AUKUS binds Australia to the US in any war with China over Taiwan, warns foreign policy expert John Mearsheimer

Australia would be expected to fight alongside the US to thwart Chinese hegemony, warns the foreign policy expert who famously and almost alone forecast Beijing’s aggression 20 years ago.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Joe Biden during a bilateral meeting as part of the G7 Leaders' Summit in Hiroshima in May.

The AUKUS security pact erodes Australian sovereignty and ties Australia to the US in the event of a military confrontation with China over Taiwan, says one of the world’s foremost foreign policy experts, American political science professor John Mearsheimer.

As the Labor Party struggles to convince its rank and file of the benefits of the historic three-way alliance, Professor Mearsheimer says Australia and Japan would be expected to fight alongside the US to thwart Chinese hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region.

“The US is trying to weave together a close strategic relationship between Australia so that if the US gets involved in a fight, the Australians will have little choice but to be involved in that fight themselves,” he told The Australian in an interview, adding that he sees a war over Taiwan as “highly unlikely”.

Asked if AUKUS, an agreement between the US, UK and Australian governments to share advanced weapons and provide Australia with a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, was “a quid pro quo, whereby Australia would need to be part of any US military confrontation” Professor Mearsheimer said he agreed.

“There‘s no question it ties Australia to the US in ways that Australia would prefer not to have happened. … But you have to face up to the strategic environment that you’re in, and do what’s necessary,” he added.

“It would not be in Australia‘s interest if China dominated Asia, and there’s no question in my mind that the Chinese want to”.

Mearsheimer’s assessment contradicted the Albanese government, which has repeatedly denied AUKUS would tie Australia’s hands in a region marked by growing conflict between the US and China as Beijing sought to expand its military and economic influence.

In August at Labor’s party conference in Brisbane Labor ministers faced opposition to AUKUS from unions and some MPs, which argue at an estimated $368bn cost is too expensive and could lead to proliferation of nuclear weapons.

“We have to analyse the world as it is, rather than as we would want it to be. We have to bring our defence capabilities up to speed, and AUKUS is central to that,” Prime Minister Albanese said at the conference.

Mearsheimer, 75, has been a controversial figure in foreign policy debates for decades, recently coming under fire for arguing that NATO’s expansion had provoked Russia to invade Ukraine in February 2022, which he predicted in a 2015 a lecture, which has been viewed 29 million times.

In the early 2000s he was among thee most prominent China sceptics, arguing Beijing’s economic rise would empower it to become a military threat rather than a stable peaceful democracy.

“Until about 2017 most people thought that I was crazy; this was supposed to be ‘the end of history’, right? China was going to turn into a democracy and we would all live happily ever after, but it didn‘t happen that way, and I think it is obvious now I was correct,” he told The Australian.

He opposed the Iraq war in 2003, arguing the threat of Saddam Hussein was overstated, and US meddling would stoke instability and terrorism in the Middle East.

Mearsheimer, who will give a lecture in Brisbane later this month at the invitation of the Centre for independent Studies, said US involvement in Russia was a mistake but Washington, Republican or Democrat, was unlikely to withdraw from a war that would likely last “many years”.

“Ukraine war weakens America‘s position in East Asia … we end up pinned down in a war in Europe, which makes it difficult for us to fully pivot East Asia,” he said, speaking from Chicago.

“We have [also] pushed the Russians into the arms of the Chinese… but the US is so deeply involved in Ukraine now and has so committed its credibility to defeating Russia, and preserving Ukrainian sovereignty that we will continue to back Ukraine for the foreseeable future.

He said the US wouldn’t lose interest in defending Taiwan if and when it were able to replace the island’s advanced semiconductor manufacturing facilities.

“Taiwan is of enormous strategic importance to the US and to the Japanese. If you‘re interested in deterring China, it’s imperative that the US not let Taiwan go under,” he said.

“One could make a case that it‘s more likely a conflict will arise in the South China Sea or the East China Sea,” Mearsheimer said, suggesting “the Chinese were using their coast guard to throw their weight around the South China Sea, fuelling friction with the Philippines”.

Read the full transcript of the interview with Professor Mearsheimer here.