When the world changes, it’s folly not to change with it.

Finding itself in an external environment that is in many respects full of shocks, the Albanese government is staking out a more independent – or at the very least, a less America-dependent – security and diplomatic stance for Australia.

Illustration by Dionne Gain

As is its way, rather than galloping in this direction, the government is crab walking. Anthony Albanese goes out of his way not to make a big deal of it and never wants to look like he’s undermining Donald Trump. He continues to send the hefty cheques to America to keep AUKUS alive and has said several times this week that Trump is an enduring “advocate for peace in the Middle East”, which is what the US president likes to hear. But the signs of the shift are mounting.

The AUKUS agreement was conceived chiefly to thwart China’s territorial and defence ambitions in our larger region. Knowing that the future of AUKUS is being reconsidered by the Trump administration and that Trump is capricious and often punitive in the way he applies tariffs against those who don’t dance to his tune, Australia under Albanese is nevertheless steadfastly building on a more accommodating approach towards China. The prime minister’s reasoning is simple: China underpins our economy and it pays not to overtly antagonise it. Meanwhile, America remains fixated on viewing China as its great economic competitor and geopolitical rival.

Albanese’s point-blank rejection of a series of direct and indirect demands from Trump’s Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and US government factotums to almost double its defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP is perhaps the boldest stance he has taken as PM. Albanese’s........

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