Barnaby Joyce warns future generations facing China ‘threat’

As Australia’s biggest war-games reach their tail end, Canberra has been hit with a grim warning about a “threat” facing future generations.

Nationals maverick Barnaby Joyce says Australia’s approach to defence is “putting the future of your children and grandchildren at threat” amid fears over China’s military build-up and aggression toward Taiwan.

The warning comes as Talisman Sabre, Australia’s biggest war-games, reaches its tail end.

Some 35,000 troops from 19 of the country’s allies are taking part in the military exercises — drills Taiwan is pushing to join in the future.

Mr Joyce, a former deputy prime minister, said on Monday Australia’s “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan must be “backed up with incredible strength”.

Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce says Australia is putting future generations at ‘threat’ by not acting faster to bolster the military. Picture: Martin Ollman / NewsWire

“There’s not multiple rules-based orders in the world — there’s one,” he told Seven’s Sunrise, citing remarks French President Emmanuel Macron made earlier in the year.

“If a country wants to be outside that by just taking the South China Sea, by what we’ve seen with journalists in Hong Kong just (being) taken off the street, with tennis players who disappear if they say the wrong thing.

“We’ve had a massive build-up of (China’s) armed capacity, including their nuclear capacity, and no real explanation as to why and (Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong) brought that to our attention lately.”

Mr Joyce went on to say the “Australian people really haven’t grasped exactly what’s before us”.

“We need to become as strong as possible as quickly as possible,” he said.

“We really are putting the future of your children and grandchildren at threat.

“China does not believe in a democratic world order.

“They believe in an alternate order that does not include democracy and ultimately … where we lie in that, if we don’t get this right, is as a vassal state.

“You will be dominated by economically, socially in your media, by a totalitarian regime.”

Adding that Australia is “not as strong as we should be at the moment”, Mr Joyce said the answer is working with allies to bolster collective defence.

China has built the largest active military under President Xi Jinping. Picture: Vyacheslav Oseledko / AFP

The Albanese government has so far resisted domestic and international calls to lift Australia’s defence spending beyond what 2.33 per cent of GDP already committed to by 2034.

The US earlier this year demanded Australia hiking the military budget to 3.5 per cent of GDP, warning China posed an “imminent” threat to Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific.

More to come

Originally published as Barnaby Joyce warns future generations facing China ‘threat’