Australians think China already dominates Asia - more than the Chinese even believe it themselves.
While we're mildly worried about Beijing's influence, we don't entirely appreciate the US's role in our region either and we think they're yesterday's man anyway. We take a surprisingly neutral view of this shift.
At the same time, we're relaxed about where it's all headed, believing war between the US and China is improbable. 
It's all in a sobering set of survey results that point to the success of Chinese soft power diplomacy here in Australia, according to Simon Jackman, chief executive of Sydney University's US Studies Centre, which carried out the survey.
"Frankly what I see is ??? Australians taking the US relationship for granted," said Professor Jackman, the lead author.
Some 69 per cent of Australians believe China has the most influence in Asia today - more even than the 56 per cent of Chinese who feel this way and double or triple the figure for Japanese, South Koreans and Indonesians, the other nations surveyed.
Eight out of 10 Australians think America's "best days are in the past" - among the highest in the region.
Writing the Australia section of the report, the centre's research director James Brown says that Australians are "significantly less enthusiastic" about America's role in Asia than the other countries' citizens, even in some respects the Chinese.
We have a "significant lack of regional awareness" about America's alliance work in Asia and are the "most neutral" on whether we'd prefer the US or China to have more influence.
We're either "relatively na&iuml;ve" or complacent - believing our distance shields us from conflict in Asia - in thinking that while the US and China are "competitors", this will stay at a simmer rather than a boil, Mr Brown says.
Professor Jackman said he planned to "get on a plane and take this to DC frankly and really get this in the face of some folks in Washington" because it showed the success China was having in pushing soft-power influence to the Australian public.
"In a democracy it's the battle for hearts and minds and I think one side of the argument is having a bit more success than the other lately," he said.
The US alliance had "taken a bit of a knock" in era of George W. Bush and the Iraq war, especially among younger Australians who had also grown up at a time when China fuelled Australia's resources boom and drove its economic success.
Asia analysts are more sceptical about the inevitability of China's dominance and less sanguine about the direction of tensions, given Beijing's assertiveness in the South China Sea.
Diplomats, officials in Canberra and academic experts have long wondered whether Australia will be "caught between two big powers ??? and what would happen if they ever got onto a collision course", Professor Jackman said.
The idea that Australia could happily prosper however the rivalry played out was "a great news story to tell ourselves", Professor Jackman said.
"Australians are having a bit of a bob each way acknowledging yes, the US is our longstanding ally ??? but the future belongs to China and by the way Australia is going to do quite well out of that."
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