Like some dark, back alley bitch and pimp relationship, having been lured and seduced in to servicing China’s need for coal and iron ore and receiving payment in kind and mainlining their containers of cheap stuff, Australia is well and truly on the hook and on the horns of a dilemma.
Like the boiling frog analogy, the heat is rising on this polygamous, three way marriage of convenience between our US defence alliance on the one hand and the symbiotic, mutually beneficial, China trade relationship on the other and something eventually has got to give.
What, when and how to keep this Chinese acrobatic plate spinning show on the road without crashing our economy, the US alliance or both, will take some rather deft and adroit marriage counselling and diplomatic skill.
Tick, tock.