Cool heads key amid gung-ho South China Sea rhetoric

US Defence Secretary Mark Esper. Picture: AFP

Australia should be very careful of a request from the US to engage in a formal freedom of navigation exercise in the South China Sea that would have Australian ships sail within 12 nautical miles of disputed islands and artificial land features claimed and controlled by China.

Washington has wanted Australia to do this for some years, but prudence has stayed our hand.

Malcolm Turnbull reveals in his memoirs that he considered undertaking such freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS) but was unsure whether the Americans, under Barack Obama, would actually back us completely if we did.

The US has often, at the level of naval commanders, made the suggestion publicly that Australia might like to engage in a FONOP, either alone or with them, but it has never made a formal request by the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Defence.

This was because Canberra was going to answer no, and Washington was not going to ­embarrass us, or itself, by making a request that would be rejected.

There has been such a drum beat in the lead-up to this ­Australia-US Ministerial meeting that Marise Payne and Linda Reynolds will participate in on Tuesday night (AEST) in Washington that it’s hard to imagine it’s just going to be about issuing the usual bromides.

Only a few days ago, Australia formally delivered at the UN a considered statement to the effect that the Chinese actions in the South China Sea contravened international law. That was significant, but less of a departure than it seems because Canberra had always recognised and supported the ruling to that effect by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the case taken by The Philippines against China in 2016.

Payne and Reynolds, and the senior officials accompanying them, will all need to go into two weeks of self-isolation when they return from the US because of COVID precautions. That means they are going to a great deal of trouble to have this meeting in person in Washington.

At the time of writing, the betting was firming a little against Australia committing immediately to do a formal FONOP.

As Turnbull makes clear, although he is too polite about Obama to put it quite this bluntly, the Obama administration ran so hot-and-cold about the South China Sea that it would have been even more courageous than normal for Australia to follow them into formal FONOPS.

Our ships would be absolutely physically secure only if we carried out such an operation in the physical company of the Americans. But if we are the only nation in the region to do so, we certainly do set ourselves up for exemplary punishment from the Chinese.

Of course, the principle at stake is immensely important to us: freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, through which the majority of our trade travels.

At the least, we would want one other regional nation, Japan is the obvious candidate, to take part.

Under Obama, the US let the South China Sea slip away, without ever exerting itself in any meaningful way, even diplomatically. It was one of the many colossal failures of the Obama presidency.

Donald Trump is more tough-minded, but his China policy, too, has been wildly variable over the time he’s been President.

We are only 100 days from a presidential election. Joe Biden, or even a re-elected Trump, might view the South China Sea with less urgency than Trump does 100 days out from an election.

We don’t want to fall into our old trap of moving in to defend a forward post that the Americans quietly abandon as soon as we get there. We need to be a bit cool in this last 100 days: not unfriendly, not unreliable, just a bit cool.

And it is to be hoped Payne and Reynolds are seeing plenty of Democrats in Washington as well. The Australian relationship should always be bipartisan in both nations.