Not long ago, Hong Kong’s renowned director Johnnie To’s interview with the foreign media about the death of Hong Kong cinema due to the restriction of creative freedom under China’s political tightening has aroused a great deal of concern and rebuttal from pro-government people. However, two weeks ago, the Hong Kong movie “Breaking Hell”, starring Wong Tze Wah and Hui Koon-man, was released in Hong Kong. Inferno, which broke the box office on its first day of release with 1,000 screenings and grossed over HK$60 million in 11 days, has been the talk of the town every day, and has been used by the official Chinese media as a reason for questioning director Johnnie To’s claims.

However, anyone who knows how to think can tell that the popularity of a movie is not directly related to the freedom of movie making. However, Breaking Hell has indeed become a phenomenon worth discussing in Hong Kong.

The film is the first of its kind in Hong Kong to focus entirely on the funeral industry. The story is set in Hong Kong in the midst of the new Crown Pneumonia epidemic, and tells the story of “Wei Dao Sheng” (Wong Tze Wah), a former wedding planner who has no choice but to join the booming funeral industry in the midst of the recession and become a funeral broker. “As he tries to apply his business acumen to his work, he clashes with his mentor, Man (Hui Koon Man), over the contradiction between tradition and innovation. In the course of their relationship and cooperation, the two explore the complex meaning of life and death together. As of Tuesday, the box office has already exceeded $60 million, and on the 16th of last week, the box office reached $9.05 million, with more than 120,000 people attending the movie, making it the highest one-day box office record for a Hong Kong movie.

A Different Story
The movie “Hell” is set in Hong Kong’s funeral industry. To put it bluntly, it takes an outsider’s point of view to lead the audience into the mysterious and traditional field, reflecting the changes in Hong Kong’s society in the aftermath of the epidemic. Originally a middle-class wedding planner, Mr. Wei Dao Sheng lost his job during the epidemic and became heavily indebted. In order to make a living, he changed his profession to become a funeral service salesman, commonly known as a “funeral parlor”. Being an “outsider”, Dawson did not understand the traditions of the local funeral industry, let alone the mentality of the customers, i.e. the bereaved families. At the beginning of his career, Daw Sang encountered many obstacles, until he befriended Man, a former master of the funeral trade, who taught him how to “put the living first”.

The movie is also a clichéd story of family reconciliation. The traditional hell-breaking ceremony is passed on to men but not to women, thus creating a rift between Man and his son, Chi-Bin, and daughter, Wen Yueh. In the end, a death ritual is performed to reconcile the deceased with the living, and the audience is able to feel relieved. The script of Breaking Hell is simple and delicate, with individual vignettes explaining how Dawson learns how to care for the living from the cases of different victims, so that the audience can understand the meaning of living together. The movie is originally of a heavy and depressing style, but the roles of Wong Tze Wah and Hui Koon-man, two actors who are generally regarded as comedians by the audience in the past, make the movie a wonderful chemical effect.

The English title of the movie is also very special – “The Last Dance”, which symbolizes the last dance for the deceased, and also provides an opportunity for the living to say goodbye officially. In the film, a freshman humanist in the funeral industry recognizes that the ceremony is sometimes for the living. At a funeral, the living are given the opportunity to say a formal goodbye. Whether it is a chance to cry or to organize and express their thoughts, emotions are taken care of, and this is an important process to help the living gradually face death and accept their loss. No matter how many grudges we had with the deceased, everything should be put aside the moment the body turns into white smoke. In the face of death, everyone can feel the pain of the heart, and it is because of this that it is especially important to say goodbye to the other person seriously.

