Australia has never encountered an Asian country as powerful as China is today, and we have no idea how to deal with it. We still assume that America will be there to manage China’s rise and save us from choices we’d prefer not to face. But that assumption is no longer credible, so Australia must prepare to deal with a powerful China without US support. And to do that we must first think more carefully about the nature of Chinese power and what it means for Australia. That means exploring how China’s economic weight translates into military, political and diplomatic power, understanding how China wants to use that power, considering how all this affects us, and deciding what we can do about it. And that implies a revolution in our foreign and strategic policies, which will not be comfortable. Indeed it is one of the biggest challenges we have ever faced as a country.