For the Morrison government to name China publicly as the author of critical cyber attacks is another historic marker in our relationship with Beijing. Such naming is not unprecedented but it’s extremely rare.
For years journalists routinely have been briefed by senior politicians, officials and think-tank figures about relentless Chinese cyber intrusions. These intrusions serve many purposes – to steal technology and information, disrupt Australian operations, gain the ability to take out a particular function altogether.
Previously, Australian politicians and officials were reluctant to name China publicly. This was to avoid damaging the relationship with Beijing and provoking specific retaliation.
Those considerations no longer apply. The Morrison government is in no doubt that, as senior US Asia official Kurt Campbell recently observed, Australia-China relations are likely to be bad for a long time. There’s no longer anything much to save diplomatically, so the government may as well tell the truth about cyber.
So this week’s statement by the Home Affairs, Defence and Foreign Affairs ministers calling Beijing out marks a distinct new stage in the China relationship.
Two other important changes are noteworthy. This was an international statement by the US, Japan, Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the EU and NATO. This is an impressive list of countries. It makes the statement much more powerful and effective than if it were just one country making this charge. It is also the right way for Canberra to proceed, among a big group of like-minded countries.
The second change is the nature of Chinese cyber incursions. They are much more technically sophisticated than before. They now are undertaken mostly by individuals and entities theoretically not directly employed by the Chinese government, but in fact doing its bidding and funded by the Chinese state.
They also have moved into outright criminality, prosecuting ransomware attacks as well as espionage. This melding of espionage with criminality is extremely concerning and threatens the fundamental order of the international system.
The Biden administration, in making its charges against Beijing, said Chinese universities were used in the overall cyber intrusion efforts.
Australia’s big universities hate to hear anything like this. In fact our universities generally won’t face up to any of the realities of dealing with Beijing.
But the seamless and sophisticated way Beijing integrates Chinese universities into its national security efforts overall must cast the gravest doubts on collaboration efforts between Australia and Chinese universities.
It was a very good thing that Japan was part of this statement. Here again, the international statements, strong as they are, suffer from two weaknesses. It’s good that the EU joined in. The slow, reluctant, painful education of the Europeans about the nature of the modern Chinese state is important work.
However, the whole enterprise would have been vastly more powerful if it had included statements from the governments and leaders of Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Poland as the leading European powers. The EU may claim competence in foreign policy. But as an institution it is often, to put it bluntly, prolix and fatuous. It makes statements about everything and these statements are typically gossamer thin, as light as air, as heavy as dust, as consequential as a summer breeze.
On the other hand, the presence of Japan was critical. Next to the US, Japan was the most important nation involved in this international effort. It would be a very bad look for Australia to have no Asian friends willing to join in our allied public statements about Beijing. Notable absentees from this list, however, were nations such as South Korea and Singapore.
This underlines Japan’s absolute centrality to the geo-strategic equations of East Asia. Japan remains our most important ally in East Asia. The solidarity of the Five Eyes nations, the public courage of the Brits, these are very important indeed, but it’s Japan that lives in this region with us. Which, incidentally, is another reason we should have gone with Japanese submarines, but that’s another story for another time.
This week we also have seen US commitments to greater training and force deployment operations in northern Australia, although for the moment these are limited by Covid.
The Morrison government believes an enhanced US presence in northern Australia is a winning proposition for Australia from every point of view. It further anchors the US in our region. It helps the US disperse and diversify its regional military presence, making it a little less vulnerable to any pre-emptive Chinese strike in the event of future military conflict.
Any Australian joint training with the US enhances our own military capabilities. And most important of all, the Morrison government believes, a greater US presence in northern Australia reinforces Australian military deterrence.
Canberra has achieved greater strategic credibility because of the rise of our defence budget beyond 2 per cent of our gross domestic product. This column has long argued that a good deal of this money is wasted on capabilities not relevant to our overriding maritime challenge. However, all of our extra capabilities do increase our ability to supplement US forces in niche roles, which is just about the limit of our Defence organisation’s imagination. From Washington’s point of view, that, plus political solidarity, is probably about as much as they can expect.
Certainly the Biden administration has exhibited exemplary political solidarity with Australia in our difficulties with China. Our long-run trade dependence on China is still a major national vulnerability, and we still lack sustainability, mass and resilience in most national and defence capabilities.
The government also received perhaps surprising solidarity from Labor leader Anthony Albanese, who in an important interview with this newspaper stressed how bipartisan China policy now is and how difficult any resurrected relationship with Beijing would be, no matter who was in power in government. Albanese also came out strongly against Labor proponents of the anti-Semitic and disgraceful boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel.
These sensible moves suggest Labor thinks it can win the next election and doesn’t want any national security problems along the way. However, good as federal Labor has been on most national security issues, its credibility is still uncertain. Its record on defence spending is appalling; it is Labor premiers who intermittently attack and undermine national China policy.
Albanese, in private conversation in the past, often has described concerns over China as exaggerated. There is still frontbench Labor sentiment that thinks it could “regain trust” with Beijing. While it could conceivably have a calmer relationship with Beijing, the idea of trust, in the light of the latest cyber revelations, is patently absurd.
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