The West was expecting China to be one of many economically viable but politically and culturally bastardized countires in east Asia.
It invested a lot in this cause, from appeasing to fifth-column aperations, to outright economic interventions.
It used a complicated mix of soft and hard power tools available.
The West invested in friendly groups, send over agent provacetours disguised as reporters, emnbassy officials, and even English teachers.
It adopted strategies as times changed, all the way from Nixon up till Trump.
The whole idea was to mold China into a hybrid form, half Japan (politics), half India (economy).
Trump was the pinnacle of Western all out assault on China short of a hot war. Yet, dialectic has its funny ways of molding history: The US establishment knew they were losing even before pandemic hit them hard.
In a mere few months, the US turned into a sick man of the world whereas China emerged as the only growing major economy in the world.
In this larger picture, Asutralia is really a side story. China, in a single move, has stripped them off all the false ideological superiority, leaving naked a mouth-foaming, weakened, angry and shreaking old Westerner.
It is the culminated Western hegemonism and ideological ego that is being battered by China and that is the most important of all fights. China is teaching the rest of the world that you can talk back, you can hit back, you can claim moral superiority, you do not have to feel ashamed of who you are and what kind of governance model you have.
The election of Biden was a white flag by the sick man of the world, which bodes not well for the likes of Australia and smaller ones like India.
The ailing Western ideological and information supremacy will continue to put up a fight, but it is weakened.