For us to be so weak when the danger is so great is grossly reckless

China’s communist regime would be delighted with Anthony Albanese’s latest comments. And it shows the Prime Minister has already let his election win go to his head.

Anthony Albanese has already let his election win go to his head, threatening a think-tank that dared tell a dangerous truth about China he wants to suppress.

Oh, and threatening a think-tank that China wants censored, too.

A coincidence?

On Thursday, the Prime Minister savaged the Australia Strategic Policy Institute for warning we had a “paper” defence force that was too weak to defend us from “near-term threats”, when China’s massive military expansion raised the “real possibility” of a war in the next five years.

Anthony Albanese threatened a think-tank that dared tell a dangerous truth about China he wants to suppress. Picture: Australian Defence Force

Albanese hit the roof, and sent ASPI a clear threat: “I think they need to have a look at themselves as well and the way that they conduct themselves in debates.”

Insiders knew exactly what Albanese was saying.

His government last year endorsed in principle a report recommending it slash funding it gives ASPI for independent advice on our national security, and now Albanese was reminding it to watch its step.

China’s communist regime would be delighted.

It’s been furious that ASPI has repeatedly warned that China is a serious military threat.

Albanese sent the Australia Strategic Policy Institute a clear threat. Picture: Damian Shaw

In response, the dictatorship’s official media outlets have called ASPI “anti Chinese” and “just a tool of China hawks”, and said it was in “the business of ‘taking money to defame China’” and “should go bankrupt”.

Under Albanese, that’s more likely to happen.

So what a joke to hear just two days later Defence Minister Richard Marles say that US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had also just warned us and other allies to spend a lot more to prepare for war with China, with Marles several times saying: “This is a conversation that we are very willing to have.”

Really?

This government is so “willing” to have this conversation that it tells our top strategic think-tank to “have a look at themselves” when it says the same thing?

This double standard was exposed when Marles met Hegseth in Singapore on Saturday at the Shangri-La security dialogue, Asia’s premier defence summit.

Hegseth gave a frank speech declaring China could very soon invade Taiwan: “There’s no reason to sugar-coat it. The threat China poses is real, and it could be imminent.”

He warned the US would, if necessary, “fight and win decisively”, but allies like Australia had to ramp up their own military spending to 5 per cent of GDP for our collective defence.

But as we’ve just seen, Albanese would rather splash billions on election handouts and bribes than on more missiles, guns and drones.

His government is spending only 2 per cent of GDP on our defence, and plans to lift that to just 2.3 per cent, but only after another decade.

As ASPI warned last week in its report, written by former home affairs deputy secretary Mark Ablong, that’s left us critically short of integrated air and missile defence systems, long-range strike munitions, drones, anti-drone defences and a local industry to supply all this and ammunition, too, in case we’re cut off.

The double standard was exposed when Richard Marles met Pete Hegseth in Singapore. Picture: AP

For us to be so weak when the danger is so great is grossly reckless, given Marles last Friday again admitted Australia faced “the most threatening strategic landscape … since the end of the Second World War”.

Marles clearly blamed our growing danger on China at a side meeting of allies in Singapore: “We have seen the biggest conventional military build-up in the world since the end of the Second World War being undertaken by China.”

He even hinted Hegseth had a point in demanding we spend much more on our defence.

“What I made clear is that this is a conversation that we are very willing to have – and it is one that we are having,” he said.

So here was Marles endorsing a warning from the Americans last weekend, just days after his boss was threatening our top strategy think-tank for sending the same message right here. Why the difference?

Political embarrassment?

After all, Albanese won the election after trashing the Liberals’ defence policy, which demanded more defence spending, and fast.

He also courted the huge Chinese-Australian vote by vilifying the Liberals as anti-Chinese for warning against communist Chinese interference.

And he’s been trained by the Chinese regime – by stick and carrot – to keep quiet on its menace, even while his defence minister admits it in meetings with our allies.

Who knows why?

But the difference is so striking – ASPI told by triumphant Albanese to “look at themselves” after criticising his defence spending, while Marles nods in Singapore along as the US demands more, too.