Earlier this month, publisher Allen & Unwin pulled the plug on my book, Silent Invasion: How China is turning Australia into a Puppet State. The book was about to go to the typesetter. It would have been my ninth release with the company.

The publisher dropped the book – or delayed it until some vague point in the future after some legal actions had been resolved – because they are afraid of commercially damaging retaliation instigated by the Chinese Communist Party.

Author Clive Hamilton's book on China's influence on Australia was dropped. Credit:Rohan Thomson

No actual threats were made by Beijing or its agents; the shadow it now casts over Australia was enough. The fear of the Communist Party in the hearts of much of the Chinese diaspora here has spread into the mainstream.

Allen & Unwin is probably the most admired publisher in Australia, certainly within the industry. So its decision is a major turning point in Australia's political history, for it signals that a powerful, authoritarian foreign state can suppress criticism of it abroad, and so smooth the path for its ongoing campaign to shift this country into its orbit.