US-China war: we would be involved

Australia will ­­inevitably be drawn into a US-China conflict with the continent now more relevant than ever to the contest between the world’s great powers, as America ratchets up its military presence on ­Australian soil.

Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles says the nation will ­inevitably be drawn into a US-China conflict.

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Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles says the nation will ­inevitably be drawn into a US-China conflict with the continent now more relevant than ever to the contest between the world’s great powers, as America ratchets up its military presence on ­Australian soil.

The stark warning came as the Chief of the Defence Force David Johnston said Australians needed to prepare for more regular Chinese naval exercises off the ­nation’s coastline, as Beijing’s powerful navy hones its war plans.

Forty-eight hours before ­Anthony Albanese’s meeting with Donald Trump in Canada, Mr Marles defended the government’s refusal to announce fresh military spending in line with US demands, saying new funding decisions would not be made until next year.

At the same time, the Defence Minister flagged reforms to his department reforms that would put “everything on the table”, and the upcoming sale of billions of dollars worth of surplus Defence land to raise funds for critical ­capabilities.

Mr Marles said while Australia was not under threat of invasion by China, it would play a key role if war broke out between the US and China. “Our continent is more relevant to great power contest now than it’s ever been before,” he told The Australian’s Defending ­Australia summit in Canberra on Monday.

“That is as much of a question in the here and now as is the building up of our defence capability.”

The comment came days after the Prime Minister refused to say whether China presented a military threat to Australia, and followed last year’s declaration by the former head of the US Congress’ foreign affairs committee, Michael McCaul, that Australia had ­become America’s “central base of operations” in the Indo-Pacific.

Australia regularly hosts ­nuclear-capable US bombers from Top End bases, which have been expanded and hardened to meet American requirements, and is home to joint US-Australian ­defence facilities at Pine Gap and Exmouth. More than 2000 US Marine Corp personnel are also based in Darwin for six months a year, while US nuclear submarines will begin to operate from Western Australia by 2027.

Former Defence Department secretary Dennis Richardson told the summit that if the US and China went to war over Taiwan, Australia would be unable to avoid being dragged into the conflict.

“Whether it be Pine Gap, whether it be the disbursement of US forces, we would be involved,” Mr Richardson said.

Former Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo told the summit he was a supporter of closer military integration between Australia and the US, but the government needed to be more open with the public about the consequences of the relationship.

Former Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo. Picture: Martin Ollman

He said if Australia was ­attacked in the context of a US-China war, we would not be “sitting back saying: ‘well, we rented them the space, we don’t know what the tenants are doing with the land that we’ve given them’. We need to think much more deeply about this question.”

Admiral Johnston, who last week warned the ADF might need to conduct combat operations from Australian soil, told the summit that last year’s live-fire drills and circumnavigation of Australia by a Chinese naval flotilla was not a one-off event.

“As an expanding blue-water navy, we should expect the Chinese navy to undertake similar ­deployments more regularly to the South West, Pacific and Indian Ocean,” Admiral Johnston said.

“These deployments are opportunities to expand their training, improve their operational readiness and demonstrate their increasing capability.”

Defence experts warned that the Chinese warships used the mission to rehearse the targeting of Australian cities. Mr Marles said he was “very clear” about what the ships were doing, but it was not “appropriate or helpful” to reveal further details.

A fortnight after US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth called for Australia to lift defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP from its current 2 per cent, Mr Marles backed Mr Albanese’s argument that military funding should be determined on the basis of required capabilities, not an arbitrary percentage of national output. He said next year’s update of the national defence strategy would determine what new capabilities would be brought into service and make fresh decisions on spending.

Mr Pezzullo said the government already had a detailed spending blueprint – the 2023 Defence Strategic Review. “It just needs to be fully funded,” he said.

Mr Richardson said if the government followed the recommendations of its own DSR, “it’s going to take you north of 3 per cent of GDP”.

Mr Marles said the upcoming overhaul of the Defence bureaucracy would ensure it was fit for purpose, while the Defence Estate Audit – handed to the government more than 18 months ago – would be released in due course, freeing up billions of dollars worth of land for much-needed spending. Quoting from the report, he said: ­“Defence is constrained by the weight of its past when it comes to management of the estate.

“Urgent interventions are needed to correct the unsustainable trajectory that has resulted from decades of deferred decisions on contentious estate issues.”

Days after the Trump administration announced an “America First” review of the AUKUS submarine pact, Australian Submarine Agency head Jonathan Mead said he had been assured by ­counterparts in Washington DC three weeks ago that they were confident Australia had the program in hand.

“We presented the evidence and showed them pictures … and once again they said to us, ‘We understand, you’re on track, we support this’,” Admiral Mead told the summit.

Retired Rear Admiral Katherine Richards, chief engineer at Engineers Australia, warned the nation faced dire skills challenges that could set back the program, with an extra 60,000 engineers required over the next decade.

Former ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey Picture: Martin Ollman

Former ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey, said the “ulterior motive” for the snap AUKUS review was America’s own failure to produce enough Virginia-class submarines, which had led to second thoughts about supplying three of the boats to Australia.

“Our solution has to be actually, ‘We’re going to help you build them. We’ll send … 500 people from Adelaide over there, and then we will build … command modules. We’ll build torpedoes in Adelaide,” Mr Hockey said.

He warned one of the biggest domestic threats to AUKUS was Korean defence giant Hanwha’s push to buy out Australian shipbuilder Austal, which he said would undermine the nation’s capacity to deliver the program.

Admiral Johnston said the “Pillar 1” submarine program was ­Defence’s “primary capability priority”.