Commentary What is remarkable, says Peter Jennings, is the ability of so many in Australia to deny what is obvious about Beijing’s intentions. Jennings, Australian Strategic Policy Institute executive director, rightly believes that Beijing’s global policy of bullying, brinkmanship, and backdown is driving the Indo-Pacific closer to conflict. What is clear is that this is not the time for politicians to be starry-eyed about Beijing’s real intentions or to engage in appeasement. The accusation by Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong that the Morrison government is endangering our relationship with China by using “alarmist rhetoric” for “domestic political gain” is a step back to the naïve accommodation that politicians on both sides here and overseas have far too often shown in relation to Communist China. This has at times been worse than appeasement. So many politicians and other elites in business, the academy, and the media have been dazzled by …