Peter Hartcher is the political editor and international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. He is a Gold Walkley award winner, a former foreign correspondent in Tokyo and Washington, and a visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. His latest book is The Sweet Spot: How Australia Made its Own Luck and Could Now Throw it All Away. His 2005 book, Bubble Man: Alan Greenspan and the Missing Seven Trillion Dollars, foresaw the collapse of the US housing market and the economic slump that followed.
On Friday, China's richest man bought part-ownership of Sony Pictures, one of the Big Six movie studios that dominate Hollywood. He's the same man who last year bought Hoyts with its 450 screens in Australia.
The Western world this week crossed a threshold into a new intolerance. Australia, which has been spared the worst of the economic and social disarray of the US and Europe in the last decade, nonetheless seems to have crossed the ugly threshold too.
Julie Bishop is ready for her next assignment – the education of Donald Trump.
A war would be disastrous for all; but with such underlying animosity dating back centuries, it could well prove popular in both countries.
The Sam Dastyari affair was for most a confirmation of how the political system works.
The Asia-Pacific "shared destiny" is, of course, to be written in Beijing.
The federal parliament is the most important in Australia. It's also more open to corruption than any State parliament.
By buying Saudi oil, we in the West have funded the fomenting of the fundamentalist movement that now assaults our security and our civilisation.
There's been quite a bit of publicity over the induction process for the new politicians who'll take their sets in parliament when it resumes next week – "senators' school", for instance.
Beijing will bluster but will accept Scott Morrison's decision to block two Chinese firms from buying a controlling stake in Sydney's electricity network
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