The Red Alert “ panel of national security experts” in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age screamed on March 7, 2023 that we had to be ready for war with China in three years’ time.

Advised by this expert panel two senior journalists told us with bated breath that we were not prepared for full-scale conflict with China. The journalists were Peter Hartcher, political editor and international editor of SMH and The Age and Matthew Knott, the foreign affairs editor and security correspondent for these papers. Experts indeed!

Paul Keating was not impressed and neither should we .He accused two of the country’s biggest newspapers of “the most egregious and provocative news presentation” in five decades, after they published front-page stories warning the country faced war with China within three years.

Just consider what these “experts” said three years ago. One was described as a “sage” and another a ”guru”

The experts. Here they are:

“I have to say, the critical threats stem from one source – China,” says Lavina Lee, a foreign policy “guru” from Macquarie University, speaking during the one-and-a-half-day group discussion held in the Nine boardroom in Sydney. “I think China presents the most comprehensive challenge to the regional order that we have faced for the last 70 years after World War II.” … “Neither the Australian military nor the public are presently truly prepared for the outbreak of war and Australia’s inevitable participation. This means there is an absence of urgency about what needs to be done now.” Lavina Lee says the economic coercion Beijing has inflicted over recent years has given Australians a taste of what life would be like under a China-dominated regional order – and it’s not a taste they enjoyed”.“So we must do everything we can to deter that from happening........

© Pearls and Irritations