What Australia-US-Japan alliance means in fight against China
Chinese whispers over Japanese secrets will be one of the best security alliances Australia will ever sign for South China Sea conflict flashpoint.
National
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When the order was received at the Australian desert spy base, the fall out was stunning and immediate.
It was early 1997 and on a secret government deal, the joint Australian-US military spy facility Nurrungar began sharing sensitive intelligence data with Japan.
The move was met by alarm by Defence analysts and others in Canberra and later the media asking why Australia’s “former wartime enemy” should be granted access to our most sensitive military secrets.
It didn’t matter that South Korea had already been granted similar secret access to the geostationary infra-red satellite tracking material and analysis.
Nor that the South Australian Nurrungar desert base – about to close with operations transferred to the equally sensitive Pine Gap base – just considered Australia “an end user” of intelligence not the operator of the spy ware so the Japan push came largely from Washington.
But fast forward and this month Australia, Japan and the US formalised effectively what had begun all those years ago at Nurrungar and took it further. Much further.
There are now very good reasons for that and this declared alliance and all that will follow will be one of the most valuable Australia has ever signed with any former friend or foe or in this case both.
This was reinforced by the announcement this week of a $50 billion boost over the next decade and a new national defence strategy, both to counteract China’s military build up.
As Defence Minister Richard Marles said on Wednesday, in an increasingly growing uncertain world and as a medium power with limited military capability Australia could never go it alone and needed a circle of friends.
It is the case though a wider circle of friends might also bring the region one step closer to what everyone fears but is preparing for, a likely confrontation with China.
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“I would like to propose a toast to our voyage to the frontier of the Japan-US relationship with this word – boldly go,” Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida declared last week during a White House visit, borrowing the iconic opening monologue of the “Star Trek” franchise.
US President Joe Biden, in revealing the new strategic alliance, addressed the case that Japan was once the enemy but in the years since World War II had become a friend.
“We both remember the choices that were made to forge a friendship,” Biden said. “We both remember the hard work, what it has done to find healing. Tonight we pledge to keep going.”
Challenging times require tough choices but this one was not so difficult, certainly not for Australia which has embarked on a noticeable step up in focused thinking about national security since the last year of the Morrison government and since with the Albanese regime.
That thinking requires formalising friendships be it with Japan, Indonesia or others in the region and pronto.
The latest alliance is multifaceted. In one aspect, AUKUS tripact (including the UK) will collaborate with Japan on military technology on a case-by-case basis.
AUKUS is currently just focused on the three nations sharing nuclear-powered submarine technology and the industry base to build the boats of the future. Japan will not be let into this club.
But AUKUS Pillar II will include technology sharing on underwater drones, quantum technologies, hypersonic and counter hypersonic missiles, cyber and electronic warfare and artificial intelligence.
Japan’s top tech and industrial capability offers huge potential to Australia’s fledgling industry scope.
The Australian-Japan pact had already stepped up in recent months with formal agreements signed allowing Japanese access to Australian military bases, and joint military operations including in the contested South China Sea.
Biden added there would also be “networked air defence architecture among the United States, Japan, and Australia to counter growing air and missile threats”; Australia’s role in that will be to act as the industrial manufacturing base.
Just including Japan in AUKUS discussions gives the pact not only access to Japan’s tech but vital standing in Asia.
“I think another positive to this is that an Asian partner of AUKUS gives it a different flavour, it dilutes the old Anglo element to it,” Dr Euan Graham, senior analyst from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told ABC radio.
Japan has already signalled a desire to test its missiles on Australian ranges; during Talisman Sabre ‘23 it tested new missiles off the coast of NSW and Queensland. Also last year Japanese F-35s were deployed to RAAF Base Tindal while Australia sent F-35s to Japan and 230 Australian Army soldiers took part in Yama Sakura exercises for the first time.
Last weekend, warships from Australia, Japan, the US and the Philippines staged historic joint maritime exercises in the South China Sea in a show of force highlighting the pact.
More are planned. Japan is also set to sign agreements with the Philippines for reciprocal rights to its military bases and also a deal with the UK to sell the British next-generation fighter jets.
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Dr Graham said the US was likely frustrated by the lack of urgency and progress to deliver capabilities under AUKUS from the Australia side.
“But I think the idea is to try and kick start this, inject a bit more speed and scale and Japan fits the bill because it is the US’ most important military ally in the Pacific.”
He added there could be some reservation from the three AUKUS partners to share strategic secrets with Japan which was not up to the level of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing framework which AUKUS was privy to.
Defence Minister Richard Marles said the enhanced alliance with Japan was about promoting stability and security in the region, a notion China scoffs at and declared the move as bolstering a Pacific arms race.
When asked whether Japan could be trusted with military secrets that would come from AUKUS Pillar II, Marles was unequivocal.
“I think the point here is Japan is a high tech country with high tech industry and high tech defence industry, and we already do co-operation with Japan in relation to technology, and I think there is opportunity to do that here and we’ve got no concerns around the security that would need to be associated with that,” he said.
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The 1997 outcry when the Nurrungar-Pine Gap deal was done was not helped when months later in August that year the John Howard government announced the first ever inquiry into the 1941 sinking of HMAS Sydney with the loss of all 645 crew amid persistent theories it was sunk by a Japanese submarine not a German raider (the inquiry found no evidence to support the claim).
This time around the ever growing threat of China’s coercion in the region, its cyber assaults on the alliance, its prowling of the South China Sea – through which 90 per cent of Australia’s trade passes through but which 97 per cent of the water body is claimed by China as its territorial waters – sees a different outcome.
“The Japanese technology innovation sector, advanced manufacturing capabilities and hugely ambitious space program are three example areas where Australia, the UK and the US could leverage Japanese capacity to accelerate many of their Pillar II priorities,” former ADF officer and executive director of the Security and Defence PLUS Alliance Professor Ian Langford said.
“We should expect Beijing to be upset. No longer will it be able to label AUKUS ‘colonial’ or ‘Cold War’ in its logic, design and implementation. The Chinese will also not welcome an AUKUS partner inside its own hemisphere where Australia, the US and the UK are seen by many in Beijing as “over there”, Japan sits well inside the weapon engagement zone of most People’s Liberation Army shore-based anti-ship missiles.”
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