“The only way we’ll get the politicians to take notice of us is by building a massive, broad based peoples movement to scrap AUKUS, remove foreign bases from our soil, and adopt an independent foreign policy to regain our national sovereignty and safeguard our people’s future.” – Andrew Fullarton IPAN.
Andrew Fullarton and John Lander discuss the implications of the Trump presidency for Australia. They highlight the potential dangers of Australia’s close alliance with the U.S., including economic sanctions and the risk of being drawn into a U.S.-China conflict. They note that Australia’s economy is heavily dependent on China, with 30% of exports to China amounting to $185 billion in 2023. Lander warns that Australian involvement in a U.S.-led war against China could lead to economic downturns and military retaliation. Polls show a majority of Australians oppose involvement in such conflicts. They advocate for an independent foreign policy to protect Australian interests.
Image: Australian Prime Minister meets Mao Tse-tung. Peking November 2, 1973. During China visit chairman Mao Tse-tung of the People’s Republic of China met with Australian Prime Minister Edward Gough Whitlam in Peking on Friday. The caption with this photo from HSINHUA, the Chinese newsagency, said Chairman Mao had a friendly conversation with the visiting Prime Minister (AP Wirephoto by radio from Peking 1973).
ANDREW 1.
Good morning listeners. My name’s Andrew Fullerton and with me is John Lander, a retired senior diplomat and the former deputy Australian Ambassador to China. We’re from IPAN, the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network and in this edition of CICD Alternative News we consider the implications for Australia of the United States presidential elections.
The election of the unpredictable Trump has again focussed attention on the deep divisions tearing at the fabric of U.S society, which shows U.S imperialism’s advanced state of decay.
The online journal ‘The Nightly’ of December 2nd 2024, quotes Kevin Roberts, head of the influential U.S arch-conservative think tank ‘The Heritage Foundation’ and a leading Trump associate, as bluntly warning dire consequences for any national leader who does not condemn the ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.
JOHN 1.
Well, Andrew, it’s all very well for Roberts to sneer at the ruling of the International Criminal court, since the US has never signed up to the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. Australia, however, has ratified the Rome Statute, which has the force of law in Australia.
If Australia failed to implement the arrest warrant, it would be flouting the law.
ANDREW 2
But Roberts wants us to do exactly that. He said that ‘it is ill-advised for any thoughtful, perceived ally of the United States to do anything other than condemn (the ICC ruling) and take heroic action against it’. He also said that ‘there’s going to be hell to pay …for any international leader complicit in that bulls…’. In addition, leading Trump supporter U.S Senator Lindsey Graham has warned that ‘any ally’ who aided the ICC would face U.S sanctions.’
JOHN 2
Quite frankly, if Trump were to impose sanctions on Australia, to try to force us to break the law, yet again, it might be a good thing. It could wake Australian leaders up to the fact that America only ever acts in its own interest. Far from protecting Australia, the US will damage Australia, if they see it as in their interest to do so.
Our leaders may finally realise that Australia’s future – prosperity and security – lies in cooperative relations with our own region, including working with the economic collective of the BRICS-plus, whose formal membership is ten and cooperating partners are well over twenty and growing.
ANDREW 3
These comments by leading Trump associates serve to further highlight the grave dangers inherent in our ‘joined at the hip’ alliance with the U.S.
if an Australian government decided to act independently of the U.S, we could be blockaded and our economy wrecked in line with the well-known U.S policy of using economic pressure to pull national governments into line.
John, apart from the possible punishment that the US might inflict if Australia complies with the ICC, how else is the Trump presidency likely to affect us?
JOHN 3.
The election of Trump is causing consternation amongst Australia’s political leaders as it is with other U.S vassals. It highlights the dangers we face as a result of being in lock-step with the U.S. Some of our leaders seem to be coming to the realisation that Australia’s economic prosperity, unequally shared though it is, is largely due to a favourable trading relationship with China.
ANDREW 4
China is now the major economic rival of the U.S and is also outpacing it technologically, a situation the U.S has never previously encountered and one that it is having trouble dealing with, to put it mildly. The Chinese economy, although having a smaller GDP, is 23 percent larger than the U.S in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), widely considered a more reliable measure of economic performance.
The incoming Trump administration intends to impose a 60 percent tariff barrier on Chinese imports into the U.S to weaken China economically, peg it back as a competitor, weaken it militarily and induce U.S transnational corporations to move their operations from China back to the U.S.
