Yet strategic clarity was absent from an August 6 speech in which Turnbull argued that "it is important not to forget that in Australia's [World War II] battle for survival against Japan our longest ally was China itself". This was a distortion: China was neither a formal "ally" of Australia's nor our "longest" partner in the war – that would be Britain.

"In our darkest hour, when our foes were literally on our doorstep, when our cities were under direct military attack – then, at that tipping point in our history, China was our staunch, indefatigable ally," Turnbull continued.

"Without China's endurance and courage in the face of Japan our war history may have ended very differently indeed."

Two problems with this analysis are that, first, it was the American – and not Chinese – bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that decisively ended the war, and, second, Turnbull highlights a 70-year-old episode that has scant relevance to contemporary circumstances.

In claiming in the speech that "our relationship with China is well understood as being our most important economic partnership" Turnbull also directly contradicted foreign minister Julie Bishop's January 2015 comments on this subject. Mark Graham

It would be like lauding President Vladimir Putin's Russia, which is also a corrupt, single-party state, for serving as such a wonderful ally against Nazi Germany in World War II.

Aside from diplomatically offending existing security partners (Japan and Germany), this logic ignores the many divisive actions of China and Russia towards the West in the decades since.

For Australia's second-biggest trade relationship and most significant Asian security partner, Japan, Turnbull offered no balancing remarks citing China's unilateral attempts to claim disputed territory in international waters, the military expansion that has precipitated a regional arms race, or its intelligence conflicts with the West, which are the most heated since the Cold War.


Only last week the commander of the North Sea Fleet for the People's Liberation Army navy, Vice-Admiral Yuan Yubai, warned his American and Japanese counterparts that the South China Sea "belongs to China".

Alex Turnbull (left) and his partner Yvonne Wang on the right. supplied

East Asian waters are now contested by China, Brunei, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam with China recently inflaming tensions by building several new artificial islands with airstrips long enough to carry fourth generation military fighters.

In claiming in the speech that "our relationship with China is well understood as being our most important economic partnership" Turnbull also directly contradicted Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's January 2015 comments on this subject.

After a private meeting with US Vice-President Joe Biden, Bishop told The Australian Financial Review that "our single most important economic partner is, in fact, the United States".

In a speech that day she argued that "when you combine Australian and US two-way trade with investment, it stands at over $1 trillion".

Even after receiving briefings on Hauwei from ASIO and the Australian Signals Directorate, Turnbull thought Australia could possibly emulate the British model of leveraging off Huawei's cheap technology while mitigating security concerns. AFR

"So in respect of who is our 'best friend' in economic terms, it is undeniably the US. While China is, of course, our largest merchandise trading partner, I would just make that point – as I am here in Washington."


Turnbull is undoubtedly a learned Sinophile with a mandarin-speaking son with marital ties to a former academic "government adviser" who, according to Fairfax Media's John Garnaut, was "well connected" in Shanghai and "on good terms with former president Jiang Zemin".

This unique knowledge and experience could be a tremendous advantage in helping Australia navigate regional security and trade issues. The risk is that the conviction it imbues in an instinctively assertive Turnbull leads to dubious decision-making.

In opposition and government Turnbull – an encyclopedic technologist and prescient advocate of China's economic potential – was an eager agitator to have the Coalition revisit Labor's decision to ban the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei from the National Broadband Network on the advice of intelligence agencies.

Even after receiving briefings on Huawei from ASIO and the Australian Signals Directorate, Turnbull thought Australia could possibly emulate the British model of leveraging off Huawei's cheap technology while mitigating security concerns.

This was emphatically not the preference of ASIO, ASD, the Attorney-General, George Brandis, then Prime Minister Tony Abbott, or Australia's top security ally, the United States.

The dissenting calls from some Liberal ministers, including Turnbull, to revisit the Huawei decision eventually forced Abbott to clarify in writing that the ban would not be lifted.

Irrespective of whether Huawei posed a potential security threat, the higher order insight here is that all telecommunications companies, including the likes of AT & T, Cisco and Telstra, can be compelled by their parent states to facilitate legitimate foreign espionage.

On this basis alone one can conclude that essential critical infrastructure should be built and maintained by domestic (or vetted allied) entities, even if that imposes higher costs.

Australian billionaires with one-eyed economic interests in China are thrilled with Turnbull's extraordinary ascension.

The security community has not made its mind up.