Australia must stand ground against Beijing’s expansion

Former ALP leader, and recently retired as ambassador to the US, Kim Beazley. Picture: Tara Croser

Senior Labor figures including opposition defence spokesman Richard Marles have warned about the deeper importance of the US alliance to Australia and declared Australia must authorise freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea to defend our national interest and send a message to China.

Former ALP leader Kim Beazley, recently retired as ambassador to the US, said Australia must assert its rights and uphold international legal principles in the South China Sea, even if that involved some blowback from China in economic terms.

The backdrop to these statements are the firm recent public declarations made by US Pacific Command chief Admiral Harry B. Harris, who warns the US must be prepared to “confront” China if the need arises.

Speaking last month on the US west coast and in his role as a military diplomat, Harris said: “America’s iron-clad commitments to our treaty allies will never waver.

“And across the region, including in the East and South Chinas seas, the United States will continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows and support the right of all nations to do the same. From my perspective, we will continue to co-operate where we can and we will be ready to confront where we must.”

Unsurprisingly, the US Pacific Command chief says the operational philosophy is to be ready “to fight tonight”.

He says: “If we have to fight tonight, I don’t want it to be a fair fight. If it’s a knife fight, I want to bring a gun. If it’s a gun fight, I want to bring in the artillery.”

It is a statement of US resolve and military technological superiority, a factor often underestimated at present.

The unpredictable tensions in the US-China relations and the South China Sea continue to mount with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s visceral assault on US President Barack Obama saying he could “go to hell” and threatening, as a vital US ally, to “break up” with the US and turn to the waiting arms of Russia and China.

The furore over Duterte’s death squads against drug dealers — sparking huge criticism in the US — risks a reversal in the Philippines foreign policy with potential alarming consequences for the US and a gift for China if such threats are followed through.

Further uncertainty triggered by the US election and the polarisation between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump prompted Beazley’s warning that a Trump victory, based on what the candidate says, would constitute “the complete collapse of the American position in Asia”. Rarely — perhaps never since World War II — has Australia faced such a possible strategic disruption in US regional policy.

A critical ingredient in the mix, of which Beijing is profoundly aware, is the open and documented difference in appreciation and tactics between the Washington-based Obama administration and the Honolulu-based US Pacific command (PACOM).

This command has charge of 380,000 forces, 200 ships, five aircraft carrier strike groups, nearly 1100 aircraft and stretches from the US west coast to India’s western border. To say it is vital for Australia is a ludicrous understatement.

In his interview with Inquirer, Marles says China’s assertive posture and militarisation in the South China Sea is “clearly serious and directly related to Australia’s national interest”.

“When most of our trade goes through the South China Sea, we’ve got an interest in a rules-based order applying in respect of the South China Sea and the activities of China fly in the face of that,” Marles says. “And that’s what the Court of Arbitration has found — it’s a decision with a lot of meaning for Australia.

“I think it is very important that the US — and for that matter I think it’s important that Australia — asserts our rights to freedom of navigation in accord with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Given that we have so much trade going through that part of the world, we have a direct interest in it. It’s for those reasons that our view, Labor’s view, is that our Australian Defence Force and our navy should be fully authorised to engage in freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea.”

Marles is explicit this means transiting within the 12 nautical miles of the artificial islands that China has rapidly turned into a militarisation platform. China has made unqualified statements about its rights in defiance of the international arbitration ruling. Labor’s position, as outlined by Marles and former defence spokesman Stephen Conroy, is more assertive than that of the Turnbull government, which has not followed the US in its January and May exercises this year when it sailed vessels within the 12 nautical mile territorial limit, thereby sending a sharp message to Beijing.

“Let’s be clear,” Marles says. “It’s not for politicians to order a particular operation to occur. ­Operational decisions about any given act should be made by military commanders and politicians shouldn’t be doing that. The role of government is to authorise the ­activities of the ADF. Our view is that the government should fully authorise the ADF and the navy to engage in freedom of navigation operations so we can assert our full rights under international law.”

Marles and Beazley were speaking at the conclusion of an Australian-American Leadership Dialogue meeting in Honolulu that included visits to the PACOM headquarters. There was a strong on-the-record Australian sentiment after the dialogue that this was a potentially dangerous ­moment in the region and that, given the situation in the South China Sea and the uncertainty around the US election, that Australia must be proactive to argue the case for a strong US commitment to east Asia.

Marles says it is “important and timely” for Australia to “renew its efforts in terms of advocating our interests within the alliance”. He says regional power dynamics make the US alliance as “relevant and significant” as ever.

“From an Australian interest point of view, it’s critically important that America maintains its presence in the east Asian time zone,” he says. “We need to make sure with the new American administration — whichever one it is — that we are advocating that as loudly as we can.”

