Peter Hartcher has the bad news:
Russia already is paying a heavy price for its wanton violence and still its success is not assured. China, on the other hand, is winning on all fronts and paying bargain-basement prices.
“China has been more subversive and less obvious than Russia,” observes the New Zealand sinologist, Anne-Marie Brady of Canterbury University.
China’s inroads in Solomon Islands have captured headlines in recent days, but it’s only one part of a much bigger picture. Beijing’s South Pacific probings have been described by Euan Graham of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore as “a pre-conflict type of shadow game”.
But look more broadly. Beijing today is advancing its thrust into the South Pacific, consolidating its control of the South China Sea and expanding its footprint in Antarctica. These three areas, curving across a vast 15,000 kilometre arc from Asia to the South Pole, are essential theatres in its strategy for Indo-Pacific dominance.
Brady says that, in each case, Australia, New Zealand and the US have failed to comprehend China’s plans until it is too late to counter them.
China has built, or is seeking to build, new bases in all three regions. None starts out as overtly military, but Beijing specialises in building infrastructure that is supposedly civilian, only to add military functions later. This has been a highly effective tactic in its incremental expansion.
The artificial islands built by Beijing in the South China Sea are a case in point. China’s President Xi Jinping said that Beijing never would militarise the islands, all of which are in maritime territories also claimed by China’s neighbours.
Beijing started to build bases on the islands, but swore that they were for civilian shipping and maritime surveillance only. Now some of those islands bristle with missile arsenals, hardened aircraft hangers and other military hardware.
…The news from Solomon Islands was that its government had drafted a secret “security cooperation” agreement with China.
The deal would create a framework to allow China to send its police forces to the Solomons and for its navy to visit and replenish. Conceivably, it could be extended to allow China a naval base in the country.
If so, China’s closest naval base, now 6000 kilometres away from Australia, suddenly would be 2000 kilometres away.
Imperial Japan had to fight its way to the Solomons in 1942 to establish a base there as part of its campaign for the conquest of the entire Asia-Pacific. China is making good progress towards buying its way to a Solomons base.
…And then there’s the Antarctic, 42 per cent of which is Australian territory. Anne-Marie Brady first warned five years ago that Canberra was being blindsided by Beijing, which had conducted “undeclared military activities and mineral exploration” on Australian territory under the guise of scientific expeditions.
Antarctica is essential to Beijing’s plan. China’s recently completed satellite-based global positioning system, Baidou, depends on its ground stations there.
Beyond that, Brady says that China has designs on the continent’s rich resources and its strategic value for key transport routes. Most of China’s Antarctic activities are on Australian territory, says Brady: “They got to places on Australian territory Australia couldn’t even get to because of a lack of resources. They’ve got what they want now.” She points out that Beijing policy documents assert the right to make a formal territorial claim there.
Anne-Marie Brady knows exactly what she is talking about. Hear more from her here.
Instead of doing something, Chickenhawk Peter Dutton printed a new press release:
Australian fighter jets and naval vessels will be armed sooner with new long-range strike missiles to hold enemies at bay at ranges of up to 900km, under a $3.5bn commitment to fast-track key guided weapons purchases.
Where are the cruise and ballistic missiles to keep the Chinese navy form the mainland? Where is the amphibious force to pressure the Solomons? Where is the sea and air drone swarms to overwhelm the enemy that violates vast costal waters? Where are the F-35s to project power?
Greg Sheridan slams the new deal:
If Australia could guarantee its security through announcements, we would be the most secure nation in the world. The government has finally decided on its industry partners in the project, first announced two years ago, to create an Australian missile manufacturing enterprise. They will be Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, two of the biggest missile manufacturers in the world. We are also going to get some advanced sea mines and accelerate the acquisition of missiles for the navy and air force.
All of this is very good. It remains a mystery why it took two years since the first announcement to get to the point where we’ve chosen Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. They were the obvious choice before day one.
It’s more than a bit unclear what the various Australian companies and consortia that have been simultaneously announced will do. Canberra typically likes to share the honey around so that everybody gets a prize.
Our making missiles will require formal State Department approval for each missile type. This will be forthcoming, but it only gets tested when we apply for permission to produce a weapon.
The bigger danger is the announcement never produces action, or produces action far below that suggested in the initial announcement. For the past 15 years, defence policy has been characterised by epic announcement and dismal failure to deliver.
Here’s how I see this going over the next twenty years if the current trends persist:
- China does more Pacific deals with other ambitious local hardmen and the naval bases are quietly built as the milieu of fait accompli develops.
- We are steadily encircled and become, for all intents and purposes, the Israel of the South Pacific.
- Surrounded by enemies, any time a great power conflict comes to blows between the US and China, we will be automatically shelled, stalked, and intimidated for being on the wrong side, even if we abstain from direct involvement.
- Until we acquiesce to the 14 demands to end democracy along with a fifteenth to build Pilbara labour camps for the divergent such myself, Anne-Marie Brady, Peter Hartcher, as well as some of your children.
China’s Solomon’s deal is the step change that makes this terrible outcome possible. Therefore, we need a step-change in our response, with a full-court press to ensure the bases are NEVER BUILT. This means massively intensified diplomacy, investment, dirty tricks of statecraft, liberation via force, whatever it takes.
It’s obviously far better for all concerned if the “Pacific family” is held together without China. But, if it comes to it, Australia is much better off with a South Pacific clouded by a burning archipelago of failed states than it is an island noose of successful Chinese satraps.
This is Australia’s Cuban Missile Crisis and, so far from Canberra, we’ve gotten crickets.
