Defence Minister Peter Dutton used an Anzac Day appearance on ABC’s Insiders yesterday to warn about the prospect of war with China. Conflict over Taiwan “should not be discounted,” Dutton said. Australians needed to be realistic about China militarising bases across the Asia Pacific, he warned.
“China has been very clear about the reunification and that’s been a long-held objective of theirs. They have been very clear about that goal.”
Dutton’s comments came at the end of another rocky week in Sino-Australian relations, just days after the federal government scrapped Victoria’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) agreements with China. His latest warning could be another sign of how the blunt, hawkish Dutton will manage the China relationship in his new portfolio.
Conflict warnings
Dutton isn’t alone in warning about the prospect of a war over Taiwan. Over the last year, Australia’s political and foreign policy establishment have become a lot more comfortable speaking plainly about potential Chinese aggression in the region.
Just weeks ago, former defence minister Christopher Pyne warned the prospects of a “kinetic war” in the Asia Pacific, most likely over Taiwan, were far higher than during his time in office. Tony Abbott also raised his concerns about Chinese aggression at a speech in Auckland last week.
It isn’t just politicians getting anxious. James Laurenceson, director of the Australia-China Relations Institute, said the government was simply stating a reality by sounding the alarm.
“That’s a reasonable thing for them to do. The risks of conflict have risen from what they were five years ago,” he told Crikey.
But Laurenceson worries the messaging from politicians like Dutton has so far failed to capture the reality of just how devastating such a conflict would be.
“We’re talking millions dead, including Australians. A global economic disaster. We’ve got to raise the entire reality of what a war would actually be like.”
Hard heads prevail
Interestingly, Dutton’s latest intervention doesn’t seem to have caused any major rebuke from Beijing, so far. Still, Australia is hardly in China’s good books right now, with the federal government’s scrapping of Victoria’s BRI deal last week causing more threats and bluster.
The government seems to have picked this fight with China because despite picking several others over the last year — most prominently over an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 — China’s coercion is yet to really hit. But the fate of the BRI, and the increased talk of potential conflict, are a sign of just how much both Australia and China have changed in the last few years.
Here, attitudes are hardening, and the hawkish national security frame dominates a relationship once viewed primarily through trade and economic opportunity. In 2017, then trade minister Steve Ciobo travelled to China for a Belt and Road forum. Two years later, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary Frances Adamson attended a similar forum. By 2021, the BRI is largely considered too toxic to handle. China, for its part, has doubled down on authoritarianism, and militarised nationalism and repression of minority groups.
Comparing Australia’s position to that of New Zealand is also revealing. Last week, New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta criticised attempts to pressure China using the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, indicating New Zealand will pursue “multilateral opportunities” to raise its concerns with Beijing. In January, Kiwi Trade Minister Damien O’Connor took a swipe at Australia for failing to show respect and act diplomatically towards China.
Australia didn’t need O’Connor’s suggestions — we’re pretty comfortable with hawkishness now. With Dutton in defence, that hawkishness isn’t going away any time soon.
I, for one, am very uncomfortable with hawkishness grandstanding. I would suggest that we pay attention to the NZ approach. The Chinese regime is repellent, but our military posturing will certainly not help it change direction.
Most Australians think themselves and their country superior to NZ. Their ‘leaders’ constantly validate this attitude with their actions. I expect Australia will never follow NZ in anything. It’s always the ‘big boys’ like the US and UK that Australia looks up to, eager to receive an approving pat on the head, no matter how wrong their behaviour is. It’s embarrassing and mostly not helpful at all. I don’t expect this attitude to change any time soon. Australia and Australians suffer from deep seated insecurities and need to assert themselves in opposition to a chosen entity that is perceived as in some way inferior. In typical bully manner Australia always chooses smaller and poorer countries and nations for this role. NZ will do just fine.
The independence (that is the correct word) that NZ has achieved could be emulated by Australia but NOT on the current foreign affairs course.
The current Minister may not be writing her speeches or announcements but her utterances are a liability and have no long term value to the USA. She is well on the way to obtaining the worst of both worlds for the country.
Further discussion welcomed!
I couldn’t agree more- China is an enormous power in our region, it is beyond naive to do head to head with them, a diplomatic course is our only option which is also in keeping with Cultural Relations 101- don’t make someone lose face etc. We may be bigger than New Zealand, but we are the second youngest sibling in a family of 15!
