LOST: One set of cajones.:

The U.S. is suggesting that the Australian Government is being too timid on the issue of human rights with China. All because Australia refused to attend a summit, the subject of which is how to deal with a "rising China".
The summit will be attended by the U.S., Canada, Japan, and New Zealand. Australia will instead be briefed on the meeting afterwards. Interestingly, New Zealand is also taking a pragmatic approach when dealing with China, that is while voicing human rights "concerns" they are still willing to pursue closer ties with China. I wonder if NZ would think of backing out of this summit too?
Of course, there is the whole political asylum seeking issue in Australia. The Aussies won’t want to offend China too much by then basically attending a "how to contain China" (at least that is how the Chinese would see it, I assume) meeting?