Ross Babbage, a former senior defense official and founder of the Kokoda Foundation which enjoys a close relationship with the Australian Department of Defence, once called upon Australia to completely reconfigure its defense strategy in order to deter China or in his previous parlance to prepare to "rip an arm off" China.

During recent conversations with Ross Babbage in the United States and then Australia, we discussed the dynamics of change in the global environment and the challenges posed to the liberal democracies by the illiberal powers.

For instance, a study by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and Australia’s Strategic Forum published last year concluded that China had alarmingly increased its expansionism in the South China Sea since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012.

When considering Australia’s future in Asia, many of us have had difficulty looking beyond China—but we have many better options in Asia. At the core of our misperceptions are six myths about the potential for cooperation with Beijing.

Ross Babbage, a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for Strategic Budgetary Assessments, a Washington-based think tank that focuses on the military, said the move may be “military signaling” by the United States.

In a December strategy report, Ross Babbage, senior fellow at U.S. think tank Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, explained: “In effect, Beijing is pressuring regional countries into an arrangement that mirrors the contract struck with its own people: economic benefits in exchange for political compliance, with a big stick lurking in the background threatening retaliation for aberrant behavior. … Significant damage is being done to U.S. and allied credibility. In the absence of major changes in allied policy, much of Southeast Asia will likely shift into Beijing’s orbit.”