Collapse of trust in China reinforces value of US alliance
Australia’s alliance with the US is reported to be under intense strain after a senior American defence official sought Australian government assurances to commit forces in support of the US military in the event of a crisis in the Taiwan Strait.
This ill-considered demand certainly places the Albanese government under strain. But the alliance?
According to the Financial Times, US Under Secretary of Defence for Policy Elbridge Colby sought advance commitments from Canberra that Australian submarines supplied by the US would support US forces in war with China.
This came a month after Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth met Defence Minister Richard Marles urging Australia to lift defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP. These demands, ham-fisted as they are, don’t place the Australia-US alliance at risk. The alliance is not grounded in what Australians may or may not think about the US government.
The one thing that could release Australians from their attachment to the US alliance would be a momentous change in Beijing. If the government of China abandoned its vision of becoming the regional hegemon and ceased to be the threatening power it has become, then public support for the US alliance in Australia could gradually diminish over time.
How do we know? Trust in the US to behave responsibly in the world has fallen dramatically across the past decade but that decline has not been matched by souring sentiment in Australia towards the US alliance.
If anything, the converse applies. In the 2025 Lowy Institute Poll, published after Donald Trump’s election to a second term as President, Australians’ trust in the US fell 20 points year on year to 36 per cent, almost 50 per cent below the historic highs of the early 2010s.
Yet this decline in public trust has not been matched by a fall in support for the US alliance. In the same poll, eight in 10 (80 per cent) Australians considered the alliance important for Australia’s security, a rise of nine points over a decade earlier when levels of trust in the US were far higher than they are in the second Trump administration.
As trust in the US falls, the value of the alliance goes up or holds steady. Why is that?
The paradox points to China. Levels of trust in China to behave responsibly in the world fell 40 points from 52 per cent in 2018 to 12 per cent by 2022. More important, relative threat perceptions grew fivefold across the period, from 12 per cent of respondents regarding China more a security threat than economic partner in 2018 to 63 per cent judging it more of a security threat in 2022.
Across the same period the proportion of Australians who thought China likely to present a military threat to Australia during coming decades rose from 45 per cent to 75 per cent.
This shift in general Australian sentiment towards China appears to be structural rather than contingent on events. It is true that the initial period of decline from 2018 to 2022 coincided with a number of negative developments in bilateral relations, including legislation limiting China’s political interference in Australia, the spread of the Covid pandemic and trade restrictions on imports from Australia valued at around $20bn a year.
But events since then, including the “stabilisation” of bilateral relations under Anthony Albanese and China’s lifting of political restrictions on trade, have done little to restore Australian threat perceptions to pre-2018 levels.
In 2025, after the last of the restrictions was lifted, the proportion who thought China would likely present a military threat to Australia in the next 20 years fell only marginally, from 75 per cent to 69 per cent, stubbornly higher than the 45 per cent level recorded in 2018.
Basically, the collapse of trust in China and corresponding rise of concern over that country’s military build-up and territorial claims in the region appear to be reinforcing the value of the US alliance in Australian eyes. Ham-fisted conduct on the part of the American government can certainly undermine Australians’ trust in the US, and no doubt create acute problems for governments, but only with a big shift on China’s part are Australians likely to loosen their attachment to the US alliance.
A China that was free and democratic, with an open press and vibrant civil society, and a government answerable to the national constitution and accountable to its people, would make all the difference.
That’s unlikely any time soon. In the meantime, Australia needs to constrain the government of China from realising its grand designs in the region by building sovereign defence capability in consort with allies and partners and supporting the US alliance how and where it can.
John Fitzgerald is emeritus professor at Swinburne University. His books include Cadre Country: How China Became the Chinese Communist Party (UNSWP) and Taking the Low Road: China’s Influence in Australia’s States and Territories (ASPI 2022).
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