“The lights would go out.” This is how analyst Clive Hamilton described in a recent Daily Mail interview what would happen to his nation if China decided to pull the plug on Australia.

Hamilton said the Chinese Communist Party is well positioned to put Australians in the dark because Aussies have made a series of shortsighted business decisions in recent years. They have decided to sell, bit by bit, a stunning amount of their energy sector to China. The easy Chinese cash has been too enticing for leaders and business moguls to refuse. After years of this reckless sell-off, the situation today is bleak. Everything from gas pipelines and power stations to energy providers, wind farms and even power grids are largely owned by Chinese corporations.

The degree to which this dangerous sell-off has happened is “genuinely shocking,” Hamilton said. And the facts show that his alarm is entirely appropriate.

Compromised Energy

Alinta Energy is a massive company with assets that include the Braemar Power Station in Queensland, the Bairnsdale and Loy Yang B power stations in Victoria, the Pinjarra and Wagerup power stations in Western Australia, and the Goldfields Gas Pipeline. Altogether, more than 1.1 million households and businesses across Australia rely on Alinta to endure extreme heat and cold, preserve food, operate banks and factories, and provide numerous other energy needs. In 2017, the Australians sold Alinta to China’s Chow Tai Fook Enterprises.

EnergyAustralia is an even larger company. Its infrastructure includes Hallett Power Station, Waterloo Wind Farm and Cathedral Rocks Wind Farm in South Australia; Mount Piper Power Station, Pine Dale Mine and Tallawarra Power Station in New South Wales; and Yallourn Power Station in Victoria. Some 1.7 million Australian homes and businesses depend on this firm for their daily energy needs. But in 2011, it was sold to China Light and Power Co.

The duet Group owns the tremendously important Dampier Bunbury Pipeline on Western Australia’s North West Shelf. It also owns and operates the Wheatstone Ashburton West Pipeline, the Fortescue River Gas Pipeline and Ashburton Onslow Gas Pipeline, along with vast swaths of the electricity distribution infrastructure powering Victoria. In 2017, the duet Group was sold to a consortium led by China’s Cheung Kong Infrastructure.

That’s not all that Cheung Kong Infrastructure owns. It also has 51 percent ownership of the SA Power Network in South Australia, 66 percent of United Energy in Victoria, and controlling stakes in both Powercor and Citipower.

Another Chinese company, State Grid Corporation of China, owns a controlling stake in Jemena, which has a range of energy infrastructure assets in Australia’s eastern states, and a 49 percent stake in ElectraNet, the massive transmission network for South Australia and Queensland.

The list of Australian energy assets owned by Chinese firms gets longer each year.

Some Australians may take comfort that most of these Chinese companies are privately owned. In the democracies of North America or Europe, that might mean something. But the sobering truth is, under Chinese law, all Chinese firms are beholden to the Chinese Communist Party. They are all required to obey the party’s diktats.

For this reason, Hamilton and many others argue that giving these companies ownership of Australia’s vital energy assets poses a grave threat to the nation’s security. “They are critical infrastructure,” he said, “and should not under any circumstances be under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.”

Like many analysts, Hamilton looks ahead to a war that China, with increasing frequency and resolve, has been promising the world. He factors Australia’s compromised energy into the equation, and he sounds the alarm about the dark outcome his countrymen should expect.

“If Australia became involved in conflict with China, for example over Taiwan, then there is a high chance the Chinese government will shut down our energy supplies,” he said. “The lights would go out. The banking system would seize up. There would be traffic chaos. Petrol stations would be stranded.

“Why are we spending billions on sophisticated military equipment if we are at the same time making ourselves vulnerable to gray zone warfare? It makes no sense.”

Warnings such as this one are well reasoned and well founded, but they go largely unheeded by the authorities. This leaves millions of Australians at the mercy of the Chinese Communist Party.

Ports of Importance

Along with China’s takeover of Australia’s energy sector, the nation has also taken control of some of Australia’s key ports.

Exhibit A is the Port of Newcastle, in New South Wales. This deepwater harbor handles the bulk of Australia’s coal exports, equating to more than 150 million tons each year. That volume makes it the largest coal export port on the globe. Newcastle is also connected to the resource-rich Hunter Valley region and is a key exporting hub for Australia’s wheat, barley, aluminum, alumina, steel and various industrial products. It is also a vital node for importing petroleum products that are distributed to much of the country. It is common knowledge that the Port of Newcastle is among the most important locations in all of Australia. But in 2014, the Aussies gave China Merchants Port Holdings control over it for a period of 98 years.