JOHN 4
If he does that, it will certainly affect Australia. China is Australia’s largest two-way trading partner and currently takes about one third of our exports, amounting to about 185 billion AUD in 2023. Any weakening of China’s economy will thus mean less Chinese demand for our exports, which are mainly minerals and energy resources, resulting in an inevitable economic downturn, with shortages of everyday items, loss of jobs and general disruption of peoples’ lives. In Western Australia, approximately 244,000 jobs are connected to that states trade relationship with China.
ANDREW 5.
I agree with that risk and Australia’s situation is made worse by the lopsided nature of our economy. It is based on mining and agriculture, with manufacturing now accounting for a mere 6 percent of GDP, the lowest of any OECD country and down from nearly 30 percent in 1960.
Automotive manufacturing ended in 2017. What’s left of our aircraft industry is foreign controlled and consists mostly of component manufacture, the Australian textile, clothing and footwear industry has all but ceased, as has steel production despite us having the world’s largest reserves of iron ore.
JOHN 5
Not only that. We now have only two working oil refineries, down from eight twenty years ago. We now import about 90 percent of our liquid fuel and lubricants. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s journal ‘The Strategist’ of March 18th 2024, we hold only 54 days supply instead of the 90 days supply that we should hold under International Energy Agency rules. Good luck fighting a war against China with that amount of fuel!
ANDREW 7
John, given what we have discussed so far, why do our political leaders continue their furious preparation for Australian involvement in a U.S-led war on China – over Taiwan, or the South China Sea or some other issue?
JOHN 7
Why indeed! Australian participation in a U.S-instigated war on China would have potentially dire and increasingly obvious consequences for us. The initial result would cripple our trade with China and probably break off diplomatic relations.
In the event of hostilities, the Chinese would be obliged to launch retaliatory strikes against U.S military installations on our soil. ADF installations would be hit as well, with inevitable catastrophic consequences for our people, society and environment. The interests of the Australian people would be best served by an independent foreign policy, rather than slavishly following the U.S – which both major parties are presently committed to do.
ANDREW 8.
There is continued massive expenditure on training and equipping the ADF as an expeditionary force for distant wars rather than for the defence of Australian territory. This preparation has advanced to the point where the ADF and the U.S military are now, as Defence Minister Marles proudly asserts, inter-changeable.
The U.S military assets now based here make Australia a major forward base in future U.S wars. U.S military strategy currently favours using so-called allies as proxies in its wars, feeding them with intelligence, munitions and training while its military-industrial complex rakes in the super-profits.
We see this situation in the Ukraine, where the U.S is using the Ukrainian Kiev regime as a proxy in its war against Russia and in the Middle East where the U.S is using Israel as a proxy against Iran.
JOHN 8.
That is exactly the point, Andrew. At the recent national conference of IPAN in Perth, I sounded the warning that I have been repeating over and over for the past two years: “The U.S is not preparing to go to war against China. It is preparing Australia to go to war against China.” Andrew, is there indication of how the Australian people feel about this?
ANDREW 9.
The Australian people seem to have better awareness than our political leadership of the dangers posed by Australian involvement in a U.S. war against China. In 2023, two national opinion polls, one by the Lowy Institute and the other by Essential Research, showed that the majority of Australians favour keeping out of war against China and remaining neutral.
In the case of Australian women, the figure was 63% in favour of this course of action. More recently, following the election of Donald Trump, the Sydney Morning Herald, in seeking reactions to this event, found in a national poll that 57% of Australians, a clear majority, agree that Australia should avoid taking sides in any conflict between the U.S and China.
JOHN 10.
If this is the majority view of the Australian people, why do our political leaders persist in their authoritarian and undemocratic refusal to heed the will of the people and continue preparing for us to follow the U.S into a war against China? The serious economic and social consequences that this would entail are increasingly obvious.
Do they really not understand? Or are these politicians and bureaucrats so wedded to supporting U.S. foreign policy that they are willing for Australia to be dragged into a suicidal U.S–provoked war against China? They know it’s contrary to the wishes of the Australian people, but they seem determined to sacrifice our lives and livelihood on the altar of maintaining U.S. world primacy.
Everyone listening to this program needs to think carefully about this at the next election and reject the political duopoly of the major parties.
ANDREW 10.
That’s all we have time for today, although we will certainly return to this topic in future. As always, we welcome listeners’ comments and suggestions, which can be emailed to: cicd@peacecentre.org.au. That is cicd@peacecentre.org.au . Good morning, and thanks for listening.