Rudd pushes back on US claim that Australia needs to ‘step up’ on defence

Washington: Australian ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd has pushed back against claims Canberra needs to step up its contribution to the collective deterrence of China in the Indo-Pacific, telling a security conference that Australia had already done the things now being asked of it by the Trump administration.

Rudd said Australia led the way in identifying strategic concerns about the rise of China and its military force, citing the 2009 defence white paper he released as prime minister, and had made corresponding changes to its defence strategy.

Kevin Rudd, Australia’s ambassador to the United States, at the Aspen Security Forum.Credit: YouTube

“Without saying ‘we told you so’, we did,” Rudd said when asked whether Australia needed to increase defence spending more urgently in response to recent Chinese military exercises in the region.

“If you look at the trajectory of what our government has been doing – reallocation of resources to the Royal Australian Navy, the movement now in terms of nuclear-powered submarines – that consciousness [about China] has been alive and well in our part of the world.”

Rudd noted the high level of integration between the two nations’ navies. “We are cheek by jowl with the United States in the Indo-Pacific. We know what new capabilities are required. We’re investing in those capabilities. So we’re pretty bullish about our contribution to collective deterrence going forward,” he said.

The former Labor prime minister was addressing the Aspen Security Forum on Saturday (AEST) at a critical moment in Indo-Pacific relations as the US pushes regional allies to increase defence spending and make clearer commitments about what they would do in a conflict involving the US and China over Taiwan or other issues.

US undersecretary of defence Elbridge Colby (centre) is leading a review of the AUKUS submarine deal.Credit: Bloomberg

Specifically, the Pentagon is seeking undertakings about how its Virginia-class submarines would be used once they are sold to Australia under the AUKUS agreement, and is also calling for the Albanese government to lift defence spending by about $40 billion a year to 3.5 per cent of GDP.

Confirming a recent news report that said the Pentagon had asked Australia and Japan to clarify what they would do in a conflict with China, the US official leading the AUKUS review, defence undersecretary Elbridge Colby, said the US was urging allies to “step up their defence spending and other efforts related to our collective defence”.

Australia’s current defence expenditure is about 2 per cent of GDP. But Rudd, who indicated he was speaking at the Aspen conference in a personal capacity, said Australia had a “very narrow definition” of defence spending, and if its methodology reflected the US’s, the figure was probably 2.5 per cent or higher.

“Australia has been well north of the 2 per cent line for a very long period of time when quite a large number of other governments around the world have not been,” he said, adding that he was confident Australia could work through each of the Pentagon’s concerns about AUKUS.

Nicholas Burns, who served as US ambassador to China under Joe Biden, told the same panel Beijing was trying to cut the US and its allies down to size, not only in the Indo-Pacific but around the world, and this required a stronger response.

He pointed to China’s military activity in the South China Sea, Taiwan Strait and Yellow Sea, its status as the major trading partner of almost all South American countries, and its economic influence throughout Africa, Central Asia and South-East Asia.

“We have to raise our game. There is a global competition with China, not just regional,” Burns said. “I think we’ve not taken this global threat seriously enough, and the Chinese are strengthening themselves.”

Mike Green, chief executive of the Sydney-based United States Studies Centre, said Australia, Japan and South Korea recognised they had to increase defence spending, but the Trump administration’s aggression and tariff threats were undermining the cause.

“No government is going to go into these big agreements without knowing if they’re going to have 25 per cent, 45 per cent tariffs on them,” he said. “The way we do it does matter. We’re slowing down what could be a much faster pace of co-operation.”

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.