Port Darwin is the most northerly deepwater port in Australia. Called the “Gateway to Asia,” Darwin is a vital link for Australia’s trade with Indonesia, Singapore and other nations in the region and also to global maritime routes. A considerable amount of Australia’s oil, gas, zinc, lead, cattle and agricultural products are exported through Darwin. The port is also critical to the support of Australia’s offshore oil and gas operations. Darwin was a major Australian military base during World War ii, and for decades, it stood as a symbol of the nation’s military strength. But in 2015, the Australians handed it over to the Chinese-owned Landbridge Group, leasing it for a period of 99 years.

The Port of Melbourne on the southern coast is another crucial one. As the main gateway to Victoria, this port is vital for bringing electronics, machinery and cars into the nation and for exporting food products and manufactured goods. It handles more than 3 million teu’s (20-foot equivalent units) each year, making it Australia’s biggest container and general cargo port. Yet in 2016, Australia let China Investment Corp. buy a massive percentage of the Port of Melbourne.

Port Hedland in Western Australia is among the nation’s most critical maritime and industrial centers. Its location on the edge of one of the world’s biggest iron ore producing areas and near vast caches of gold, copper, lithium and salt makes it a natural export hub. Its deepwater harbor and top-tier infrastructure enable it to accommodate some of the world’s largest shipping vessels. These factors make Port Hedland a pillar of Australia’s economy and an asset that cornerstone companies such as Fortescue Metals, Rio Tinto and bhp depend on heavily. But when Alinta Energy was sold to Chow Tai Fook Enterprises in 2017, Port Hedland was among the holdings it handed over to the Chinese.

China’s takeover of both Australia’s energy sector and its key ports would be alarming enough on its own. But at the same time, China is also establishing a presence at several locations in Australia’s periphery—locations with major military implications. These Chinese positions significantly intensify the danger posed to Australia.

Encircling Australia

The Chinese recently completed a high-speed railway linking their southwest region to the nation of Laos under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative (bri). They are following that up with rail that links this line in Laos to Thailand’s capital, Bangkok. When that one is complete, they plan to lay an additional line from Bangkok stretching down through Malaysia and into Singapore. Analyst Heather Chen emphasized the marvel of these interconnected projects in March, saying: “Imagine jumping on a train in southwestern China, traveling some 2,000 miles and arriving in Singapore—less than 30 hours later.”

The extent of China’s completed rails and planned links is truly remarkable, and it’s no secret that the same trains that can shuttle cargo and civilians from China down to this region just north of Australia could also transport troops. And now the Chinese are also considering ambitious bridge projects to connect their Southeast Asian rail network to Indonesia, where Chinese high-speed rail already links some of the nation’s largest cities and where Chinese companies control several major ports. Even if the bridge plans are not realized, China’s navy and its merchant fleet, both of which are the world’s largest, could potentially pick up where the rail ends.

Just east of Indonesia is Papua New Guinea. In 2018, China enticed png leaders to join the bri, and they built billions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure as part of the deal. Then five years later, the Chinese came knocking. “They have offered to assist our policing and security on the internal security side,” said png Foreign Minister Justin Tkachenkobut. In recent years, Papua New Guinea has signed a defense cooperation deal with the United States and a security deal with Australia. These agreements could complicate China’s designs on the nation. But the bri deal gives China considerable leverage that could help it muscle the Anglo nations out.

Next we come to the Solomon Islands, off of Australia’s east coast. In 2022, the nation alarmed the Western world by signing a wide-ranging security pact with China. A leaked draft of the deal says it allows China to “send police, armed police, military personnel and other law enforcement and armed forces to Solomon Islands to assist in maintaining social order, protecting people’s lives, and property.” The draft also says the deal could let China dock naval ships in the Solomon Islands. “You have the scope for China to deploy any kind of personnel,” said Mihai Sora, an analyst with the Lowy Institute in Australia. “Up until now, Australia and other Pacific countries have enjoyed being in a benign zone and having the freedom to move within our zone in the Pacific. So this brings in a clear, hard strategic edge to that competition.”

The Chinese are also using easy cash to bolster their power over such nations as Timor-Leste, Kiribati, Tonga, Vanuatu and Fiji.

What is China’s goal with these measures? Why is it spending so much money and exerting so much effort to economically colonize this region and to establish so many footholds that have military implications?

The U.S. Institute of Peace published an analysis in 2022, stating: “China’s pursuit of greater military reach in the Pacific Islands draws parallels to Imperial Japan’s construction of bases prior to World War ii, and the implications are, likewise, strikingly similar. A Chinese military presence in the Pacific Islands could complicate transit between Australia and the United States, allow Beijing to increase its power projection in the second and third island chains, and bring Chinese military firepower closer than ever to Australian and U.S. territory.”

The Australian government published similar analysis in a Defense White Paper, stating: “Australia cannot be secure if our immediate neighborhood, including Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Pacific Island countries, becomes a source of threat to Australia. This includes the threat of a foreign military power seeking influence in ways that could challenge the security of our maritime approaches ….”

