The foreign policy of this country [Australia] is in ruins; the foundations on which it rested for more than twenty years have crumbled. Yet we pass on with scarcely a tremor of alarm or a gesture of remorse. There is no acknowledgement from the government which has presided over this collapse that it might have been in error; no outcry from an outraged public; no demand for re-examination from an informed free press.
Gough Whitlam speaking after his return from China, 1971:Towards a New Australia: Under a Labor Government, published 1972, p.1