All of us have experienced situations in our lives, whether it be in personal and family affairs or in business, where we simply have had to be pragmatic about the situation that has evolved. Not to recognise reality would trigger a disaster.
Accordingly we have all made decisions where in an ideal world we would prefer to have taken a different course, but the alternatives to pragmatism were far worse.
Australia has good reasons to be very unhappy with China and so that has led to very strong government and community views advocating a very hard line. But we sometimes forget that we also took actions and statements that were to designed to provoke China.
In international affairs, like personal and business affairs, you need to look at the total situation.
Whatever we might feel about China, we must start with the fact that through appalling public servant and political equipment purchasing decisions over the last decade or so we now have limited effective defence, which, of course, compounds China’s lack of respect for Australians.
My readers are well aware of the total defence equipment morass but it’s worth setting out the situation in its stark horror.
We backed the US on the Joint Strike Fighter/F35. But when it was apparent some years ago---thanks to the work of our premier air defence research organisation, Air Power – that the JSF was not going to be competitive with Chinese and Russian aircraft we obscured the truth from gullible Australians.
We did not help the Americans get on the right track. Now, not only do we have no air defence against top Chinese aircraft but, worse still, America, which is now fully aware of the disaster, does not know how to handle it. But we are relying on America.
The spearhead of American air defence, the F22, is out of production and ageing and needs updating. And there are only about 100 operating and none are based in Australia.
Australia talks about buying bombers, which is yet again a total nonsense because we need air defence.
I don’t need to tell Australians who have studied our 1939-42 history (and we don’t teach enough of it in our schools) when we relied on the British.
In our modern day sea defence we didn’t upgrade the Collins submarines when we should have and have concocted a new plan to waste between $120bn and $150bn on a submarine that already is way out of date. And we are consistent and have made a mess of the frigate tender.
After World War II we realised we needed an industrial base for our defence. But incredibly in the last decade or so we believed there was no risk of a war and/or could rely on America, so we dismantled it, preferring the joys of low-cost Chinese and Asian goods.
We now have to rapidly restore our industrial capacity. It’s no wonder the Chinese have no respect for us.
The world is now dividing into regions – North America, Europe and Asia. In our region, on the surface, many countries support us in our China stance but pragmatically all are finding ways to work with China. The list of countries in that situation includes the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea and even to some extent Japan. We are alone.
In the G7 there was much publicity in our media about how we were supported but the G7 was split over China and there was no strong line in the final communique. Even the US under Biden is being pragmatic and talks have restarted with China. Again we are alone in not having any contact.
I am not going to set out in this commentary what Australia needs to do because it’s not an easy task and both countries have buried themselves into a deep hole. China is now a dictatorship and very different to the China we got to know very well and we can list a whole series of things we are justifiably unhappy about.
But China has legitimate criticisms of Australia. On his visit to Singapore our Prime Minister Scott Morrison received some publicly-spoken advice from Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who stated that the region had to find a way to deal with the reality of China. I am sure Lee was more direct in private conversations.
As I pointed out last week Singapore is now starting to enjoy an increased flow of global money as Hong Kong’s importance declines. Obviously, Shanghai will also become much more important. Singapore is buying modern German submarines for about $US2bn – a fraction of the price we will pay and they don’t have to wait until 2040.
I know my readers dislike anything that is soft on China but our world is not as we would like it so as a remote island continent with a run-down defence capability we have to adapt.
Stephen FitzGerald, our first ambassador to China after diplomatic relations were resumed in 1972, gave us this advice in The Weekend Australian.
He pointed out that neither Coalition nor Labor governments had a coherent strategic policy for engaging with China and relations were now mired in “paranoia and panic”.
“It is a different China but that does not absolve us of the responsibility of trying to engage with it,” he said.
“China is now economically bigger, more powerful, but you have to engage with the country like that whatever you think of it. That is what Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam are doing.”
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