Talk of Australia as a ‘middle power’ sounds comforting, but our record in Asia and in global diplomacy often tells a different story.

The visit to Canberra by Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney has revived happy talk of Australia as a ‘middle power’.

But do we qualify? Australia’s past record has at times been worse even than that of ‘big power’ USA.

The Vietnam War was the test. Canada refused the US request to send troops. Instead, in March 1966, with the war was underway it sent a retired diplomat, Chester Ronning, to Hanoi in a bid to find a peace agreement to end the war.

Meanwhile what was the Australian government doing?

At the time I was working in our........

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