Our security outlook worsened because President Xi Jinping demonstrated his utter dominance of Chinese politics with a new line-up of top officials. We now have less hope of him being told by colleagues and advisers to back off a bit as he takes risks in trying to make China dominant on this side of the world.

At the end of a five-yearly Chinese Communist Party congress on Sunday, we saw which big cheeses would join Xi in the most powerful political body in China, one that's usually just called the standing committee. (In full, its name is quite a mouthful: the standing committee of the political bureau of the central committee of the CCP.)

The six chosen men were all supporters of Xi, whereas the previous membership had not been so solidly aligned with him. Before the congress, we were not sure that Xi had the power to contrive such domination. It turns out that he did.

Furthermore, he did not mind showing off his power with such a standing committee, sending an intimidating message to those who disagreed with him. Worse, standing committee members, who should be the people in the best position to restrain him, are now simply loyal to him.

We can expect them to be yes men.

Xi has been a disaster for China, prematurely signalling aggressive intent to democracies and damaging his country's economy by suppressing private enterprise. So before the congress we wanted him to stay firmly in power.

But we didn't want him to attain the position of an absolute despot, who, in the manner of tyrants, might easily miscalculate in choosing to use military force. Unfortunately, that's what we seem to have.

The bottom line: the risk of a war over Taiwan has stepped up a notch or three. US intelligence has this year assessed that Vladimir Putin's bungled war on Ukraine has unsettled Xi and the Chinese leadership and pushed out the likely timing of a move on Taiwan. But now that timing is more likely to be determined by one person, not by an inherently cautious group.

Australia's response to the rising danger is achingly slow.

Labor came to office in May convinced that defence policy needed a shake-up, after a succession of Liberal-National defence ministers had been bamboozled by our military establishment into persisting with the business-as-usual that it finds so congenial.

Defence Minister Richard Marles duly set up a review of defence policy to report in March 2023, though we've since heard that an interim report would be delivered by November 1, 2022.

A complication with defence reviews is that while they're underway most new acquisitions are frozen. That's usually pretty sensible. We wouldn't want to order some costly equipment one day then hear from a review two months later that, actually, that's not what we need.

But such an approach makes most sense when we hardly face near-term strategic risks.

That's not our situation. This review is a quick one, but months are passing, we're hardly moving and we don't have a day to lose.

Some decisions to improve our defences are so obvious that they can be taken safely without a review - for example, toughening and duplicating military installations, buying more ammunition and getting aircraft of types which we already use, which have undoubted high value.

Tuesday's budget included no new measures along those lines.

Defence spending will probably need to rise to at least 3 per cent of gross domestic product, compared with 2 per cent now. Even though there are plenty of pressures on the government's overall budget, national security will have to override them.

There is no reason not to start the rise towards 3 per cent now, buying things in 2022-23 so that less money will have to be found in 2023-24 or later.

A little-understood challenge in defence spending is getting to the stage of signing a contract. It's a complicated business. Sometimes a defence department, including ours, fails to use its annual allocation simply because some acquisition teams were not ready to sign and begin paying contractors by the end of a financial year.

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This problem of getting acquisitions into motion will be far worse in coming years as our spending rises and we order more stuff. We could be easing that challenge by placing some orders now.

Meanwhile, a deeper security agreement with Japan announced last week deserves more attention than it's been getting. We need to think more about that country in relation to our own defence.

Under the agreement, Australian and Japanese armed forces will exercise together more and, crucially, learn how to cooperate with each other. We will also share more information from intelligence and surveillance operations, an area in which both countries are strong.

Japan has exactly the same worry as Australia about China becoming overlord of east Asia following a conquest of Taiwan. Like Australia, Japan would very likely become involved in a war to defend the island, supporting the US with forces and bases.

Japan has the world's third-largest economy and therefore powerful armed forces, even though it spends only 1.1 per cent of GDP on defence.

For example, we have 11 destroyers and frigates and six submarines; Japan has 46 and 24, respectively.

Its defence budget is rising strongly and, unlike that of the US, is focused 100 per cent on east Asia.

Japan is a valuable friend to have.