Pearls and Irritations

Australia must leave the China debacle, constructively. In withdrawing from America’s aggression against China, we should offer our diplomacy as a patient bridge between China and the US. That will take time. America will become even more extreme before it considers peaceful coexistence with China. Meanwhile our action will be a moderating influence, as we pick up our own distracted security priorities.

Australia’s governments have always seen American forces in north Asia as a bulwark against strategic instability. Today this US presence is cause for insecurity, with our government’s connivance. Asia has become the crucible of US global dominance. Soon an Australian city will become a nuclear attack target, with US basing nuclear submarines in Perth. Darwin also, for hosting US strategic headquarters.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating reminds us that credible surveys show Australians don’t want Australia to be part of America’s aggression against China. The majority know it is not in Australia’s interest. Yet the Australian government, riding roughshod over dissent, is full throttle on merging our foreign policy and our military with the US against China.

If, for a moment, we fantasise that our government did recognise the dangers, and did decide to remove Australia from the U.S. military posture against China, certain questions arise. First, how could we protect Australia’s interests given the ANZUS alliance? Simple. Our governments have done so before many times, quietly and diplomatically. We just remind our American friends of our formal security relationship. At its heart the ANZUS treaty requires Australia to focus on its own defence and not assume that America would assist if we are attacked. That is the essence of the ANZUS relationship. The two parties have had a rock-solid meeting of minds on this for many decades.

Put simply, Australia has never had a security guarantee from America that would be put at risk by Australia acting in its own interest. President Nixon’s Guam doctrine and US attitude over Australia’s actions in East Timor are emblematic.

Which is why, until the last decade or so, Australia just got on with building its own security. Thoughtful endeavour, from diplomacy to technology, discerning defence development and modest, consistent spending across four decades earned regional respect and put Australia in good shape to deter attack on our sovereignty. Unlike with its European allies, America has never complained that we have not met the alliance deal.

But for fifteen years now America has increasingly pressured Australia to forget this long- standing agreement, to forsake our hard- won gains, to be embedded in its war planning against China. This is an entirely different proposition. Fraught with risks, not least the dependability of America as exemplified by its very proposition. Clearly Australia has no alliance obligation to join US war preparations against China. Nor does the still-mysterious AUKUS technology-sharing agreement alter that fact.

America is no longer coy about its intent to confront China militarily. That has crystallised from the neocon dogma of unrivalled dominance through “ruthless anti- idealism”.

So, Australia must withdraw from participating in US security planning and actions against China. The absence of obligation in our security agreement should be at the fore. Our security is entirely in our own hands. No Australian government should allow this fact to be diminished or deflected.

Of course, there have been cases of Australia acceding to requests for military assistance afar by the US even though neither State has been directly threatened. Things like contributing peace -keeping forces in places like the middle east. A sub-textual meeting of minds emerged between parties on how that to respond to those requests judged to be in Australia’s interest. The principle is that Australia should contribute only with forces acquired for its own defence. That is, we would not create new or greater capabilities specifically for the purposes of a US mission. When applied to the China issue this principle identifies the extraordinary US impositions on Australia for its buildup against China.

We will hand US shipyards $10 billion for their own nuclear submarine construction, for starters. Which leads onto the second question. Having informed the US we do not wish to continue against China, what should Australia do?

Prominent projects, practices and institutions must face hard questions. To the fore should be nuclear submarines designed to attack China’s submarines in its waters. A subsidy of $400 billion for US primacy. So also a review of the review carried out by a US admiral on our Navy’s capability, from Australia’s perspective. The Army’s acquisition of high-end, highly concentrated armour and self- propelled artillery is symptomatic of its failure to focus on our needs. Exercising and training generally has to be reoriented to our own self-reliant defence. National intelligence begs reshaping to our own independent interests. Five-Eyes re-evaluated. The functionality of Commonwealth departments and Parliament in obscuring the true focus of security policies and vast expenditures from public awareness reviewed. Thirty days notice should be given by Australia to withdraw from the Force Posture Agreement enabling US basing here of personnel, strike aircraft and submarine for operations anywhere, at any time of US choosing.

Such independence seems far away. Unashamedly Australians are bombarded from the US angle. But the evidence of our foolishness is overwhelming.

Paul Keating continues to strengthen the case that Australia’s joining US aggression against China is deeply against our national interest. No other living PM has joined him in that. But, then again, collectively they have demonstrated their amateurish grasp of geopolitics, misjudging Israel grievously in a letter signed by all.

PM Albanese seems out of his depth, hoping to counter Keating by observing that the world has changed. He does not explain how the world has changed, much less in a way requiring Australia to attack China for America. The big change, of course, is that US foreign policy has become ever-more controlled by neoconservative elites. Whose ethos is that America should dominate the globe by “ruthlessly rejecting idealism”. The signs were ambiguous early in the Obama years. But no longer is the US coy.

Today America is explicit that domination of China is America’s top security priority. That will only deepen with the Trump administration. New Secretary of State Rubio has described China as “the largest, most advanced adversary America has ever faced.”

For America, allies exist to subsidise its intolerance of rivalry. President Obama admitted as much in 2010, that the US tilt to Asia could not be resourced by America. Even in those days US allies were warned they would be expected to fund America’s strategy of dominance. This is the reality which Australia’s government must comprehend and act upon.

Leadership anyone?

Australia can leave this debacle constructively. In withdrawing from America’s aggression against China, we should offer our diplomacy as a patient bridge between China and the US. That will take time. America will become even more extreme before it considers peaceful coexistence with China. Meanwhile our action will be a moderating influence, as we pick up our own distracted security priorities.

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