region explain to their neighbours the pace and scope of their military modernisation, to build confidence and trust. This is not a world in which a containment policy can work or be in our national interests; compared with the Cold War period, our mutual interests are much deeper and ideological differences much less marked." I hope in highlighting these points to give you a sense of the broad framework in which the Australian Government, and the Embassy here in Beijing and our Consulates-General in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong, operate with regard to our relationship with China. It was pleasing to see the People's Daily Online picked up these points in its article on Monday also! Along with India, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea, China is singled out in the paper as one of the countries we will make our "initial priorities". As the White Paper states, this is because of their size, economic links and strategic and political influence in the region and globally. Part of this process of prioritisation will involve ongoing consultations across Australian society, to identify opportunities and strengthen our national relationships. The Government also plans for this to lead to the production of comprehensive, publicly-available country strategies for these five countries, which will be tabled in Parliament. The White Paper also notes that we will give immediate priority to the future development of what we call our bilateral architecture with China (and India) -- this is something I strongly support. Overall, Australia and China already