The authors of these sources are among the many clear-eyed analysts who recognize that China’s maneuvering poses a serious threat to vital shipping lanes in this region. If China can continue its slow takeover of the maritime locations that allow control over those lanes, and can militarize them, it could obstruct the transit of Australian allies, specifically the U.S., and isolate Australia. When that possibility is placed alongside the assets China has already taken over across Australia, the danger of these converging trends becomes stark. And Bible prophecy shows that this is leading to deadly dark days for Australia.

Possessing the ‘Gates’

Genesis 22:17 records God promising the patriarch Abraham that his “descendants” would one day be blessed by taking “possession of the gates of their enemies” (International Standard Version).

Who are these descendants? The late Herbert W. Armstrong proved in his book The United States and Britain in Prophecy that they are the peoples of America and Britain, including British Commonwealth countries like Australia. These are the modern-day descendants of Abraham, through his son Isaac, his grandson Israel, and Israel’s son Joseph.

Mr. Armstrong also showed that this promise recorded in Genesis 22:17 was fulfilled before World War ii, when the U.S. and Britain came to control all major gates on the globe, such as the Panama and Suez canals, and numerous minor gates, such as the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu.

“[T]hese descendants of Joseph” became “numerous” and “encircled the globe” and came to “possess the ‘gates’ of enemy nations,” Mr. Armstrong wrote. “Britain and America came into possession of every such major ‘gate’ in this world!”

Based on this verse in Genesis 22 and related passages, Mr. Armstrong said the fact that Britain and the U.S. came to control these strategic maritime locations proved that these countries are the descendants of Abraham’s family. “[W]e must be modern Israel,” he wrote.

America and Britain used their control over these locations to defeat aggressor powers during both world wars, including a campaign from the Solomon Islands during World War ii that resulted in a major loss for Japan. In peacetime, the U.S. and Britain used their control over such locations to keep the world’s shipping lanes open and relatively stable—to the benefit of most all countries.

But the Bible also prophesies that Britain and the U.S. will later lose their hold of these vital sea gates.

Losing the ‘Gates’

Deuteronomy 28:52 shows God cautioning the descendants of Abraham that if they refused to obey Him, He would cause their enemies to take control of the gates—and to weaponize that control against them: “And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.”

For this tragedy to come to pass, the U.S. and Britain first had to lose control of the gates they had previously been blessed with. And this has happened. In recent decades, so many of these holdings have been transferred to other nations, mostly China. Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry explains in his book Isaiah’s End-Time Vision that China and its partners in the near future, including Russia and European countries, will use their control over these sea gates against the modern descendants of Israel. He writes:

[C]onsidering that China has come to possess most of the world’s strategic sea gates (which, ironically, at one time were held by Britain and America), we believe there may be a brief alliance between the German-led Holy Roman Empire and certain Asian powers (Russia, China, Japan—the kings of the east). Should Europe, the resurrected Holy Roman Empire, find a way to take advantage—even for a moment—of key resources and strategic holdings of China, Russia and Japan, it would have more than enough power to besiege the Anglo-Saxon nations and enslave them.

For Australia, with so many of its critical energy assets and ports under Chinese control and with so many Chinese footholds being established in its periphery, it is especially easy to see how such a besiegement could happen.

Speaking only of the implications of China’s control over Australian energy assets, Clive Hamilton warned that if the Chinese made the move, “The lights would go out. The banking system would seize up. There would be traffic chaos. Petrol stations would be stranded.” This would obviously create extreme chaos for Australians. And imagine if China timed its flipping of that chaos switch to happen a day or two before it sent some of its 1.4 billion people to confront Australia’s 27 million. Imagine if China was simultaneously using its control of Australia’s ports and the gates and shipping lanes in the region to block Australian partners from coming in to help. Imagine if China did all of this with assistance from Russia, Japan and the nations of Europe.

A besiegement and invasion of Australia is not as unthinkable as many would like to believe. And Mr. Flurry’s book makes clear that the lights will soon go out. He shows that the decline of the U.S., Britain and British Commonwealth nations, and the rise of China and other revisionist powers, is leading to war that will contribute to an era of unprecedented catastrophe for all countries. But the suffering has a purpose. It is designed to teach the nations to love God’s law. Mr. Flurry stresses that the time of suffering will be rapidly followed by a new dawn—a time of unprecedented radiance and peace. “Thank God,” he writes, “there is great news beyond the bad news.”

To understand the Bible prophecies at the foundation of Mr. Armstrong’s and Mr. Flurry’s forecasts, and the hope that lies at the heart of these prophecies, order your free copy of Isaiah’s End-Time Vision.