Chinese warships off Sydney just another symptom of Australia’s lack of pride | Caleb Bond
What need is there for China to float military ships past Australia except to intimidate us, writes Caleb Bond.
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We need a bigger, stronger military yesterday.
Three Chinese warships are currently cruising down the east coast of Australia.
They were first spotted off northeast Queensland last week and were on Thursday about 150 nautical miles from Sydney.
What need is there for China to float military ships past Australia except to intimidate us?
And it’s not hard to do when you look at the state of the ADF.
It is an indictment on successive governments – both Labor and Liberal – that our defence force is so anaemic.
We couldn’t even send a single ship to help secure the Red Sea against Houthi attacks on cargo.
The Rudd government put out a defence white paper in 2009 that said we needed to double our submarine fleet to 12 as soon as possible.
Sixteen years later we still only have six subs.
The 2020 Defence Strategic Update said we no longer had a 10-15 year window in which to prepare for conflict.
Defence Minister Richard Marles repeated that in last year’s National Defence Strategy – and yet ADF staff numbers have decreased under the Albanese government.
We may as well put up a big sign along the coast: “Free to the first invader”.
We are sitting ducks.
And, of course, China thinks it is perfectly fine to sail past Australia in international waters without interruption but when an RAAF plane flew through international airspace over the South China Sea last week, the Chinese fired flares.
China, amongst other nations, most definitely mean us harm.
ASIO boss Mike Burgess revealed in his annual threat assessment that at least three foreign nations had planned to hurt or kill critics living in Australia.
It included a plot by one nation to lure a human-rights activist to another country where they’d be killed or injured in a staged “accident” and different nations organising to kill people on Australian soil.
He also said countries were putting the heavies on diaspora communities in Australia, including four that had tried to forcibly take people back to their homelands for “questioning”.
And what are we doing while foreign adversaries try to bring us down?
Just hanging around waiting for some submarines and hoping our military will be in decent shape in 15 years time.
The US predicts conflict with China in the next decade, so being ready to go by 2040 won’t do us much good.
The ADF is about 20 per cent below its personnel capacity.
We are so desperate for people to sign up that the federal government last year opened enlistment to non-citizens.
Funding is one problem – but this is all a symptom of our cultural degradation and decline.
An Institute of Public Affairs poll last year found that if Australia was invaded and at war only 27 per cent of people aged 18 to 24 would stay and fight.
Nearly half would flee.
Why would we bother defending a country we’ve decided is a colonial disgrace?
Strong militaries need strong funding and infrastructure – and we need more of that.
But they also need strong national pride.
We need much more of that.
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Originally published as Chinese warships off Sydney just another symptom of Australia’s lack of pride | Caleb Bond
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