He says he is “comforted” after the dialogue that the US pivot to east Asia is “alive and well” and that a “clear message” has been sent to this effect. Marles rejects the paradigm that Australia has to choose between the US and China, saying this is not how he conceives the challenge.

“I think we’ve made choices and I think they are very clear,” he says. “We are in an alliance relationship with the US. We have been for a long time and that’s no surprise to the Chinese. I don’t think they are expecting us to make any different choices about that. Equally, we’ve made a very clear choice to engage economically and heavily with China. The real question for me is how you balance those things — those different aspects of our relationship with China.”

He says Australia’s challenge is not unique: it is the same challenge as faced by many other nations in the region. In this situation, it is a time to “compare notes with friends” and not engage in false “dichotomies”.

The South China Sea issue, however, is the vital insight into China’s strategic behaviour. First, it seeks military dominance in the near region and this, critically, ­includes a capacity against Taiwan. Second, it is prepared to breach norms in this quest, an omen of its desire to seek wider changes in the so-called Western-devised rules based international system. Third, it has proceeded along a sequence of “tests” and found its rivals are usually unprepared to stage any showdown.

The most important point is that the US and China have a wide range of interests that far ­transcend the South China Sea. It is in the interest of neither side to ­engage in a military showdown at this point. The risk, however, is that one or another may ­miscalculate.

In recent times, the US has sent mixed message on the South China Sea, somewhat typical of the Obama administration. While Harris has been resolute in his messaging to China, US Secretary of State John Kerry said in late July it was time to “move away from public tensions and turn the page” over the South China Sea, a statement that won wide coverage in China.

By contrast, nobody has doubts about where PACOM stands under Harris’s leadership. Sitting next to US Defence Secretary Ash Carter at a Singapore press conference on June 5 this year, Harris said: “We want to co-operate with China in all domains as much as possible. But we have to confront them if we must.”

Interviewed by Inquirer in Honolulu, Beazley says Australia should conduct freedom of navigations exercises in the South China Sea but, given the current environment, he believes the Turnbull government will be very cautious.

Have no doubt, he has picked the government’s mood.

Beazley says China’s behaviour is a “substantial concern”.

He says: “An international judgment has been made and the sovereignty of many nations is now legally involved. The activities of the Chinese and the claims they are making are not sustained. If international rules and obligations are to mean anything, then what is required of the Chinese is that they do no more development, not operate exclusively in the territories they claim and sit down with other nations and come to a decent conclusion.”

Asked whether there is evidence China would do this, he says: “Perhaps, but not much.”

The risk is that China will soon move to declare an air defence zone over some of all of its claims and “this will escalate things to a new level”.

Beazley says: “My view is that we should in an unpublicised way persist in what since 1971 we have established our right to do — we have been air patrolling the South China Sea since then.”

He says it is “important” that the US and Australia signal their position with ship transits.

“That’s what sustains people’s confidence in their sovereignty,” he says. “The US also wants to do this in company. They think there is strength in a number of countries declaring their confidence and upholding the law.”

While he believes Australia should support the US, it is imperative that Australia signal its own position.

Beazley says: “When Australia does anything on this, it should make a statement about its ancient rights and intentions. We have been deeply engaged in southeast Asia since well before this claim was put in place. We have a substantial security interest as well as a right in international law and that is why we exercise it, not for any other reason.

“What do I think the (Turnbull) government will do? I think we are probably going into a very quiet time. I think that reflects a question in their minds about where American policy may be directed in the aftermath of the presidential election.”

Can Australia expect blowback from China? Beazley says it is “possible”. He says some analysts argue Australia might have to show it is “prepared to take some economic damage if we are going to be a regarded as a serious player in these events”.

He says presidential candidates Clinton and Trump are “chalk and cheese”. Clinton is “deeply versed” in the strategic issues. She can “claim credit as one of the architects of the pivot”. He predicts Clinton will engage China on a “broad front” but will be “quite willing” to accept some sort of military demonstration.

He says Trump must be judged at face value for what he has said. “His would be the systematic dismantling of the American position in Asia,” Beazley says. “It would start with a prohibition on the Trans Pacific Partnership and anything evolving from it. It would proceed to his throwaway line — a business transactional view that you don’t have quarrels over islands — and then to a view on China that they need to come under pressure on the trade front, under severe pressure in relation to the currency and reciprocal trade and investment rights and then proceed to a view of Japan and South Korea in which he calls into question whether the US would sustain a commitment to their security even though they are substantial financial contributors to the American presence.”

It would be a US retreat to the eastern Pacific. Most of Trump’s propositions would be “appealing” to China. And where, pray, would this leave Harris, who has made “absolutely clear” that part of his responsibility is to conduct “these freedom of navigation operations” in the South China Sea?