Further liaison with the ASIAN region would give Morrison and his nongs some pointers as to how the game can be played. Yet these prats reckon they know it all and therefore won’t be told. Ho hum.
Prats and Know-alls. That sums up our leaders.
Leaders?????
This unimaginative posturing government has no idea what they are doing internationally. They have stuffed us up at home and now are endangering our very existence by their ridiculous grandstanding on the world stage. Not only have they set themselves against the world’s biggest and most powerful nation who is still our biggest trading partner but they are also hell-bent on getting our oldest ally, the USA, off-side.
What do they think they are trying to achieve?
There does not seem to be any coherent Australian game plan and the option for independence (not indifference) is disappearing. Sometime later this year Oz is going to be asked some soul-searching questions by uncle Joe.
Agree, and Australians seem happy to lap up media confected Oz agitprop round Anzackery etc., or attack anything non Anglo/Irish e.g. post white Oz ‘immigrants’; media content is local British or American yet more liberal NZ, Canada and Ireland are ignored?
The antipathy encouraged towards non Anglo/Irish is used to create (inverse) respect or support for nebulous Anglosphere or ‘Anglo Saxon’ values (now emerging within the US GOP) maintaining the status quo and greasy pole of social mobility…. meanwhile enlightened policies from the EU and other first world nations are egregiously ignored or attacked.
I have three comments to make about the rise in Right Wing Hawks, demanding robust action against China, and military liaisons and response. First they may demand all this built up, but you can bet that none of them will be anywhere near the front line, if action is required or occurs..
Secondly I suggest they get out the world map, which is centred on the Pacific Ocean, not the Atlantic ocean. They may then realize the location and physical relationships between Taiwan, China, Australia, Japan, South Korea, India and the USA. As the Allies found in the Second World War you just cannot project Military Force over that distance, without many intervening bases, and the ability to provide support.
Thirdly a look at Google Earth may show them just how ridiculous, such action as they propose, it is in reality.
And fourth, just a little light reading around the history of the island of Taiwan. Maybe start around 1895 when Japan took it over. Quite a story that should inform a lot of nuance now but sadly won’t. The simple narrative now sounds like poor independent Taiwan is about to be brutally crushed by a powerful China and we may need to throw our considerable weight into that fight. This is beyond ridiculous.
A war with China from a geographical point of view would be unwinnable by the allies, but of course, the hawks fail to realize this. Particularly the Australian hawks, they seem to think Geriatric Uncle Sam has their back, but this may NOT be the case.
Just what Australia needs-a boneheaded bigot like Dutton handling the Defence portfolio. Ramp up the scare stories, bring back the Daesh-Death Cult, persecute the Bileola Four, feed the Culture Wars. A truly incompetent jerk who has failed upwards.
“A truly incompetent jerk who has failed upwards.”
Aren’t they all?
Definitely proven the Peter principle, though.
The opportunities for additional LBJ-ism will likely increase with the necessity of placing nuclear warheads into Australia if only for proximity if Dutton is correct.
Yet, once again mate, you have missed the core of the entire issue. That core is that the PRC could be entirely dominant (compared with roughly dominant now) in five years; economically and military for those who need it spelt out.
The options for uncle Sam (Australia to unless it renches itself off the tit) are (1) cooperation and engagement (no silly statements or trade wars) or (2) “containment” which is euphemism for WAR.
China is not going to be contained. China is quite ok with a bilateral or multilateral (Russia) relationship. By contrast, the yanks are NOT ok with such a situation. They want CEO status : end of story.
F.. K. We may have to grow up and stand on our own two feet rather than just yabbering about doing so.
The toxic tit of Uncle Sam. Poison milk.
The USA and its Allies have China surrounded by bases. There’s even a so-called spy base of theirs not ten km from me, Aussies not allowed. Our swallowing all this CIA propaganda, and even repeating it ad nauseum, is ruining our export industries and just does not bear examination. China can build all the bases they need to confront the obvious threats facing them. It’s defence. I’ve heard no threats by China, militarily, against the USA or Australia.
Dutton is an embarrassing excrescance, hazardous to the rest of us. Or do you really think we should have the war to end all wars?
“The USA and its Allies have China surrounded by bases.”
and yet it’s always the others who are treated like aggressors while USA & Co. are just ‘defending themselves.
Just look at the old narrative of the big bad Soviet Union the West – and especially the USA – need protecting from. And yet it wasn’t the UdSSR or any of their allies that has ever invaded the USA or any other Western nation. Quite the opposite.
Spot on – USA actions over 70+ years tell all.