Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles is a provocateur. His hawkish language kindles military confrontation between the United States and the Peoples’ Republic of China.

He should stop – or Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should counsel him to stop. His public comments in Singapore supporting US Defence Secretary Peter Hegseth were irresponsible. Marles backed Hegseth’s false claim that the PRC presents an “imminent” threat and is “credibly preparing to potentially use military force” to conquer Taiwan.

Both statements were foolish and contrary to Australia’s national interest. Within the Labor movement, Marles is increasingly seen as an echo chamber for the Pentagon and a minister out of step with his party and his colleagues. As former foreign minister Gareth Evans once observed, Marles has a “dewy-eyed” love for all things American. His post-election “factional assassination” of Ed Husic, a respected voice for justice and peace in Gaza, has added more concern to those who see diplomacy in international affairs as Australia’s preferred option over military confrontation.

No one in the Labor Party wants to see war break out between the US and China. If that were to happen, the inflammatory anti-China rhetoric Marles uses, like Dutton before him, exposes us to pressure from the US to choose war with our largest trading partner. He might also remember that China is the ancestral homeland or birthplace of some 1.4 million Australians, most of whom rejected the Coalition’s sabre rattling and voted for Labor on 3 May. Those interested in our rocky history with Asia will remember the Whitlam Government’s rapprochement with China in the 1970s. They will recall that the “Taiwan question” is subject to the 1972 Shanghai Communiqué, where the US and the PRC agreed to the One China Policy. The Communiqué, little discussed or recognised in Australia, is our current bi-partisan policy position. It says:

“The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves.”

For its own reasons, primarily concerned with China’s rise as a competitive world power in the 21st century, the United States has chosen to downplay and distort its commitment to the One China Policy. Many Australians today could be forgiven for thinking that Taiwan is a sovereign entity entitled to defend itself against the “threat” of control by Beijing. It’s not an uncomplicated history, but Taiwan has become a confected excuse for the US to pursue a policy of “extended deterrence” against China.

That policy of confrontation is manifest for all to see. China is now encircled by a staggering 100,000 US military personnel in Japan, South Korea and Guam. Another 73,000 are stationed in Hawaii and 415,000 are deployed on the US West coast. The US has enough nuclear and conventional weapons to completely destroy China, and the rest of us along with it. The US also has military bases located in the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and, of course, Australia. By contrast, China maintains just one overseas military base in Djibouti, two fewer than Australia with our two bases in Malaysia and one in the UAE.

Until recently, Marles had consistently used the phrase “rules based order” to intimate China’s exclusion from the civilised Western world. It is his imaginary world to which we Australians supposedly belong. That phrase, and the self-righteous hubris it conceals, is getting less of a rhetorical workout since Donald Trump came to power in January. Blind Freddy knows Trump respects no rules, particularly the rule of law. And we remember Peter ‘Pete’ Hegseth, Marles’ new best buddy, was at the centre of the Signalgate scandal earlier this year. During his confirmation hearings, Hegseth was publicly accused of sexual misconduct, alcohol abuse and financial mismanagement. He was narrowly confirmed 51:50 with the casting vote of JD Vance in the Congress. He has dismissed female soldiers in the US military as less capable because they don’t meet his physical image of what a warfighter should be. He has praised large, muscular men as better suited for combat, stated that diversity initiatives weaken the military, and lamented what he sees as the “feminisation” of the armed forces. Hegseth holds stridently conservative world views and regards himself as a Christian nationalist. In his book, American Crusade (2020), he described “Americanism” as being opposition to movements such as feminism, globalism, Marxism, and progressivism. He equates democracy to a leftist demand, and has expressed support for election-rigging through gerrymandering to “screw Democrats”.

This is the man our deputy prime minister and defence minister openly consorts with as if he were a respected international leader, a man of rectitude and an oracle of strategic wisdom. While it is true that Australian Government ministers have an obligation to deal with their international counterparts with respect and professionalism, there are some we avoid as often as possible – and others we treat with arms-length caution. Marles should not be allowed to get away with showing deference and respect to a dangerous warmonger with scant claim to his exalted position as defence secretary of the US. Whatever the necessities of ministerial hobnobbery, there is no intelligent excuse for obsequiousness in Australian statecraft. Marles has none and he needs to defer to those who do. He also needs to stop confusing and projecting his own fear of China with a threat to Australia. There is no “imminent” or even likely military threat to Australia from China.

The trouble with Marles’ loose lips is aggravated by the de facto control he exercises over foreign policy in Australia. Penny Wong is not a weak foreign minister, but she has been consistently constrained by the power wielded in the Department for Defence. This is a legacy of the Morrison/Dutton years and the folly of the AUKUS pact Labor unwisely signed up to in 2021. Former Australian Ambassador to China, Dr Geoff Raby, says the AUKUS deal sends a “very clear signal to the leadership in China that Australia now sees China as an enemy”. Wong’s tentative statements promoting “strategic equilibrium in our region” and “finding security within Asia” are correct and should be the dominant policy paradigm. But they are not, and have not been prominent in the first term of the Albanese Government. Dr Raby and other experienced diplomats have consistently warned us that Australia needs to rely more on diplomacy and statecraft rather than national security rhetoric and military posturing. Despite Australia’s strong regional relationships, AUKUS and the babble of a “China threat”, make it more difficult for us to work collaboratively with our neighbours in south-east Asia.

At the Singapore defence conference, Marles announced that Australia was “totally up for” consideration of Hegseth’s obnoxious demand that Australia massively increase defence spending to 3.5% of GDP. Marles then demanded, apparently speaking for all of us, that China provide “strategic transparency” and give the world “strategic reassurance” about its “unprecedented military build-up” in the Asia-Pacific. He didn’t mention that we have quietly supported Washington’s recent deployment of Typhon missile launchers in the Philippines that can hit targets in both China and Russia. Transparency? Strategic reassurance? It’s not hard to see why China’s foreign ministry argued that the installation “disrupts regional peace and stability, undermines other countries’ legitimate security interest, and contravenes people’s aspiration for peace and development". China, the ministry continued, would “not sit idly by” if the Philippines refused to remove Typhon.

All these statements reveal the neglected state of serious statecraft in the Asia-Pacific. Marles seems to have assumed for himself the Howard era deputy sheriff role. He acts in cahoots with an American warrior bully who will likely be replaced by Trump before year’s end. Meanwhile, our ASEAN partners watch on anxiously as Australia’s defence minister blithely adds fuel to the escalating economic and military tensions between Washington and Beijing. Whatever their own relationships with the US, none of them want Australia to provoke China or abet a confrontation that could lead to nuclear war.

Perhaps our diplomats could get to work soon to provide the government with a briefing on the election outcome in South Korea and the possibilities that presents for a de-escalation of tensions with North Korea. If tensions ease on the Korean peninsula, there may be an opening for a realpolitik conversation between the US and China on their respective interests in the Asia-Pacific. That could lead to a wind-back of the Pentagon’s war talk and an end to Hegseth’s fantasy of a total ideological victory against China. Such a turn of events may even anticipate the preconditions for détente between the superpowers. That is the direction Australian foreign policy should work to encourage.

The less we hear from Marles in this term of government, the safer we shall be.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.