US, Japan Australia should be on ‘mobilisation footing’ for potential war with China
A top defence analyst and former Pentagon official calls for US, Japan and Australia to be on a ‘mobilisation footing’ for potential war with China.
A top American defence analyst and former Pentagon official has called for the US, Japan and Australia to be on “mobilisation footing” for potential war with China, after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Beijing intended to seize Taiwan “on a much faster timeline” than earlier thought.
Elbridge Colby, a former senior Pentagon strategist in the Trump administration, said the US was rapidly running down its munition stocks in helping Ukraine and needed to ensure the military could quickly ramp up production to defend Taiwan, which President Joe Biden has repeatedly promised.
“Why are we not on a national mobilisation footing? If we get in a war we will have to be, but by then it may be too late,” said Mr Colby on social media on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT).
Mr Colby, who has advised former prime ministers Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull on Indo-Pacific affairs, subsequently told The Australian the US needed a munitions production program akin to Operation Warp Speed, which the Trump administration enacted to quickly develop Covid-19 vaccines.
“Why aren’t more people saying this, and instead acting like it’s business as usual,” he said.
Mr Blinken, speaking a day earlier said Chinese President Xi Jinping, on the cusp of securing a third five-year term at the helm of the world’s most populous nation, was leading China in a more aggressive direction and wanted to seize Taiwan “on a much faster timeline”.
“We’ve seen a very different China emerge in recent years under Xi Jinping’s leadership,” he told a forum at Stanford University with former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.
The Chinese leader delivered a landmark Communist Party Congress speech on Sunday that hailed his decade in power and restated his vow to one day “reunify”, or forcefully take, Taiwan.
“This isn’t a crazy Republican thing or someone shilling for Taiwan, these people have access to the best information, and they are clearing saying it,” Mr Colby said, referring also to a remark from National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan a month ago that a move by China to take what it considered a renegade province was “a distinct threat”.
“This isn’t just about America, but about the Japanese and Australians, making sure they can quickly make and shoot the missiles too; it’s a collective effort”.
Mr Colby’s comments came as it emerged British and Australian fighter pilots were reportedly being paid almost $300,000 a year to train Chinese military personnel, triggering an outcry.
The UK government said it was taking “decisive steps” against a Chinese recruitment effort to bring in former British air force pilots to train its military personnel. UK media said that more than 30 ex-pilots had accepted offers upwards of £240,000, with many of those recruited in their 50s and having recently left the British air force.
Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the German Marshall Fund, said she found nothing new in President Xi’s remarks to indicate anything but “continuity” with previous policy.
“This has all been blown out of proportion. I don’t think there’s any greater urgency, I don’t think that China is poised to attack Taiwan tomorrow, there’s been a misunderstanding,” she told The Australian.
The White House has repeatedly walked back comments by President Biden that stated the US would defend Taiwan in the event of a war with China, remarks that contradict the formal, longstanding US policy of “strategic ambiguity”.
Mr Colby, co-founder of The Marathon Initiative, also said ongoing US support for Ukraine was a mistake, draining the US of resources at a the time it was facing a “peer competitor”, China, for the first time in 150 years.
“If there’s a conflict in Asia it will look really crazy we spent all this money in Russia, which is not a competitor,” he said.
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