In the good old days, I could be sure that anytime I saw an article by Greg Sheridan I would disagree with it, and immediately would have copy, something to write about, someone to refute. But, then one day, maybe I changed, he changed, we both changed, or the world changed, and I could see that it was far too simplistic to view him as an enemy, but rather, he was a complex thinker, always with an interesting point of view, that sometimes was surprising. Take the rise of China for example:
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/world/while-unlikely-to-be-realised-soon-chinese-threat-shouldnt-be-ignored/news-story/5d86ace47ef871e37790fa9128671f9b?utm_source=The%20Australian&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_content=TodaySHeadlines
“China’s President Xi Jinping never leaves you in any doubt what he thinks. So his warning is typically stark. Any effort to prise a region away from China will result in “in crushed bodies and shattered bones”. This is a very direct threat to the protesters of Hong Kong, although he has not addressed the Hong Kong disturbances directly by name. Nonetheless, the balance of probability would have to be that the mainland Chinese forces are not likely to undertake a massive 1989 Tiananmen massacre style intervention in Hong Kong, at least not yet. They will intervene if they feel they have to. Although any such intervention will be very tough, it will still likely involve a much more sophisticated and discriminate use of force than Tiananmen did. However, Beijing scored a big victory on Hong Kong recently. Donald Trump in announcing, prematurely, that he and Beijing have come to a trade deal, also remarked that he thought the troubles in Hong Kong were subsiding and the Chinese government would handle them fine. In one way, Trump’s remarks are prudent enough. International leaders should be very careful what they say about Hong Kong, because if Beijing does intervene there, not a single foreigner will go to help the local Hong Kongers. However, Trump was capable of applying some leverage to Beijing, and now he’s chosen not to. He hasn’t, as he did with the Turks, given Beijing a green light for action, but he has said more or less that he isn’t much concerned with what’s happening in Hong Kong.