Australia has announced a major expansion of its military capacity in the face of concerns about more aggressive Chinese force projection.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison likened the scale of challenges facing Australia to those surrounding the Second World War: ‘We have not seen the conflation of global economic and strategic uncertainty now being experienced here in Australia in our region since the existential threat we faced when the global and regional order collapsed in the 1930s and 1940s.’
He added that once the Covid-19 pandemic had passed, the world would be ‘poorer, more dangerous and more disorderly’.
Australian strategic planners are now seriously concerned about the prospect of a conventional conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.
Australia’s plans include spending AU$270 billion over ten years to purchase high-tech weaponry – such as long-range anti-ship missiles – to modernise its existing inventory, but not, at this point, new platforms, such as ships. It would also not pursue nuclear weapons. The spending does not represent a major increase in real terms, but does signal long-term planning and a sense of urgency.
The country’s spending would give it more muscle to defend itself and to come to the aid of friendly states in an emergency. A close relationship with the United States remains a cornerstone of policy.
Although Australia is ambivalent about the nature of potential threats, it is clear that the focus of this is China.
Peter Jennings of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute commented in the media that ‘only one country’ existed with the ability and motivation to dominate, and with both the capacity and the desire to dominate the region in a manner contrary to Australian interests – ‘we’re not talking about Canada’.
‘When they talk about the bad behaviour that’s happening in the region, the annexation of territory, coercion, the influencing of domestic politics, the use of cyber-attacks – it’s really only one country which is doing that at industrial levels, and that’s the People’s Republic of China,’ he said.
Although Australia and China are significant trading partners, relations between them have become increasingly strained over geopolitical differences, Chinese espionage and influence-buying directed at Australia, and, lately, the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. Australia has been vocal in calling for an investigation into the cause of Covid-19.