape the outcomes it seeks”, “rather than being caught in the slipstream” of US-China competition.

The 2020 Wong believed Australia needed to place a “greater premium on self-reliance and the preparedness to assert our interests” in response to the risks and consequences of escalation.

But that was when Wong, and Labor, were not afraid to be bold in directing the country – from the safety of opposition. 

Labor in government has spent a lot of its time convinced it can only wield power, and set direction, through compromise and “bipartisanship” in a fundamental misunderstanding of what bipartisanship actually means. It is not, as Labor has too often displayed, watering down convictions until a halfway house agreement can be reached. 

Bipartisanship is winning the arguments so comprehensively, the other side is left with no other option but to agree. It’s mapping a course based on conviction, national interest, and long term benefit.  

So far, Labor has largely handled its power like a sickly Victorian child, ostensibly lord of the manor, but unable to act without the approval of a guardian. As the world continues to bend and reshape itself around America’s decline, the government would be better served if it applied its China approach more widely.

In defending his approach, Albanese told reporters in China:

“I’m passionate about democracies, and one of the ways that we restore faith in democracies is by doing what we said we would do, and by engaging in a pretty honest and upfront way and not being distracted by the latest tweet, or the latest blog. As I said the other day, I won’t be distracted. I’m focused on making achievements, but I’m also focused on 2028; what does it look like and beyond, what do we do for the national interest?”

Focusing on 2028 means recognising what is happening in 2025. 

As Parliament resumes, and the question of “the national interest” grows louder, Australia needs to take a proper look at the global order, its place in it and why it remains caught in the slipstream of competing interests.