Why would we stop trading with them? What would that achieve? It's not like we can put pressure on the Chinese population to force a change at the next election.
Not quite. In the age of countering disinformation, the play is to get your narrative out first to stop the other guy from getting his out (the first one usually wins the battle for supremacy). You will note that the US released heaps of intelligence in the lead up to the invasion, saying what was going to happen, where and when. This either stopped Russia from carrying out acts (false flag ops were foiled) or ensured that they were unable to attach their reasoning to their own actions (other than for the people who want to believe Russia no matter what). This approach has been very successful and you can now see the same thing occurring in Moldova/Transdneistra with the claims that Russia is prepping a false flag there, possibly to attack Odessa or Moldova proper.
The US have been very front-footed about China's intent shifting to supply Russia. Given the importance of that relationship, the release of the intelligence around China considering supplying lethal aid to Russia would have been cleared by the President. So I'd be pretty confident that their claims are accurate on this count. If you care to look for it, you can also find some pretty convincing (not to say conclusive) evidence that that has been lethal military aid crossing the border from DPRK into Russia. There is considerable authoritative opinion that that aid originated in China. All in open source if you care to search for it.
There are no islands between Japan and China. There are the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, which they argue over, but they haven't been militarised as they're far too small. The southern islands of Japan have large deployments/capabilities/defences on them, but that's been the case since WWII - many of those capabilities are American.
RP isn't an open book to the US, although I acknowledge that under Bongbong they're currently opening up again. But, under Duterte, the previous president there was real doubt whether the US would retain access to Subic and other points. This was not the first time the US had access restricted. The US had to remove all its forces from the Philippines for almost a decade in the 1990s. Also keep in mind that the RP Pres. only gets a single 5 year term in office, so the political tides can change pretty quickly up there.
I'm sorry, I don't mean to be argumentative, but there is just so much wrong with what you've said there.
China cannot cut trade with us on iron ore, coal and other raw materials. Plus, they have a lot of investments here they want to retain access to. However, China has just gone through a period of trying to coerce Australia economically, cutting access for 14 ranges of commodity. From lobster, to barley to red wide, etc. etc. It hurt many Australian producers, but Australia didn't buckle and many of those producers blamed China, rather than pressuring the Aust govt. So the Chinese strategy of economic coercion has failed and they're starting to take shipments of many of these commodities again. But don't make the mistake of thinking that they won't accpet hardship in order to inflict pain on us if they have to. IF they wanted to, They could easily turn off the tap off of Chinese students in a month, and that would hurt us pretty bad. They could stop a lot of investment in Australian real estate and so many other areas that would have an impact.
Do we care if China has dominance in the region? Well, just have a look at the South China Sea and the nine dash line. That's what dominance looks like. They are trying to tell the Filipinos, Vietnamese, MAlysians, etc, that they can't send their navy out to protect their own coast lines - that China owns their front door step because "China was there first". According to the way China reads the script, they can sail the PLAN right up to the door step of multiple other countries, do what they want in that water and the other countries should happily accept it. That is called coercive control and a loss of sovereignty. If this were to be the case, China could use force to coerce any country in that region whenever it wanted.
Have a look at how China treats its own citizens, you think it's going to treat the citizens of other countries any better than that when they have dominance over them? Maybe dig into how Chinese firms treat local workers when they own large projects off shore to give an indication. Then look at the kind of governments they prop up in Africa and elsewhere and ask yourself what a China dominated region might look like in practice.
We can feed ourselves? You might want to look up where we get our fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides from, just for a start. Then consider that we want our future to be based on prosperity, not simple survival. Have a read into how much of our fresh food is imported from OS. Then consider the shocks we've endured over the last two years due to severe weather events. Put that picture together and ask yourself how resilient we REALLY are.
Naval blockades: I think you need to do a bit of reading into how they work. There are near blockades, there are far blockades. That alone should give you enough understanding that it's not only about sealing physical access. Then you can consider what would happen to the cost of shipping/insurance if a number of vessels were simply boarded and commandeered for a few weeks in the Indian and PAcific Oceans. You can also consider the impact if just a single vessel was scuttled in a deniable operation carried out by a submarine. There are many ways to skin a cat when you want to disrupt the flow of commerce to an island.
If they don't see us as a threat, why do we measure disproportionately in Chinese attention? Why have we been the major target for Chinese economic coercion over the past 3-4 years? Have a read of DG ASIO's annual threat brief from Monday this week and try to make a convincing argument that China doesn't see Australia as a threat. Read the last two defence white papers and strategic updates and make the argument that the Dept. of Defence doesn't feel threatened by Chinese capability and intent.
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There's clear intimidation with Japan and the Philippines with Chinese navel ships, it is obvious about the sea floor mining and there are pics of that around too, they could play nicer but they don't. The dick show of the biggest rockets is another issue, no point in taking a knife to a fight if you're not prepared to use it.
