Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps27 Helmi 2025

“Chinese War Games” with Sam Roggeveen

How should medium-sized countries respond when they're bullied by a superpower? The question applies as much to Canada dealing with President Trump as to Australia reacting to China.

Last Friday, the pilot of a Virgin Australia flight from Australia to New Zealand noticed a flash of weapons from a Chinese warship just a few hundred miles off the coast of Sydney. Other passenger planes suddenly got mid-air warnings to divert course. The Australian government scrambled to reassure citizens that nothing was amiss.

But this is the first time China has sent naval assets so far south down the Australian coast. It's the first time they've conducted live-fire exercises so close to Australia, inside its exclusive economic zone, in a busy flight corridor linking the region's only two Western democracies.

What's going on? How should we react? Is a China-U.S. war in the 21st century inevitable?

Sam Roggeveen is a former intelligence officer and a foreign policy analyst who now heads the International Security Program at the Lowy Institute, Australia's preeminent international policy think tank.

He and Josh discuss China's belligerence, the Australia-U.S. alliance, Trumpist isolationism, Taiwan, NATO, and immigration. His book is The Echidna Strategy, an argument for developing an independent security strategy.

Watch this conversation on YouTube. And you’re missing out on our best ad-free content if you haven’t popped over to the Uncomfy Convos Substack page.

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