Dysfunctional state of defence shows ALP is China’s lapdog

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, left, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong.

One of the more infamous moments in Sino-Australian relations was the bizarre 2020 incident when a Chinese diplomat at China’s Embassy in Canberra gave an Australian journalist a list of 14 grievances and their suggested remedies.

China genuinely seemed to think we would bow to these in order to keep our lobster, barley and Penfolds sales buoyant. It had all the finesse of a one-day show trial to condemn a democracy fighter to death.

One of these astonishing demands was that the government stop funding an “anti-China think tank”, claiming it was “spreading untrue reports, peddling lies around Xinjiang and so-called China infiltration aimed at manipulating public opinion against China”.

China was referring to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a body that does important work in reminding policymakers about our defence and national security vulnerabilities. The announcement of a review last week by Peter Varghese is widely anticipated as a move in preparation for defunding ASPI. Such a decision should terrify all those worried that we’re not spending enough, not worrying enough and not preparing enough to defend our island continent.

ASPI has helped shine a bright light on the challenges we face. It provides clear and unfettered advice on how Australia and its allies can defend democracy and our country’s values. It has been funded by the Australian government as well as the US and others. It provides a policy framework that justifies the defence spend we as a nation need to make.

That ASPI has therefore offended regional aggressors such as China goes without saying. It has also called out the impacts of cuts to defence spending and their impact on our nation’s capability, and the strain that puts on our allies.

Defence is in a mess. When we were asked by our allies to supply a navy ship to the Red Sea we sent a handful of office workers. Navy officials said in Senate estimates this wasn’t because we didn’t have an operational ship to send, so it must’ve been a political call.

Our AUKUS submarines are over a decade away. The Hunter frigates, yet to be built, can’t defend themselves against basic drones and carry too few missiles. The latest army vehicle, ironically called the Boxer (maybe after the rebellion), is over budget and again no longer fit for purpose.

Wang Xining

At the same time it’s said Defence Minister Richard Marles has been asked to find savings within his already too small budget. So just as we should actually be increasing our defence expenditure, investing more in our army, navy and air force, we might end up penny-pinching “Steven Smith-style” to pay for cost blowouts and public sector bloating elsewhere.

Imagine if our serving men and women had the same “work from home” agreements and ability to “disconnect” like so many public servants.

So, cutting the funding to a critic such as ASPI while also cutting the defence budget might just seem like smart politics from the small-target gang of Anthony Albanese, Marles and Penny Wong. But the only winner from these cuts is China. There’s a pattern of capitulation to China from the Albanese government that should be deeply worrying.

Albanese refused to raise the sonar attack on Australian Navy divers and instead sought to compare himself to Gough Whitlam on his China visit. He was getting embarrassing “handsome boy” compliments, while not raising the family of Yang Hengjun’s request that an Australian citizen was unjustly detained, given a show trial and is now condemned to die by lethal injection or firing squad.

Labor in opposition was very quick to condemn the Chinese buyout of the Solomon Islands government and the failure of then minister Marise Payne. It made political hay about the Chinese purchase of the strategic Port of Darwin.

Yet in government Labor had a whitewash inquiry into Darwin that said there was nothing to see. The Solomons is still as deeply corrupted now as when Scott Morrison let China station a “police force” there and develop a port capable of taking Chinese naval vessels as close to Townsville as Brisbane.

Papua New Guinea, despite the fraternity we feel, is a failing state and again the target of China’s soft diplomacy and hard money. The Pacific is on our doorstep and yet Wong and Pat Conroy think kava sessions will cut it and the Prime Minister twerking in a Hawaiian shirt in the Cook Islands is a foreign affairs strategy.

Anthony Albanese and Xi Jinping

Maybe the Albanese government thinks Australians are just too busy with the cost-of-living crisis to care. But China will be missing none of this. It will see a PM grinning to gratuitous compliments while avoiding raising matters of genuine national interest.

It will see a Defence Minister at war with his generals and not having what it takes to get more money for much-needed capacity right now.

It’s ironic that the last Labor defence minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, who took on the Defence brass, was sacked as minister after being outed for his “close friendship” with a political donor and accused Chinese spy.

Marles has form on being weak on China. He was accused of being as soft as tofu and a Manchurian candidate for being so compliant to the demands from Beijing. Defence isn’t just there to provide VIP flights to Avalon from Canberra.

China will note the fine work of Wong cutting funding to an irritant on China’s to-do list while being distracted touring the Middle East rather than the Pacific.

It’s beyond ironic that Wong fights to re-establish funding to the UNWRA, which employed terrorist killers and supplied free electricity to their communications centre at the same time she wants to cut funding to ASPI.

Australia needs to have a proper conversation about how we defend our values and our neighbours from foreign aggression. Defunding ASPI might keep you sweet with the Chinese; it doesn’t help our national interest.