TALKING POINT: US Bullying master still calls the shots

One would have thought that in a democracy like Australia this new agreement would not be entered into, if at all, unless the community and its parliamentary representatives discussed and debated it, writes Greg Barns SC

So what’s in this self important new defence pact called AUKUS which Australia has signed on to with its colonial master the US, and the increasingly irrelevant post-Brexit UK? It certainly proves yet again that Washington can just about always rely on Canberra to respond positively to the former’s military and diplomatic adventures and muscle flexing. But when it comes to Australia’s interests directly, signing on to a confrontational and provocative strategy to contain China is surely inherently dangerous and reflects a further loss of independence for this nation in the Asia – Pacific region.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating. Picture: Nikki Short

On that last point former Prime Minister Paul Keating has pointed out in a statement condemning the pact that it “will amount to a lock-in of Australian military equipment and thereby forces, with those of the United States with only one underlying objective: the ability to act collectively in any military engagement by the United States against China.” Mr Keating argues the agreement will lead to “a further dramatic loss of Australian sovereignty, as material dependency on the United States [will rob] Australia of any freedom or choice in any engagement Australia may deem appropriate.”

One would have thought that in a democracy like Australia this new agreement would not be entered into, if at all, unless the community and its parliamentary representatives discussed and debated it. To build nuclear powered vessels and to join a naked and deeply stupid US attempt at containing China are seriously significant decisions which, as Mr Keating says, could erode the independence of an important power in the region in which China is also a major player. But Mr Morrison presents it as a fait accompli without acknowledging for a moment that it might put Australians at greater economic and security risk. Actually more frightening was the fact that at the media conference to announce the pact last Thursday, the head of Australia’s military, Angus Campbell was by his side. This is the sort of choreography you witness in authoritarian regimes where the military cuddles up to politicians.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison spoke with the President of the United States Joe Biden and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson when they announced the creation of an enhanced trilateral security partnership called AUKUS alliance the United Kingdom, and the United States, via video conference, in Parliament House Canberra. Picture: Newswire/Gary Ramage

China is still Australia’s (and Tasmania’s for that matter) largest trading partner by a long shot, despite tensions in recent years between the two nations resulting in trade barriers. Over 30 per cent of Australian exports head to China. But only last week the OECD warned that “[a]ny ratcheting up of tensions with China could further weaken trade activity.” There seems to be a blasé assumption among some in Australia that it does not matter how much provoking of China Canberra does, trade between the two nations will remain strong. It’s a delusion of course. And while there have been skirmishes between the two countries in the past five years over security and human rights issues in particular, surely the new pact with the US and UK represents a serious escalation of the risk that the trade ‘love in’ with China will evaporate?

It is notable that New Zealand, which has been part of the Australian and US alliance for over seventy years, is not included in this new pact. But that is because New Zealand has carved out its own independent foreign policy for over three decades. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has confirmed that her nation will not be changing its ban on nuclear powered vessels, in place in 1984. And a reflection of New Zealand’s greater emphasis on controlling its own destiny is reflected in comments made to the media by a Victoria University professor David Capie who says the new pact shows “New Zealand and Australia were in a different space to begin with and this has perhaps just made that look sharper again.” New Zealand charts its own course in the Asia-Pacific region and is more independent than this forelock tugging nation.

NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Photo by Robert Kitchin

The Australian media and political class has dusted off the Cold War rhetoric book in recent times when it comes to China, but now this shrill hostility and fear has reached new heights and with it comes a huge risk. As one of the few sensible Australia-China relations commentator Professor Hugh White from the Australian National University has said about this agreement; “When we look 10 or 20 years ahead, I don’t think we can assume that the United States is going to succeed in pushing back effectively against China … In the long run, Australia does have to ask whether or not we can continue to rely on the US.” In other words Australians are being exposed to a much more dangerous world thanks to the political establishment’s inability to adopt anything other than a sycophantic posture towards Washington.

Here we go again. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now China. This colony of Washington sells out its people yet again because it is too frightened to say ‘no’ to its bullying master. It seems not to matter what it all costs, or how many lives will be put at risk.