Beyond Rituals: Breaking through the Dilemma
As an ancient civilization with a long history, China’s funeral rituals are not the same in each different historical period, after thousands of years of long sedimentation and development, formed a set of complex funeral rituals, the content of which is mainly manifested in the form of funeral and burial, such as wearing mourning, streamers to attract souls, reciting the scriptures and other forms of rituals with a strong color of feudal superstition. In the disposal of the body, the main coffin burial, earth burial is the main form of funeral in old China. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, funeral reforms were initiated, and in February 1985, the Chinese government issued the Provisional Provisions on Funeral Management, which determined that cremation should be actively and step-by-step implemented, while traditional forms of cremation, earth burial, sky burial, and water burial have been preserved in ethnic minority areas. The “breaking of hell” in the movie is an important funeral ritual in the Taoist faith, aiming to perform the “breaking of hell” for the deceased, so that they can be released from hell and rest in peace.

The Taoist community has different views on who should perform the “Hell Breaking” ritual. Generally speaking, only those who died at a young age, died in an accident or committed suicide need to perform the “hell-breaking” rituals, but some say that people always make mistakes in their lives, so everyone needs to perform the hell-breaking rituals after their deaths in order to be freed from hell. After the director, Mr. Chan Mau-yin, had the initial concept of the script, he contacted a funeral consultant and, with the consent of the family members of the deceased, he observed the process from the mortuary to the funeral parlour and the whole ceremony for many times, which allowed him to observe various kinds of deceased in good or bad health conditions, and to understand this unfamiliar industry from the mouths of the real practitioners, which allowed him to restore the most complete scene of the funeral service in front of the audience.

The “hell-breaking” shown in the movie goes far beyond the ceremony itself, it is not a quick fix, but a continuous process. It requires courage to face the past, to talk to oneself honestly, and to look at all experiences through the lens of love. The movie shows viewers the multiple facets of life – birth and death, love and separation, pain and redemption. Behind every hell lies a path to light. As long as people are willing to face these hells, the ultimate exit will be inner peace and fulfillment. The true meaning of “Breaking Hell” is to awaken people from the predicament of life, to learn to embrace the coexistence of shadow and light, and to meet the challenges of each day with a calmer mind. When people break the hell in their hearts, spiritual redemption will follow, and life will truly be transformed.

The Renaissance of Hong Kong Cinema
The success of Breaking Hell has also injected a shot in the arm for Hong Kong’s movie industry, which has been under much skepticism in recent years. Since the 1980s, with the change of time and the influence of the external environment, Hong Kong movies, which used to be known as the “Hollywood of the Orient”, seem to have gradually lost their former glory. However, Breaking Hell proves that as long as we maintain our creative edge, write good stories, and rely on excellent local talents, Hong Kong movies can still be vibrant in the new era. The movie has not only become the opening champion of Hong Kong movies in 2024 at the box office, but more importantly, it has injected new vitality into the revival of Hong Kong movies. The reason for the movie’s success lies not only in its strong cast, but also in its profound cultural connotation and social significance.

The most profound part of the movie is that it points out that the rituals not only overcame the dead, but also overcame the living. The living are in a lot of trouble, so it is necessary to perform the rituals. This sense of ritual in traditional culture is not only a visual impact on the big screen, but also a deep reflection on the beauty of culture and the meaning of life. Through the delicate expression of these traditional rituals, the film explores the dialectical relationship between death and life, and triggers the audience to rethink their own time and culture. Director Chan Mau-yin skillfully utilizes “hell-breaking”, an intangible cultural heritage of Hong Kong, as an entry point, which not only allows the audience to feel the emotional value behind the traditional customs, but also arouses people’s concern and thinking about the funeral industry and its related culture.

“Breaking the Hell” is not only a funeral ritual in Taoism, but also an important part of the emotional bond between the living and the dead. By watching this movie, people may have a deeper understanding of life, learn to cherish the present moment and be grateful for what they have. Professor Murray, the protagonist of the popular Western novel The Last Fourteen Lessons of Tuesday, says, “Everyone knows they’re going to die, but no one wants to talk about it. The fear of death seems to be a human condition. Perhaps it is only when we let go of our obsession with life and death, our grudges against others, and our harshness towards ourselves that we truly begin the first step towards hell-breaking.

