Region’s military tension grows

Anthony Albanese is walking a tightrope in China. While discussing important trade and economic issues with his hosts, Donald Trump’s defence adviser, Elbridge Colby, is asking vital and difficult questions about defence spending and pre-committing US-supplied submarines to a potential US war with China. Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy stated the obvious on the ABC on Sunday when he said “the sole power to commit Australia to war, or allow our territory to be used for conflict, is the elected government of the day”. He was asked about a Financial Times report from London that the Pentagon was pressing Australia and Japan to make clear what role they would play in a US-China war over Taiwan. No country should presume to expect Australia to cede control over its sovereignty. But the Prime Minister needs to be realistic about the extent to which our military alliance with the US is carved into the landscape.

While Mr Albanese declined to say if Australia would help the US to defend Taiwan, his deputy, Richard Marles, was clearer last month when he told The Australian’s Defending Australia summit that while Australia was not under threat of invasion by China, it would inevitably play a key role if war broke out between the US and China. “Our continent is more relevant to the great-power contest now than it’s ever been before,” Mr Marles said. “That is as much a question in the here and now as is the building up of our defence capability.”

As US Republican congressman Michael McCaul said last year, Australia is “the central base of operations” for the US military to deter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific. And as Ben Packham wrote on Saturday, the Pine Gap facility near Alice Springs, the Harold E. Holt Naval Communication Station in Western Australia’s North West Cape and other bases are vital to Australia, the US and, more broadly, to the defence of the free world. Pine Gap, for example, gives 20-30 minutes’ advance warning of a Russian or Chinese nuclear attack. In the event of war, Packham wrote, such sites, which China knows are unprotected by missile defence batteries, would be potential targets for Chinese ballistic missiles. Remedying that gap needs to be a priority.

While Mr Albanese is in China, the anticipated arrival of Chinese spy ships off our coast coinciding with the biennial Talisman Sabre land, sea, space and cyber exercises, in which 19 nations are participating, reflects the strategic realpolitik of our region. Uncertainties over Taiwan make it imperative that Australia, in our own national interests, steps up military preparations to a level in keeping with the strategic environment.

As Mr Colby said, some US allies might not welcome frank conversations about collective defence, but many, led by NATO, “are seeing the urgent need to step up, and are doing so”. So must Australia, as President Trump advances an agenda that is ultimately in our security interests.