Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has caned Australia for two-timing – becoming overly dependent on China as a trading partner while expecting Washington to defend from a Beijing that is becoming more aggressive in the region – militarily and territorially.

so, without calling the new co-located rotational joint facilities "bases", we hear that: 1. they were her idea 2. they're about war with China 3. there will be more 4. USA not yet satisfied that Australia's position is sufficiently servile.

The former prime minister Malcolm Fraser has launched a wide-ranging attack on Australia’s “complacent” foreign policy, accusing the government of being harmfully dependent on the US. In a speech delivered at Melbourne University, Fraser said he was “ashamed” that Australia was led into the Iraq war on “falsehoods” and criticised the current deployment of American troops in Darwin. Around 2,500 American troops began rotating through Darwin for training last year, with US marines set to bring equipment such as amphibious assault craft, jets and helicopters to Australia, in a bid to enhance the US military position in the region.

They aren’t going to say ‘Canberra, we don’t like what people are doing here and we want to attack them and we want to use those forces you’ve so conveniently housed in Darwin.’ They’ll do it and we’ll read about it in the newspapers. Our prime minister will be told about it after the attack is made. Because that’s the way these things work. That, for me, is a total denial of Australian sovereignty and if we were ever independent, it’s a denial of Australian independence.

Malcolm Fraser: An unlikely radical

Fraser, the most pro-American of all Australia's leaders during the latter stages of the Cold War, began to question the character of almost every aspect of America's international behaviour: its narcissistic self-image as the light unto the world, its imperial arrogance, its systematic abuse of military power.

He came to believe that a long-standing, deep-seated and self-crippling "craving" for dependency on a great and powerful friend is to be found at the very heart of what he calls Australia's "national psyche".

In 2011, President Obama announced that Darwin would become a US Army base; Fraser tells me that it was "an absolute disgrace" that this momentous decision was scarcely debated in Australia. He also thinks it disgraceful that we allowed President Obama to announce the US decision for its pivot into the western Pacific while on Australian soil. This symbolises for him the willing abdication not only of our independence but, more deeply, of our sovereignty.

TOP End military bases are in a "sweet spot" beyond the range of Chinese missiles, according to a new report by a US think tank that explains more clearly than ever why Australia is considered crucial to a potential Asia-Pacific conflict. The official insistence is that US forces are rotating through Darwin to train. But the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments says Australia "has been propelled into the very heart of this century's most crowded and dynamic geopolitical arena".

Yet another captive analyst spills the beans on the real reason for the growing foreign military presence in and around Darwin.