Will Albo’s crocodile diplomacy discourage China’s flotillas?

Mr Albanese appears to be feeding the crocodile and hoping it eats us last.

It was the Labor Party that spent a decade mocking the idea that China could ever be a threat, dismissing concerns about foreign interference as ‘anti-Chinese racism’, and attacking any politician who dared mention the words ‘strategic competition’. It was Labor’s punters who ridiculed the 2018 foreign interference laws, who whinged about the calling-out of Confucius Institutes, who sneered at the Coalition’s Pacific Step-Up as ‘climate denialism in disguise’.

And it is Albanese himself who, as Prime Minister, has gone out of his way to cosy up to Beijing by increasing defence expenditure somewhere in the distant future while simultaneously ignoring calls from Washington to protect, not restrict, freedom of speech.

My article in The Spectator Australia, Will Albo’s crocodile diplomacy discourage China’s flotillas? 

As China’s latest flotilla sails closer, Australians are entitled to ask their Prime Minister whose side he is on... 🤔

Crocodile diplomacy is the belief that sweet words and shared hatred of America will buy you safety in a world of hard power.

The same ideological current… pic.twitter.com/tlOonQbBJ5

— The Spectator Australia (@SpectatorOz) December 3, 2025