Deng Xiaoping once famously urged China to bide its time in its foreign relations. Maybe that is the best option now for Australia.

On top of now settled sources of friction, over Taiwan, Hong Kong and the South China Sea and cyber attacks, there are numerous other points of conflict.
The precise scope of the World Health Organisation inquiry into COVID-19 will be a battleground in itself, with Beijing certain to resist unsupervised access to Wuhan.
When Australia begins to enforce its foreign interference laws, passed in 2018, it will shine an uncomfortable light on the Chinese community organisations in Australia that act as virtual Chinese Communist Party lobbies.
As US-China relations spiral down, Australia-China relations are likely to deteriorate alongside the superpower conflict.
There is no nice way to push back against Beijing, and it will doubtless come at a cost.
In sum, there is no quick fix to the parlous bi-lateral relationship. There is no nice way to push back against Beijing, and it will doubtless come at a cost.
The approach of the more hawkish participants in the China debate to calibrating such costs is much like the way one of the British officers discusses battle tactics in “Master & Commander”, the classic series of nautical novels set in the early 19th century.
Never mind the manoeuvres, the officer says, always go straight at them.
If Australian exporters lose valuable markets in the process, so be it. To argue otherwise, they contend, amounts to appeasement and taking the money, and sovereignty be damned.
But it isnt just mining barons in Australia who are taking the money, although they do a pretty good job of it. The whole country is, most importantly of all, the treasury, through personal and corporate tax receipts.
A healthy budget doesnt just fund health, education and social services, through good times and bad. It also pays for the substantial defence build-up for which the same hawks (rightly) are arguing.
Diverting trade from China is not necessarily diversification if the alternative markets arent there.
Australia in this respect is in a similar position to Japan. Both countries are spending more on defence in readiness for the rise of China. But to pay for extra defence spending, they partly rely on China to succeed.
However one describes this dilemma it is either a vicious or a virtuous circle the bigger point is that you dont strengthen your national security by deliberately shrinking your trade and the economy.
Certainly, diversifying trade is desirable. But diverting trade from China is not necessarily diversification if the alternative markets arent there. In fact, it amounts to a loss of national income
It is all very well to talk about what large markets India and Indonesia will be in two decades. Compared to China, both countries economies are underperformers.
It is possibly too late to change the downwards trajectory of bi-lateral relations. Australia and China increasingly have hard and settled views of each other. Whatever each country does, the other will assume they are acting out of the worst motives.
But perhaps there is a smarter way for Australia to play its hand.
When China was weaker in the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping famously prescribed a policy for relations with the outside world known by its shorthand of “hide and bide”.
In other words, Beijing would, as a matter of tactics, conceal its ambitions and bide its time until it was stronger, all the while not compromising any of its fundamental positions.
It was not a recipe for ceding Chinas interests. Rather, Deng was resolving to preserve them so they could be advanced at an opportune time.
If there was ever any doubt that such a policy was out of date, Xi Jinping has made sure to throw it out the window altogether. China isnt biding its time under his rule.
Therein, there might be a useful prescription for Australia. We need more Deng and less Xi in setting our diplomatic parameters.
After all, Australias tougher policy foreign interference laws and the exclusion of Huawei from the new telecommunications network had a clear aim.
We wanted to make ourselves a harder target for China, not the sitting duck that we might end up being.