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TT: The Chinese threat to invade Taiwan is serious and more imminent than many understand, the US admiral chosen to lead the Pentagon’s Indo-Pacific region said on Tuesday.

US Navy Admiral John Aquilino: “My opinion is that this problem is much closer to us than most think and we have to take this on. The Chinese Communist Party has generated some capabilities in the region that are designed to keep us out."

Looking at it from Australia's angle, the entanglement with China through manufacturing is massive. Is it big enough to prevent Australia taking sides should it come to war?

The major hardware store in Australia is called Bunnings. They arrived on the scene about 30 years ago. They introduced a model of mega-stores and bulk buying and their slogan was "we'll beat any competitors' price by 10%". They were popular with customers coz of cheaper prices and a large range. They still have the same slogan but it's kind of a moot point coz Bunnings won - there are no competitors to beat anymore - they all collapsed. Plus Bunnings have mostly their own exclusive brands now - the 10% slogan stipulates that it must be the 'same stocked brand'.

The thing is, i'm only guessing here, but conservatively, 70% of Bunnings' stock is manufactured in China - including all power tools.

What's going to happen if there's a war with China? If Australia does take even a moral stand, all those shelves in Bunnings are going to empty overnight. You can then multiply that by a bunch of other stores reliant on China for products. How does Australia function without these daily-life essential goods?

We've mentioned it before but it bears repeating. Democratic countries must urgently start decoupling from China. We weren't doing a roaring trade with the Soviet Union and cooperating on biodefense research - it's insane that we are doing it with China.