Is this what the build-up to war feels like? ticker VIEWS

On June 15, 2016, Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger stood before a crowd of 3000 celebrities, political leaders and super-fans, to proclaim that Shanghai Disneyland was “authentically Disney, distinctly Chinese”.

It’s the capitalists way of saying “we didn’t get everything we wanted, but they didn’t either.”

Six years since then, Shanghai Disneyland Park has been a roaring success. While many Chinese visitors don’t exactly know every Disney character, they know they should enjoy it.

Six years later, a trade war later, a three Presidents later, relations between China and the west are at a critical level.

In the decade of negotiations leading up to that June 2016 opening of Disneyland, Bob Iger never could have foreseen the geopolitical shift that has occurred so quickly.

Even Australia is looking to build up a stockpile of missiles, Japan has just released a white paper describing the Taiwan situation as a crisis.

“Stabilising the situation surrounding Taiwan is important for Japan’s security and the stability of the international community,” the white paper said. “Therefore, it is necessary that we pay close attention to the situation with a sense of crisis more than ever before.”

JAPANESE GOVERNMENT WHITE PAPER

This is an extraordinary shift in tone, as the world is confronted by an aggressive Chinese state.

Australia has been China’s whipping boy since last year, when the Prime Minister called for a WHO investigation into the origins of COVID19.

Five Prime Ministers ago, under Kevin Rudd’s administration, Xi Jinping was a guest in Canberra. He even attended an AFL match. Now the Chinese won’t send us any students or even drink our Shiraz.

WASHINGTON IS WATCHING

Japan’s latest assessment of the China threat to the region will be watched closely in Washington and Canberra. But other countries too. While China knows how to buy friends and influence governments, it’s also very good at creating enemies, on pretty much every territorial border.

Our generation has grown up without the threat of conscription, and despite the yearly services in Australia to mark Anzac Day, the dreadful realities of world wars have drifted into the distance.

Our focus is on wealth creation, not city destruction. War seems irresponsible and difficult to comprehend.

Yet the similarities in tone between the west and China, and say, the west and Japan or German in the 1930s feels eerily similar.

When we hear about missile shields, mass missile production and territorial crisis, we are instantly reminded how fragile peace can be.

One can only hope we can ride the current wave. And maybe visit Disneyland Shanghai one day too.