We need a more coherent and confident sense of ourselves. We don't have to choose between America and China, but America needs to understand that on several issues Australia's national objectives will not coincide with hers. This has been so in the past but over the past 15 to 20 years we have become too compliant, too subservient in the false belief that that would create security for Australia.

A more independent Australia can do much if she works effectively with other countries such as Canada, Finland, Sweden and Norway as well as countries such as Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. A loose coalition of middle powers can carry significant weight.

What I am saying is not particularly new for Australia. When China was shelling offshore islands close to Taiwan in the 1950s, the US moved its Pacific fleet in or close to the Taiwan Strait, and invasion of Taiwan from China was then feared. That likelihood is now increasingly remote. But in the middle of the 1950s, only a year or two after the ANZUS treaty had been signed, then Australian prime minister Robert Menzies told the US that if it went to war with China over Taiwan, Australia would not be part of it. Menzies had a longer-term understanding of the necessity of Australia's future than has been shown by any current leaders.

The US President cannot go to war unless both houses of Congress have passed an appropriate resolution under their war powers. It is time Australia adopted the same practice.

Slavish devotion to the US a Foreign Policy folly for Australia