The movie is not only a spectacular cast, but also brings unprecedented visual and spiritual impact to the audience through the combination of real-life scenes and traditional culture. The brilliant performances of Wong Tze Wah and Hui Koon-man bring the movie to an emotional and philosophical level. Their different attitudes and understanding of death in the movie give the movie a strong depth of thought, making the audience think about their own attitudes towards life while enjoying the movie. Although the movie focuses on the funeral industry in Hong Kong – a work with strong regional cultural characteristics – it puts the eternal theme of life and death in the spotlight, which is common to all human beings and thus has a strong international resonance. This movie is much more than a shock to the senses, it is more of a baptism of the heart and mind.

Movies have influenced the world
Since the invention of the movie, the world’s largest film industry has been in Hollywood, followed by India with its large population. Movies were first made in Bombay, India, 130 years ago, and in China, which has a similarly large population, movies began to be made in Shanghai in 1905, with only a few Cantonese movies being made in Hong Kong at the time. However, due to China’s long history of civil wars and wars against Japan, many films were shot in Hong Kong in the 1930s, when the Shaw Brothers founded Shaw Brothers, which was the world’s largest film studio, and films were distributed to the Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. With the founding of Communist China, a large number of Chinese filmmakers came to Hong Kong, making Hong Kong the third largest film production center in the world. It is only since 30 years ago that the huge Chinese market has dominated the production of Chinese-language movies. Because of this, Cantonese movies, such as Kung Fu, Triad and Funny movies, have been influencing the development of world cinema for a long time in such a small population as Hong Kong.

However, China’s movie production has been subjected to various governmental regulations, and its themes and contents are limited, so it does not have a great influence on the world’s movie industry. As Hong Kong film productions have to develop the Chinese market, the number of films targeting the local community has decreased significantly. However, with the drastic changes in Hong Kong society in 2019, more and more local filmmakers are choosing to make films on Hong Kong society, and many of them have gained international recognition.

It remains to be seen how Hong Kong cinema will continue to develop, whether it will have the possibility of redevelopment, or whether it will gradually become a part of Chinese cinema. However, films like “Breaking Hell”, which can resonate with the majority of people in their daily lives, will probably stimulate the creation of Hong Kong films and open up new horizons, which is something that is yet to be seen.

On November 13, President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump met at the White House to discuss the transition of power.

Biden began his remarks by calling for a smooth transition of presidential power. Afterward, Trump said that politics is difficult, but the transition will be smooth. As Trump continues to “pick and choose” his new cabinet, at least 12 key positions have been filled. Among the candidates are experienced “familiar faces,” industry elites entering politics for the first time, and “close associates” who have supported Trump for years. After four years away from the White House, Trump has been given a second chance to return thanks to the votes of millions of American voters.

Accelerating the formation of a team to return to the White House
So far, Trump has announced candidates for the positions of Secretary of State, Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence, so the new cabinet team is taking shape. Most notably, Trump has appointed a group of people born after 1980 to serve as Director of National Intelligence and Attorney General; among them, the one that has caused the most public outcry is the nominee for U.S. Secretary of Defense, Fox News Channel host Pete Hegseth, who is 44 years old and graduated from Princeton and Harvard Universities, the oldest and most prestigious universities in the U.S. He has served in the U.S. Army National Civilian Police, the U.S. Army National Guard, the U.S. Army National Guard and the U.S. Navy. He served in the U.S. Army National Guard with deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo, Cuba. After retiring from the military, he joined Fox as a contributor in 2014 and quickly became a prime-time host and one of the co-hosts of the ace program Fox & Friends.

In addition to Hegseth, the new “post-80s” members of Trump’s cabinet include former New York State Representative Lee Zeldin, born in 1980, who serves as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator; New York State Republican Representative Elise Stefanik, born in 1984, who will serve as U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations; Tulsi Gabbard, who will serve as Attorney General; and Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, born in 1982. It is undeniable that Trump is already in his old age, and the nomination of the “post-80s” is probably to complete the “age transition” of the Republican Party’s power after he takes office, so that in the future he will rely more on the “post-80s” as his “political legacy”. After all, according to the U.S. Constitution, Trump will not be able to seek re-election after completing his term of office from 2025 to 2029, so he must be “far-sighted” in laying the groundwork for Vice President-elect Vance’s campaign four years later.

