The dying days of the Biden Administration have coughed up some honesty:
In a first for any US administration, Dr Campbell told The Australian that China was actively seeking to establish a military base in the South Pacific.
…“They’re looking across the Pacific,” Dr Campbell said. “This is something where we’re never going to be able to rest.”
He said Chinese interests in the South Pacific extended far beyond a military base: “They’re looking for a variety of things. There are vast fishing resources in the Pacific which are being over-fished by Chinese fishing fleets.
“When China looks at its space operations, they need nodes on the ground. They’ve built some of those nodes in the South Pacific.
“They’re looking for steaming sites, places for resupply and power projection.”
Kurt Campbell is no loon. This is a stark warning that makes the Albanese Government’s grovelling posture on Chinese relations ludicrous.
If China were to succeed in any of the above Pacific presences, then Australia would not only be cut off from AUKUS, it would be cut off from ANZUS.
This is the absurdity of Albo’s grovelling. Instead of deepening trade and strategic relations with the neighbourhood, and bolstering Australia’s claims to hegemony in the South Pacific, Albo has been busy restoring dependence on China.
As usual, nowhere is this more fraught than in energy.
Australia’s strategic petroleum reserve is in the US thanks to ScoMo, and any Chinese Pacific military base will cut it off.
Also, three-quarters of Australia’s East Coast gas exports go to China.
This is directly responsible for building out the Chinese military cheaply while gutting our basic manufacturing capability to fight back.
We can no longer make plastics. Soon we won’t be able to make explosives. Are we going to throw solar panels at Chinese aircraft carriers?
Apparently so:
Anthony Albanese says Australia has a “decisive decade” ahead, with the role of government needing to evolve to capture the opportunities of the net-zero transformation.
What is the good of local military supply chains if they can’t make the basic inputs?
Smashing the gas export cartel is fast becoming a matter of basic national survival.
