Part 4/10:
The bilateral visit coincides with heightened Chinese military activities across the Indo-Pacific region. Sheridan highlights recent Chinese incursions into Japanese and Taiwanese airspace, threatening regional stability and freedom of navigation. China has also been conducting live-fire military exercises and circumnavigating Australia’s continent, behaviors that underscore its assertiveness and strategic ambitions.
Sheridan criticizes Albanese’s relatively muted diplomatic response, emphasizing that Australia's concerns should have been stronger and more explicit. Instead, Albanese's minimal protests have allowed Xi Jinping to broadcast a narrative that Australia and even, by extension, the United States, do not oppose China's troubling regional military activities.