In addition, one of Trump’s obvious considerations in hiring is loyalty. Based on the “bitter lessons” of his last term, almost all of his nominees are loyal supporters of his own, such as Marks, who will lead the Department of Government Efficiency, and Kristi Noem, who has been nominated to be the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, who has been rated as a “Trump loyalist” by CNN and other U.S. media outlets. Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, undoubtedly a highlight, is headed by U.S. business mogul Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination, and operating outside of the federal government, will be tasked with a wide range of assignments. Nearly everyone agrees that the U.S. federal government, which employs more than 2 million people and spends more than $6 trillion a year, is wasteful and inefficient. Agreeing on what constitutes waste and how to eliminate it is a different matter. There is no doubt that this new department has a long way to go.
Policy Directions for the Next Four Years
During the election campaign, the Republican Party’s platform stated that it would work to “prevent a third world war, restore peace to Europe and the Middle East, and build a missile defense system that covers the entire United States”. It can be expected that the defense and military industries will continue to play an important role in the policy framework of the new U.S. government; in the next four years, U.S. military enterprises will face more opportunities, but also with the uncertainty brought by changes in the domestic political landscape. Trump himself has repeatedly stated that unless Ukraine is willing to negotiate with Russia, he will cut off military aid to the country after he takes office. He has also reiterated his first-term pledge to “rebuild and modernize the U.S. military”. Meanwhile, as Trump begins his second term in office, trust in the U.S. in the Western world, especially in Europe, is likely to decline further. Trump has repeatedly questioned whether the U.S. should remain in NATO, and has insisted that European countries need to spend more than 2% of their respective GDPs on military expenditures in order for the alliance to be worth maintaining.

Trump also repeatedly said during his campaign that he could end the Russian-Ukrainian war “in a day”. When asked how he would do that, he suggested overseeing a deal but declined to give specifics. A study written by two former Trump national security advisers in May said the U.S. should continue to supply Ukraine with weapons, but should condition its support on Kiev entering peace talks with Russia. In an interview with Ukrainian media outlet Suspilne a few days ago, Zelensky said that it is certain that with the policies of the current team in the White House, the war will end sooner. This is their approach and their commitment to the international community. Similar to the situation in Ukraine, Trump has promised to bring “peace” to the Middle East – suggesting that he will end the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza, as well as Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon – but Trump has not specified a specific method of realizing “peace” .

With reference to his previous first term, it is not difficult to learn that Trump’s economic policies are often accompanied by aggressive trade protection measures. During the election campaign, he proposed a 20% tariff on goods from all countries, a move that was undoubtedly an attempt to make up for the fiscal gap caused by tax cuts. At a time of deepening globalization, such a policy may trigger off trade friction among countries and even lead to discord in international relations. In Trump’s mindset, trade relations should not be equal, but rather “America First”. He has imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum products from EU countries, and is now likely to face more international trade disputes during his term of office. Trump’s policy stance will have a wide-ranging impact on U.S. exports and international cooperation, and could lead to global economic instability. In the face of intense competition and possible tariff wars, other countries are bound to respond, creating new challenges for international trade relations in the future.

How Australia is handling itself
A few days ago, Australian Prime Minister Albanese was interviewed and said he had spoken to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on the phone, saying it was a positive phone conversation and one of Trump’s first calls since his election, and that the two spoke for 10 minutes. The call covered security relations including the Australia-UK-US Trilateral Security Partnership (AUKUS) agreement. Under the AUKUS agreement, Australia will buy U.S. nuclear submarines over the next 10 years and work with the U.S. to develop new nuclear-powered submarines. Albanese said his relationship with US President-elect Donald Trump was off to a very good start. Foreign Minister Wong Ying-yin also signaled this month that the Australian government is confident in its alliance with the United States, its biggest security partner.

