Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s recent trip to Vietnam is a recognition that Australia’s relationship with the Southeast Asian nation is important on its own terms – not just in how it relates our broader relationships with the United States and China.
As such, it was surprising to see that a nicely executed state visit to a mid-power in the region, which resulted in the mooted upgrading of a “strategic partnership” to a “comprehensive strategic partnership”, had failed to generate substantive headlines, or capture the public imagination.
