Australia in dangerous waters as it sides with allies of old

THE cold war in the waters off East Asia over patriotically claimed pieces of rock - and Canberra's role in it - intensifies.

Xi Jinping

THE latest intensification of the cold war in the waters off East Asia over patriotically claimed pieces of rock - and Canberra's role in it - had their genesis in events a few weeks ago.

The third plenum of the Chinese Communist Party's central committee gave the green light to an unexpectedly long list of economic and social reforms.

It also gave President Xi Jinping unprecedented control, as head of a new National Security Committee, over domestic and international military and police.

Mr Xi has compensated nationalist hardliners disappointed with the reform agenda through the declaration of the new Air Defence Identification Zone that has triggered so much trouble.

Not long before that, in the shadows of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Bali, the trilateral security partners - Australia, Japan and the US - held a meeting that appears to have reinforced their mutual opposition to such a move.

The ADIZ declaration has rebounded on China, not least by antagonising South Korea, which had been developing considerable hostility to Shinzo Abe's Japan.

Expert opinion is divided about Canberra's role. Mobo Gao, professor of Chinese studies at the University of Adelaide, said: "If anyone could deter the escalation (of rivalries in East Asia) it is of course the US, and Australian action would not have that kind of impact."

Michael Wesley, professor of national security at the National Security College in Canberra, said: "This reminds me a lot of 1996, when John Howard supported the Americans sending aircraft carriers into the middle of the Taiwan Strait crisis. Back then, Beijing did a masterful job of applying pressure, and one presumes they will do so this time."

He said that "my mantra is that you should only speak or act when you can make an impact".

Hugh White, strategic studies professor at the Australian National University, said that "China's sharp response to (Foreign Minister) Julie Bishop's comments reflects Beijing's unease at the new government's clear swing towards stronger support for Japan and the US".

"Bishop and (Tony) Abbott have claimed that getting closer to Japan and America doesn't mean getting further from China, but Beijing is proving them wrong.

"Bishop's mistake is to have conveyed the clear impression that the Abbott government supports US and Japanese policies aimed at containing China."

But Andrew O'Neil, director of Griffith University's Asia Institute, said "most of the region, including even South Korea ... seems to be bandwagoning against the Chinese move".

He described the Abbott government's response as "proper and logical" to a move made without any regional consultation.

The week's developments "make it more rather than less likely that Australia will play a direct role in supporting the US and Japan if tensions escalate further in Northeast Asia", he said, adding that the "condescending tone" of Beijing's response to Australia's intervention would not help.

David Martin Jones, an associate professor at the University of Queensland, agreed that Ms Bishop was right to call in the Chinese ambassador: "Her actions seem consonant with diplomatic protocol. "China's growing assertiveness in the East and South China Seas is clearly designed to test the regional maritime order.

"This shows how important it is to have the US fully engaged in the Asia-Pacific, as only a great power can balance a great power.

"If the US abandoned its Japanese alliance, then tensions in Northeast Asia would escalate rapidly and Japan and South Korea would necessarily and quickly go nuclear ... Australia has no interest in alienating China, but it also has an interest in maintaining the status quo."