Defence chief Angus Campbell’s fresh warning on China’s military expansion

Australia’s Defence chief has issued a fresh warning about Chinese military build-up while being grilled at a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra.

Canberra has urged Beijing to be more transparent about its military expansion as Australia’s Defence chief described the build-up as the biggest and most consequential undertaken by any nation since WWII.

General Angus Campbell told a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday Australia wouldn’t criticise any country for seeking to defend itself and preparing its armed forces for that purpose.

But he said nations engaged in such large-scale military expansion should be transparent and provide assurances to the international community, singling out China.

“I think that is where we see that there has been some critique of an absence of transparency and of assurance to the region with regard to the scale and intent of that build-up,” General Campbell said.

Gen Angus Campbell was quizzed about China at a Senate estimates hearing. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

General Campbell warned the scale at which China was developing its armed forces meant Australia needed to radically rethink the way it planned its own defences.

“The broadest and most consequential conventional military build-up since WWII over recent decades, is in the People’s Liberation Army across all of the operating or warfighting domains of land, air, sea space and cyber,” he said.

(It) means the idea of strategic warning time is no longer the short basis for planning that it once was.”

Australia could no longer rely on its remote location as a buffer against serious threats to its national security, General Campbell said.

“Historically, we would have said that there was perhaps a 10-year warning time for Australia to recognise a change of capability and the potential for intent to evolve in ways inimical to Australia’s interests, and we could prepare in that time,” he said.

“That is not necessarily the case.”

Labor senator Jenny McAllister appeared with Gen Campbell at the hearing. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

General Campbell’s comments echo those made by former chief of defence Sir Angus Houston and former defence minister Stephen Smith in their once-in-a-generation review of the Australian Defence Force.

“China’s military build-up is now the largest and most ambitious of any country since the end of the Second World War,” they wrote in the declassified version of their review, released in April.

Sir Angus and Mr Smith credited China with boosting Australia’s economy as its largest trading partner but warned Beijing’s military build-up was “occurring without transparency or reassurance to the Indo-Pacific region of China’s strategic intent”.

“China’s assertion of sovereignty over the South China Sea threatens the global rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific in a way that adversely impacts Australia’s national interests,” they wrote.

Beijing returned fire after Australia unveiled plans to overhaul its armed force after the Defence Strategic Review was handed to the federal government, accusing its southern neighbour of hyping up a “China threat” as an excuse to expand its military.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said in April the Asian superpower was committed to peace and stability in both the Asia-Pacific and “the wider world”.

“We do not pose a challenge to any country,” she told reporters on Monday.

“We hope certain countries will not use China as an excuse for military build-up and will refrain from hyping up the ‘China threat’ narrative.”

Australia is having to juggle plans to shore up its military against the threat of China with its attempt to repair the delicate diplomatic and trading relationship between Canberra and Beijing.