Strategic Forum: Labor plans to be more ‘hawkish’ on China

A Labor government would take a harder line on Beijing in the South China Sea than Scott Morrison, Richard Marles says.

Labor’s defence spokesman Richard Marles at The Australian’s Strategic Forum. Picture: Nikki Short

Opposition defence spokesman Richard Marles says a Labor government would be more hawkish on Beijing’s behaviour on the South China Sea than Scott Morrison.

The deputy Labor leader singled out Australia’s handling of the South China Sea as a series of missteps taken by the Coalition government in handling the China relationship.

Speaking at a panel at The Australian’s Strategic Forum, Mr Marles said Labor would have taken a harder line on Beijing for building artificial islands in the contested waters.

“I think we need a very robust position on the South China Sea. In terms of my advocacy on that it would have been on a more hawkish position from what we have seen from the government,” Mr Marles said.

He would not give details on the different actions Labor would take or whether he would approve freedom of navigation operations if he was the minister.

“It is difficult to articulate this from opposition because you don’t have all the operational detail that you do in government,” Mr Marles said.

“(But) our interests lie in the global rules order which has served our nation well.

“We should be doing everything in principle available in terms ion asserting the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.”

The panel, which was moderated by The Australian’s Paul Maley, also included National Security Institute director Peter Leahy and former head of ASIO Dennis Richardson.

Mr Richardson hit back at Mr Marles’ criticisms of the Morrison government for not having a “guiding principle” in its relationship with China.

“I will just ask one question, your party assumed it was going to win the election, in fact I thought you would win. Given that you did a lot of planning for that presumably you had already thought through what your guiding philosophy and grand plan would be. So would you like to outline what it was?”

Former ASIO chief Dennis Richardson at the Strategic Forum. Picture: Nikki Short

Mr Marles equivocated and joked: “You’ve got a career as a journalist coming up”.

He eventually said Labor would have sought more good will, better diplomacy and an overriding architecture.

“It means walking down a path that is actively building trust knowing that, if we are going to be doing business with China, there needs to be a dimension of trust to it,” Mr Marles said.

“There have to be some relationships at a political level between senior politicians in Australia and senior politicians in Beijing. Right now I don’t think there is a single one of those relationships which exist.”

Mr Richardson, a former secretary of the departments of foreign affairs and defence, said the answer showed Labor’s plan was no different from the Coalition’s.

“If the political parties wanted to do something positive they could both, on both sides of the aisle, resist the temptation to make political capital out of missteps by the other when it might come to China,” he said.

“But by and large I think there has been a consistency in Australia’s approach to China for quite some years.

“I’ll bet if you guys (Labor) get into office in the next election, within two years of the next election you will no more have a guiding philosophy.

“You will no more have a grand plan as what we currently have at the moment. Because grand plans don’t exist in the real world. Policy management does and we do that pretty well.”

Mr Leahy shared Mr Marles’ concern about the lack of a coherent strategy on China, declaring it left Australia with its “pants down” in the South China Sea.

“They are ahead of us in the South China Sea,” he said.

“Australia is a strategy free zone.

“We need to look at what do we want and what do we need to do to achieve it.”