How can Australia avoid being dragged into a war with China? Is building up our own military the best way to manage what is, diplomatically speaking, a relationship with a “frenemy”? And not just any frenemy, but one armed with nuclear weapons?

This is Australia’s current tactic, cemented on Monday, when the Albanese government announced that it was going ahead with its plan to buy cruise missiles from the United States. Even though Beijing has previously claimed that our acquisition of these missiles would be “triggering a regional arms race”.

Today, international and political editor Peter Hartcher, on what Kevin Rudd, now the Australian ambassador to the United States, has said about how we should navigate what he’s called “the decade of living dangerously”.

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