In his Diary of a Foreign Minister, Bob Carr proudly tells us how he worked with then secretary of Foreign Affairs, Dennis Richardson, to make sure the 2012 Australia–US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) meeting in Perth “should not contain another big strategic initiative”.
Carr fretted about more planned US ship visits to Australia: “How does that get read in the Chinese embassy?” ‘This will be a successful AUSMIN if we have the media complaining there was no big announcement,’ I recall Dennis saying to me.”
AUSMIN 2023, just held in Brisbane, delivers quite a lot of new defence co-operation while looking low-key. That may please a Labor government trying to stabilise relations with Beijing, but the Chinese embassy will see AUSMIN boosting America’s defence presence in Australia.
The AUSMIN declaration gives an annual overview of the US-Australia alliance. Ministers would have agreed the paperwork weeks before Saturday’s meeting, leaving just enough room in a 4000-word statement for last-minute tinkering.
The US would have contributed the strong language on China, identifying “unsafe encounters at sea”, “maritime claims that are inconsistent with international law” and “severe human rights violations and abuses in Xinjiang”.
The usual language on Taiwan promotes a “shared opposition to unilateral changes to the status quo”. This didn’t stop the Biden administration from just agreeing to a new $US345m defence package for Taipei.
In keeping with several recent AUSMIN talks, the communique commits both countries “to deepen economic, trade and people-to-people ties” with Taiwan. What a pity the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has such an iron determination to do nothing on that front.
While the US, Japan and other countries are working hard below the diplomatic radar to strengthen Taiwan against an attack from the Chinese mainland, Australia’s self-harming obsession to return to an abusive relationship with Beijing prevents us from working with a like-minded democracy.
As always, the substantive parts of the AUSMIN declaration cover defence co-operation. There are unspecified commitments to more space co-operation, to the “regular rotation” of a US Army watercraft unit and to expanding Australia’s bare northern airbases.
More US maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft will operate from Australia and there will be “more regular and longer visits” of US nuclear-powered submarines to “build Australia’s capacity in preparation for Submarine Rotational Force-West” arriving as early as 2027.
Perhaps the most significant decision was on “the potential for co-production of guided multiple launch rocket systems by 2025”. This would enable the US to build and stockpile weapons in Australia of a type we have seen in high demand in Ukraine, with ranges between 70 and 150km.
These are not the long-range missiles Australia needs for its ships and aircraft, but a kickstart – any start at all – in missile production is urgently needed. There is a passing reference to “enhance trilateral Integrated Air and Missile Defence co-operation with Japan”.
This is a valuable move in getting the region’s consequential democracies working together.
The bottom line of this year’s AUSMIN meeting is that the US is moving to do more in northern Australia as part of its dispersal strategy dealing with a more threatening China.
This sets the context for Anthony Albanese’s consideration of yet another report on the Port of Darwin lease to Chinese company Landbridge.
US military positioning is vital but this AUSMIN was not about rapidly re-equipping the ADF. Thanks to government and Defence management failures, Richard Marles knows almost nothing can be done to significantly up-gun the ADF within the decade.
Add that failure to the list of royal commissions that will never happen for reasons of bipartisan political and bureaucratic culpability.
New Zealand is not mentioned at all in the statement. That should worry Wellington, where successive governments have worked hard to cement their strategic irrelevance since walking from ANZUS over nuclear-powered ship visits in the mid-1980s.
Antony Blinken last week did not invite the Kiwis into AUKUS. He merely said “the door is open to engagement”.
As AUKUS is a science, technology and industrial agreement, New Zealand has little engagement to offer and a good deal of political baggage to complicate matters. Australia should vigorously push back against rewarding New Zealand with AUKUS membership.
The emphasis on “First Nations people” is a new element in the AUSMIN statement, receiving four mentions. Australia and the US are said to be “committed to ensuring the voices of First Nations people are heard at the international level”.
The only reference on the US State Department website to First Nations people comes in this communique. America has more than 50 special envoys covering everything from LGBTQI+ issues to Tibet and food security, but it has no special envoy for First Nations people.
In contrast, Penny Wong appointed an ambassador for First Nations People last March whose job is to “develop a First Nations foreign policy strategy”.
This has been Wong’s signature contribution in the first year of government. Will a “First Nations foreign policy strategy” be different from what traditionalists would call Australian foreign policy? Who gets to agree a First Nations foreign policy: Penny Wong? Our First Nations ambassador?
You can be assured that using the term “voices of First Nations people” in the communique is not accidental.
Is the government inferring that the voice, if passed at a referendum, will canvass Australian foreign policy?
Or are we supposed to believe the development of a First Nations foreign policy, now endorsed by AUSMIN, will have nothing to do with the voice?
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