Analysis: Why Australia needs to use AUKUS to stop ‘dangerous’ China

There’s one key reason Australia can’t afford to ignore China and the threats it’s making right on our nation’s doorstep, argues Tom Minear.

You don’t need to invade Australia to defeat Australia. In a sentence, that is why we are spending up to $368bn to become the seventh country in the world with a nuclear-powered submarine fleet.

As an island nation, we rely on free seas for literally 99 per cent of our trade. If that is ever threatened, Australia has little hope of victory in conflict, not if we are cut off from the essentials – fuel, microchips, pharmaceuticals and more – that ships bring to our shores.

Here is another maxim to consider, one that is also front of mind for our senior military leaders: If you cannot assume maritime access then you must take steps to ensure it.

China’s militarisation of the South China Sea – turning reefs into artificial islands equipped with missiles, air bases and radar systems – means any such assumption is plainly naive.

Australia cannot combat that alone, which is what makes AUKUS the most important transformation of our defences since World War II. It gives us access to America’s nuclear crown jewels, a capability that in the words of Defence Minister Richard Marles will “place the single biggest question mark in our adversaries’ mind”.

Anthony Albanese and the United Kingdom’s Rishi Sunak join US President Joe Biden at Submarine Base Point Loma in San Diego, California. Picture: Sandy Huffaker for News Corp

The downside of this, according to critics led by former prime ministers Paul Keating and Malcolm Turnbull, is that binding Australia’s defences so tightly to the US is a threat to our sovereignty. This was also an argument made by another former prime minister when AUKUS was first announced.

“I’m concerned about the long-term impact this has on Australian sovereignty,” Kevin Rudd said at the time.

“As an ally of the US, you don’t end up agreeing with them on every element of strategy. Sometimes our American friends get it wrong.”

As of next week, Rudd will be charged with leading our diplomatic effort in Washington DC to make the AUKUS plan a reality. Asked recently why he took the ambassador job, he pointed to China’s increasing aggression, saying: “This is starting to become dangerous.”

That was also true when Scott Morrison, Joe Biden and Boris Johnson announced the pact 18 months ago. And it was clear then, as it is now, that Australia would not and should not stay out of any US-China conflict.

Every effort should of course be made to avoid this cold war turning hot, but the suggestion that Australia may want to sit on the bench during such a battle ignores what would be at stake for our security and prosperity.

If Rudd is worried about a US president making a strategic mistake on China – a not unreasonable concern given America’s foreign policy missteps this century – then it is now his responsibility to bed down arrangements like AUKUS that solidify our mutual interests.

First and foremost among those is protecting and upholding the rules-based international order that has kept the peace for decades – at least until Russia invaded Ukraine – and which China has been allowed to subvert for far too long.

(Revealingly, former US Navy chief Jonathan Greenert said last week that when he first directly raised the militarisation of the South China Sea with his Chinese counterpart in 2014, Wu Shengli told him he was surprised it had taken the US so long to challenge it.)

For its part, the Chinese government has attacked Australia’s nuclear submarine blueprint, which is both the height of hypocrisy – China’s submarine fleet being 11 times larger than our own – and a sign that perhaps the deterrent is already having the desired effect.

But we should not allow the pomp and ceremony of Tuesday’s announcement to bring a sense of triumphalism. Even if everything goes to plan, it will take another decade before Australia’s nuclear submarines begin to hit the water. We can only hope that is not too late.

Originally published as Analysis: Why Australia needs to use AUKUS to stop ‘dangerous’ China