While relations between Australia and China have been increasingly fraught in recent years, it is fair to say that since the outbreak of coronavirus they have gone from very bad to much worse.
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The underlying issue has always been the growing rift between China and the United States.
Even before Obama's "pivot" to East Asia in 2012, many in the US were not happy with China's rise towards superpower status.
Australia, which has had a special relationship with America since 1941, has been caught in the middle. Over the last two decades China has become our largest trading partner.
When Prime Minister Scott Morrison tried to clarify the situation last May by describing the Americans as "friends" and the Chinese as "customers" he poured fuel on a fire that was already well alight.
Beijing wasn't happy. It reiterated its view Australia was a US lapdog that would always do America's bidding.
The Lowy Institute's Richard McGregor summed the situation up nicely when he recently wrote: "Beijing views Canberra with a mixture of simmering hostility and indifference. If Canberra is in lockstep with Washington, they say, what is the point of putting in any diplomatic effort (with Australia)?"
China, already touchy over its status as a result of centuries of oppression by the West, is quick to take offence. That happened in January when Australia imposed travel bans on China.
What our government saw as an act of self-preservation, the Chinese viewed as an xenophobic act of racial discrimination.
This is the type of adversarial situation that can easily erupt when two once friendly nations let their mutual relations drift into the realm of misunderstandings and conflict.
Kevin Rudd, the only Chinese-speaking Prime Minister in our history, saw the danger of a breakdown in relations very clearly. Following his election he tried to move Australia and Beijing closer together.
His efforts did not bear lasting fruit, partly as a result of conflicts within his own party, and partly as a result of a growing distrust of China as a result of its interference in domestic Australian affairs.
When Marise Payne floated the idea of an independent inquiry into the origins of the pandemic just over a week ago China was never going to respond well.
Beijing did not disappoint. The Ambassador, Cheng Jingye, came out swinging, describing the push for the inquiry as "dangerous". He threatened Australia with a boycott by Chinese students and tourists once international travel resumed.
While it is hard to see how the diplomatic impasse could get any worse, it would be wrong for the Australian government to back down over the need for an inquiry given the grave consequences of the outbreak around the world.
Many other nations are likely to make similar calls once they have dealt with the immediate problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
When was the outbreak first detected and where did it come from?
Some of the best advice to date on charting a way forward came from Kevin Rudd during a recent interview on CNN.
He said there were four key questions: When was the Wuhan outbreak first detected and where did it come from? When was Beijing told and how did it respond? When was the World Health Organisation notified? How did it respond to that notification?
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Mr Rudd stressed the importance of not politicising any inquiry, saying that it should be up to the scientific community to obtain and interpret the answers to these questions.
It makes good sense. This furore needs to be moved out of the political sphere and into the scientific arena where it belongs.