With Trump’s selection of China hawks for key positions in his new administration, it is expected that the US will urge Australia to do more to “stand up to China” and respond to China’s “growing assertiveness” in the Pacific. Albanese told the media that during his conversation with Trump he had suggested that it was in the US interest to have “fair trade” with its allies. He also emphasized that in the face of strategic competition between the US and China, while Australia is an ally of the US, China is also an important trading partner: it is Australia’s largest export market and a major buyer of Australian iron ore, natural gas and coal. There is no denying that the strategic rivalry between the United States and China is an issue that Australia is dealing with today. From the Prime Minister’s statement, it is easy to see that Australia wants to continue to play the role of a middle power, not taking sides but balancing between the US and China. But if Trump’s tariff threats materialize, global trade and investment will suffer, and the impact on China’s growth will spill over into Australia’s economy. The Australian economy would not be immune to an escalation of trade tensions, and the Australian government must be prepared for this.

Defense cooperation is another area where Australia and the United States have a close relationship. The U.S. is Australia’s primary security ally, with a U.S. Marine Corps stationed in the northern Australian city of Darwin, where an air base is being upgraded to accommodate the deployment of U.S. bombers. Australia is also desperate for White House assurances of continued support for the Orcus partnership. A recent poll shows that more than half of Australian respondents do not want to be involved in a Sino-U.S. conflict. Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating said the poll was a clear sign that people were seeing through the fog of the hyped-up “China threat” and were unwilling to get involved in a major conflict. He angrily criticized the Australian Labor government for being “completely out of touch” with the public on foreign policy, arguing that AUKUS would deepen Australia’s military bind with the US, thereby jeopardizing Australia’s own security. It is only by trumpeting himself as a peacemaker that Trump risks returning the US to a position of isolationism and exceptionalism. Fundamentally, this means that the US is neither friend nor foe to anyone. So even though the AUKUS deal has strong support from House and Senate Republicans, it will almost certainly be scrutinized by the Trump administration. There is a great deal of uncertainty about where the future will lead.

Would a change of government make a difference?
For Australians, it’s not just Trump that has changed the needs and development of AUKUS, it’s also clear that the attitudes of the two major political parties towards China will cause the ruling government to view AUKUS differently. In the last election, China clearly wanted the Labor Party to come to power because the Morrison government took a hard line against China. Now that a federal election is likely to be held in March-May next year, Albanese has shown that he has lost the support of many voters. If Liberal Mr. Dutton comes to power, what kind of attitude will he take towards China? It remains to be seen whether the Liberals will continue to adopt Morrison’s confrontational strategy, or whether they will downplay the conflict with China and keep a distance from the US. However, from the fact that both parties want to prevent China from further expanding its influence in the South Pacific Islands, it is clear that it is the common strategy of both parties to gain Trump’s support for AUKUS.

From this point of view, whether or not there is a change of government will not change the relationship between Australia and the United States significantly. However, even before Trump took office, some people in Australia proposed to replace former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who has long criticized Trump, to continue to serve as the U.S. ambassador. Rudd has never been satisfied with the isolationism of the United States promoted by Trump in his last term, and it is still uncertain whether Trump will become an obstacle to the relationship between Australia and the United States after he takes office. If the Liberal Party were to come to power, there is a strong possibility that Rudd could be replaced, which is something that Australians would be more interested in.

The 2024 U.S. presidential election witnessed a head-to-head confrontation between two polar opposites, nearly twenty years apart.

On the one hand, there is the Democratic Vice President, who replaced the elderly President Joe Biden on short notice in July this year – 60-year-old Kamala Harris could become the first woman to lead one of the world’s major economic and military powers – and on the other hand, there is 78-year-old former Republican President Donald Trump, who left the White House in 2021 in the midst of a chaotic campaign. On the other side is 78-year-old former Republican President Donald Trump, who made a spectacular political comeback after leaving the White House in 2021, escaping two impeachment proceedings in a chaotic situation, and being convicted in a court of law. Whatever the outcome of this historic vote, it is expected to have a crucial impact on the US and the rest of the world.

