Government is being run by spooks – Paul Keating, former Prime Minister of Australia.
In a democracy, popular belief is that governments listen to their electors. It is hard to see how this is possible in the current debate over Australia’s alliance with United States. The LNP government committed Australia to buying US nuclear powered submarines and then lost the election. They then wedged the Labor government into supporting spending $368 million on submarines that may never be delivered. Why would people support spending so much money when there is a crisis in housing and where people cannot live on the current jobseeker allowance? Meanwhile, in the suburbs, people laugh at the thought of war with China. However, in this article my brother, John Curr, argues that we may be ‘sleepwalking to war‘. It is important to take heed of warnings from ordinary people and anti-war organisations that distrust our alliance with United States. – Ian Curr, Ed. 27 April 2023.
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Australia in the Middle – U.S. v China [i]
The Australian government must change course in foreign policy, or we will continue to “Sleepwalk to War”[ii] which risks a nuclear war which “cannot be won and should never be fought”[iii] The increase in American forces training and exercises in Northern Australia, the long-standing Pine Gap facility together with the newly minted AUKUS arrangements are all factors which lock Australia into a military alliance with the United States in its conflict with the People’s Republic of China (“the PRC”).
Recently, I overheard a group of my fellow mature citizens at the bowls club in light-hearted conversation. The subject of China was mentioned with no perceptible change of tone. As I had not heard the detail of the conversation, I called from the green, “What do you think about going to war with China?”. The general response was laughter and incredulity. It got me thinking that our citizens’ attitude is leaving the field open. Our politicians are being subjected to bellicose grooming by the United States war machine aided by our national intelligence institutions, the military and right-wing media all of whom have vested interests. The time has come for people to speak up against the idea of a war with our major trading partner in pursuit of the maintenance of U.S. hegemony.
China claims Taiwan as its territory. The U.S. President Joe Biden has promised to intervene militarily if the PRC seeks to take Taiwan by force. That action would result in a war between the two nuclear-armed major powers.
The PRC claims, with some historical justification[iv], that Taiwan is part of China. Since 1895, and more importantly, since 1949, Taiwan and China have had separate governments.[v] Taiwan’s continuing separation from PRC control and its economic development has been made possible by the guarantee of U.S. military support and U.S. economic investment.
The people of China and Taiwan have family and cultural ties and the PRC has justifiable security concerns about an independent Taiwan whose government is so closely aligned with the U.S.
The Taiwan government can claim that modern Taiwan’s economy and infrastructure have been developed independently of the PRC. It is claimed that the people of Taiwan favour their recently developed representative democracy form of government and a capitalist economy over the PRC form of government.
The U.S. has been the dominant world power since, at least, the end of the cold war. Under its dominance, an” international rules based order“ has been developed which, unsurprisingly, favours U.S. economic and strategic interests. The economic rise of China and the economic and social decline of the U.S. have seen China taking steps to extend its economic and diplomatic influence with a view to re-balancing the rules-based order. There is little evidence of China seeking to extend its military and strategic positions much beyond its borders. The U.S. response has been to heighten propaganda to demonize China, to engage in provocative “salami-slicing” activities treating Taiwan as a sovereign state contrary to the “one China” agreement and to adopt a forward military position and strengthen military alliances well beyond its region thereby threatening China’s security.
The current narrative in the propaganda is that the U.S. will be forced into war with China within 3 years with the Taiwan issue as the detonator. A real fear is that the U.S. is seeking to goad China into a war in the near future while it still retains substantial military superiority over China motivated by the need to re-establish or extend the life of U.S hegemony.
Peter Dutton has said that, if the U.S. goes to war with China over Taiwan it is unthinkable that Australia would not join in with them. Without a clear policy change by the current government, this is true. AUKUS, and the previous government’s policies of U.S. militarization of Northern Australia and enmeshing the ADF with the U.S. military has created that situation. The current Australian government’s actions do not accord with Foreign minister Penny Wong’s claims that we seek a strategic balance between the U.S. and China in the Indo-Pacific.
The present government’s weak policy position is caused by fears the political backlash if it moves to a more moderate position in the face of the current wartime rhetoric demonizing China. It must brave the political headwinds and take a strong position because it is inevitable that a war between the United States and China will develop into a nuclear war which even Ronald Reagan realized “cannot be won and must never be fought”.
Foreign policy changes
The Australian government must backpedal on AUKUS and wind down the militarization of Northern Australia with American forces. It must join forces with the rest of the world who will also realize that there are no spoils of a nuclear war and no one benefits from being on the “winning” side. The preservation of U.S. hegemony is not worth the candle, even to its allies.
With the rest of the world governments, Australia must plead with the U.S. and China to negotiate to establish an autonomous Taiwan governed in accordance with the wishes of its people which can repair and improve its relationship with the PRC and derive economic benefit from the peace while maintaining Taiwan as a neutral buffer state to preserve the security of the PRC.
The U.S. and China must also engage in more wide-ranging negotiations so that the security of each country is enhanced more by trade and other relationships and less by military deterrence.
Finally, the “International rules-based order” established and maintained under U.S. hegemony must also become the subject of negotiations in recognition of the economic rise of China and its increasing importance in the world.
The political challenge
A good number of Australians understand that a war with China will be fought to pursue U.S. interests and not our own. Others understand that the idea of a war with China is beyond madness. Those citizens must engage with government members and rise up in protest against the course to war charted by the previous government to make those members understand that they will pay the ultimate political price if they do not change course. If the Labor government is not persuaded, the Greens would be well-advised to focus on its anti-war position as its major policy. In doing so, they will garner huge support from traditional Labor supporters and significant support from many quarters of the conservative parties who understand the costs of a nuclear war. It may even provide a pathway to government for the Greens. Sometimes, the principled policy is also the right political decision.
John Curr
18 April 2023
[i] This article contains my views distilled from a number of articles mainly from John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations.
[ii] Quarterly Essay Hugh White https://www.quarterlyessay.com.au/essay/2022/06/sleepwalk-to-war
[iii] A quote from Ronald Reagan no less.
[iv] Taiwan’s history is that it had been part of China, apart from some colonisation by European powers to shore up trading interests from the 17th century until 1895. Following the first Sino -Japanese war in 1895, Taiwan was annexed by Japan and its people ruled under various policies ranging from suppression through assimilation to Japanization.
[v] After the second world war, the Japanese withdrew and a the Chinese civil war occurred which resulted in the Communist People’s Republic of China (“PRC”) under Mao Zedong taking control of mainland China . The Nationalists Republic of China (“ROC”) under Chiang Kai-shek withdrew to and took control of Taiwan and ruled under martial law until democratic reforms in the 1980s, the first presidential election occurring in 1996. The government of Taiwan has gradually changed its position from impossible claims to rule China to seeking recognition as an independent nation. From 1949, Taiwan has effectively been self-governing.