It’s a tight race, it’s a final push.
Ahead of the polls, Emily Hunt and Donald Trump put their final touches on a tense and anxious campaign in Pennsylvania on Monday. Both rivals are confident of victory, but in reality, the competition is fierce: just a few tens of thousands of votes could determine the outcome of the election. Those votes will be contested in seven clear swing states where the two contenders for the White House have been campaigning aggressively for months, spending hundreds of millions of dollars. Polls show Trump with a small lead in four states, Hershey with a small win in one, and a tie in the other two. But in all seven states, the gap between the two candidates is within the margin of error. Among these seven states, Pennsylvania has the most electoral votes. The U.S. is a federal state with indirect universal suffrage, where a candidate can be elected with a majority of the 538 electors, i.e., at least 270 electoral votes.

The quadrennial U.S. elections provide a window into American politics, economics, and society. This unusually heated campaign highlights a number of political stakes, and clearly shows the views and differences between the Democratic and Republican candidates.

After three years of high inflation, purchasing power has become a major concern for many Americans. During his presidency, Trump has lowered tax rates for the wealthiest and corporations, and this time he has promised to impose tariffs of more than 10 per cent on all imports, as well as to make the US the ‘Bitcoin and cryptocurrency capital of the world’. Georgette Hershey, on the other hand, presents herself as a middle-class candidate who wants to create ‘an economy of possibilities’. She promises to provide birth tax credits, support homeownership and promote entrepreneurship. And undoubtedly the most sensitive issue in this campaign is the number of illegal aliens in the country, which has peaked under President Biden’s leadership. Trump has promised to launch the largest deportation of illegal immigrants in U.S. history. Hershey is on the defensive, saying that she will adopt a tough policy and that there must be ‘consequences’ for those who enter the country illegally.

The United States is the most important global actor and the only country with a truly global foreign policy. And when it comes to foreign policy, everything pits Georgette against Trump. The campaigns are taking place at a time when wars are raging in the Middle East and Ukraine, and the positions of both candidates are being scrutinised by certain groups of voters. While both support Israel’s right to ‘self-defence’, the vice president has tried to strike a balance by highlighting the suffering of the Palestinians in his speeches. Trump, on the other hand, argued that the United States has never been so disrespected in the world, and that he has always said he would resolve the conflict without delay, but he has never explained how. In addition, Trump has condemned Washington’s huge funding of Kiev since 2022. In contrast, Geoffrey Hogan promised that she would ‘stand firm in support of Ukraine’.

Failure to Introduce Mandatory Voting Creates Greater Uncertainty
Although it is the American electorate that will be voting, the outcome of the election will have a bearing on the direction of the turbulent international relations landscape over the next four years. The election was seen as one of the most hotly contested in U.S. history. The presidential candidates of the two major parties have been mobilising until the last minute, but have not been able to pull away from each other, and no polls have dared to predict which candidate is likely to win. This stalemate means that the end of the polls on 5 November may not necessarily be the end of suspense, and months of intense campaigning have raised fears of a repeat of the chaos of the 2020 presidential election, especially if there is a repeat of the storming of Capitol Hill on 6 January 2021 that shook the world. The stalemate between the two presidential candidates is naturally the biggest cause of uncertainty in this election. The special characteristics of the U.S. election voting system magnified this uncertainty, laying the groundwork for possible post-election disputes.

As we all know, the presidential election in the United States is a referendum, but not a direct election. The electors vote for the electors in each state. The number of electoral votes won by the two presidential candidates determines their respective victories. And while the number of electors in each state is certain, the principle is winner-take-all, which means that if the votes for Trump are in the majority in one state, then all the electors in that state should, in principle, support Trump. But the total number of electors in the 50 states is 538, which is an even number, not an odd number. This does not rule out the possibility that the two candidates will have absolutely the same number of electoral votes and each will win by 269 votes. According to the Constitution, if this were to happen, each state would be voted on in Congress by a single delegate of the electors who won the majority, meaning that the candidate who won at least 26 votes out of the 50 elector delegates in each of the 50 states would win. However, up to now, this has never happened in contemporary American history.

A hundred years ago, Australia introduced mandatory voting. Unlike Australia, the U.S. does not mandate voter participation in elections. Experts say this can be attributed to the fact that Americans don’t like to be told what to do; individual civil rights and liberties are fundamental to the U.S. Bill of Rights, and individual freedom determines much of the political dialogue in the United States. Gergich, a political expert at the Centre for American Studies at the University of Sydney, says that mandating citizens to vote might be considered very un-American from a political culture perspective. Like Australia, all states in the US except North Dakota require voters to register before going to the polls. In Australia, federal elections are regulated by a national body, the Australian Electoral Commission, and during general elections, each US state is allowed to specify its own rules about what forms of voting are allowed, how people should register to vote, and so on.

How will Australia’s future be affected?
The world’s attention is focused on the U.S. election polls, which concluded on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDST). Undoubtedly, it was an election with huge implications for the US, and the two presidential candidates have very different visions for the next four years. Given America’s enormous global influence, the impact of this election will also extend far beyond national borders. The United States is Australia’s most important military ally, one of its major trading partners, and its most important diplomatic partner in the Indo-Pacific region. Michael Freelove, a scholar of public and international policy and executive director of the Lowy Institute, a leading Australian think tank, says Canberra is nervous about who will be the next president of the United States. After all, the outcome of a U.S. election is likely to bring with it a lot of unpredictability and instability, especially if controversy arises.

AUKUS, the US-UK-Australia Trilateral Security Agreement, has been at the heart of the US-Australia defence relationship since the US agreed to share its classified nuclear submarine technology. AUKUS is a very long-term arrangement, with the first Australian-built nuclear submarine not due to be delivered until the end of the next decade. Despite her previous role as vice president, not much is known about Hogan’s foreign policy; most expect her to continue the Biden administration’s approach to some extent, including arrangements like Orcus. While little is known about what Trump will do with Orcus, there are signs that he is unlikely to scrap the arrangement altogether. And his nominee for deputy, Vance, has said he supports the Orcus agreement. China’s role in the Indo-Pacific region is a concern for both Democrats and Republicans, and Marcus already has cross-party support in the US. In terms of national defence, as a long-time US ally, Australia is investing more than ever in its defence capabilities, while gaining more influence in the US than ever before; it seems that this will not matter who is elected president.

Regardless of who wins the election, Australia is in a better position than almost any other U.S. ally to have a good relationship with the United States. Australia’s free trade agreement with the US largely provides it with stable access to the US market, as well as to many of the new US government programmes that exclude non-free trade partners, including all of Europe. However, there are also concerns that given the current return to tariffs as a trade policy, which has some bipartisan support in the US, and the US being Australia’s third largest two-way trading partner, these tariffs could have a direct impact on Australia’s local industry. In addition, the trade war could lead to a slowdown in China’s economy, which could also weigh on the Australian economy. These are all unknowns.

Final Election Results
Before this magazine went to press Wednesday night, Americans were still in the middle of the night, as states counted their ballots, and learnt that the Republican Party had gained more than half of the seats in the Senate race. The presidential electoral votes were confirmed, with Donald Trump having a solid 230 and Emily Hunt only 210 electoral votes. In the remaining undecided states, Trump is leading in many of them, and Trump’s vote share is more than two percentage points higher than Hodgkins’.

It can be said that the result of the US presidential election will not be known within a day or two, but the chances of the Democrats staying in power are not high. In other words, the world is likely to face the fact that Donald Trump is back in power. This would be a huge change for the world in flux, for Ukraine and Israel in the midst of war, and for China in the face of economic sanctions and pressure.

In the next issue, I believe we will be able to give a clearer picture.