Follow us on social

Shutterstock_1075372349-scaled

Is Australia getting tough on China to impress Trump?

Australian relations with China have worsened in recent months and there’s debate down under about whether Australian officials are taking too much advice from their American counterparts.

Analysis | Asia-Pacific

Australia perhaps more than any other nation has adopted a China policy closest to that of the United States, leading many to conclude that Canberra is playing the role of Washington’s lackey in a new cold war with Beijing.

The Australian foreign and defense ministers’ trip to Washington for the 2020 AUSMIN meeting (the annual meeting between the Australian foreign and defense ministers and their US counterparts) — as opposed to holding the talks virtually due to the coronavirus — has only served to reinforce this conclusion. The Australian government meanwhile maintains it is pursuing an independent policy in line with Australian national interests.

Meanwhile, Chinese-Australian ties have sharply deteriorated throughout the past few months. Back in May, the Aussie government led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for an independent probe into the origins of the coronavirus, in a move that was largely perceived as taking aim at China. Beijing then proceeded to impose restrictions and high tariffs on Australian beef and barley exports, which was widely perceived as a response to the Australian push for the international probe.

The Morrison government has also enhanced ties with countries known to be traditional rivals of China, like India and Japan. Morrison held virtual summits with his Indian and Japanese counterparts in June, and maritime and defense cooperation were among the topics discussed.

The downward spiral in ties between Canberra and Beijing continued with Morrison recently announcing that Australia was being subject to large scale cyberattacks by “a sophisticated state based cyber actor”. Despite not mentioning China by name, it was clear that the Australian prime minister was referring to Beijing, and according to Aussie media outlets “senior sources” confirmed that China was the culprit.

Australia also moved to formally declare China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea as illegal. In a letter to the United Nations, Canberra accused Beijing of pursuing a policy there that had no legal foundation.

"There is no legal basis for China to draw straight baselines connecting the outermost points of maritime features or 'island groups' in the South China Sea, including around the 'Four Sha' or 'continental' or 'outlying' archipelagos,” the letter read.

The Australian stance on the South China Sea came just days before the AUSMIN talks in Washington on July 28, and some experts point to this as a testimony that Australia was coordinating its China policy with the United States.

“Australia’s declaration regarding the South China Sea came on the eve of the AUSMIN talks and hence it was clearly aimed at shoring up the U.S. position” said Allan Behm, head of the international and security affairs program at the Australia Institute.

Others however dispute the argument that Canberra is acting as Washington’s subordinate when it comes to China policy. According to Allan Dupont, founder and CEO of the “Cognoscenti Group” Australia is pursuing an independent China policy, with the ban issued by the Australian government on Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei back in 2018 being a case in point.

“Australia was actually ahead of the US in imposing a ban on Huawei,” said Dupont.

Furthermore, Dupont refers to Australia being in the process of putting together a new strategy focusing on enhanced cooperation with other countries in the Asia-Pacific region to counter a rising Chinese threat, as the U.S. may not currently be a reliable partner.

“With the U.S. becoming less predictable and China becoming more and more of an adversary, Australia is recrafting a new policy strategy that includes enhanced cooperation with regional countries,” he added.

But regardless of whether or not Australia is pursuing an independent China policy or acting as a subordinate to the United States, the deterioration of ties between Canberra and Beijing carries with it grave potential risks for the Australian economy. With 30 percent of Australia’s exports going to China, Beijing is Canberra’s biggest trading partner.

At the same time Australia’s economy, like that of most other countries, has been hit hard by the coronavirus. Australian treasurer Josh Frydenbeg recently warned that the country suffered its worst budget deficit this last financial year since the end of World War II, with the deficit almost reaching $86 billion.

According to Behm the Australian government is pursuing a dangerous policy of focusing on its security ties with the United States at the expense of its economic ties with China.

“Australia is focusing only on the security dimension and not the trade dimension, but without a strong economy you can’t have security,” he emphasized.

However, the economic factor may have weighed in at the AUSMIN talks. In the press conference following the meeting, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne refrained from adopting the fiery anti-Chinese rhetoric of her U.S. counterpart Mike Pompeo, and even appeared to strike a balanced approach in her remarks.

"The relationship that we have with China is important and we have no intention of injuring it. But nor do we intend to do things that are contrary to our interests," she said.

And in another sign that Australia may not be fully on board in a new cold war against China, Canberra declined Washington’s request to participate in “freedom of navigation exercises” near the disputed islands in the South China Sea.


Image via Aritra Deb/Shutterstock.com
Analysis | Asia-Pacific
Recep Tayyip Erdogan Benjamin Netanyahu
Top photo credit: President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Shutterstock/ Mustafa Kirazli) and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Salty View/Shutterstock)
Is Turkey's big break with Israel for real?

Why Israel is now turning its sights on Turkey

Middle East

As the distribution of power shifts in the region, with Iran losing relative power and Israel and Turkey emerging on top, an intensified rivalry between Tel Aviv and Ankara is not a question of if, but how. It is not a question of whether they choose the rivalry, but how they choose to react to it: through confrontation or peaceful management.

As I describe in Treacherous Alliance, a similar situation emerged after the end of the Cold War: The collapse of the Soviet Union dramatically changed the global distribution of power, and the defeat of Saddam's Iraq in the Persian Gulf War reshuffled the regional geopolitical deck. A nascent bipolar regional structure took shape with Iran and Israel emerging as the two main powers with no effective buffer between them (since Iraq had been defeated). The Israelis acted on this first, inverting the strategy that had guided them for the previous decades: The Doctrine of the Periphery. According to this doctrine, Israel would build alliances with the non-Arab states in its periphery (Iran, Turkey, and Ethiopia) to balance the Arab powers in its vicinity (Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, respectively).

keep readingShow less
Havana, Cuba
Top Image Credit: Havana, Cuba, 2019. (CLWphoto/Shutterstock)

Trump lifted sanctions on Syria. Now do Cuba.

North America

President Trump’s new National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) on Cuba, announced on June 30, reaffirms the policy of sanctions and hostility he articulated at the start of his first term in office. In fact, the new NSPM is almost identical to the old one.

The policy’s stated purpose is to “improve human rights, encourage the rule of law, foster free markets and free enterprise, and promote democracy” by restricting financial flows to the Cuban government. It reaffirms Trump’s support for the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, which explicitly requires regime change — that Cuba become a multiparty democracy with a free market economy (among other conditions) before the U.S. embargo will be lifted.

keep readingShow less
SPD Germany Ukraine
Top Photo: Lars Klingbeil (l-r, SPD), Federal Minister of Finance, Vice-Chancellor and SPD Federal Chairman, and Bärbel Bas (SPD), Federal Minister of Labor and Social Affairs and SPD Party Chairwoman, bid farewell to the members of the previous Federal Cabinet Olaf Scholz (SPD), former Federal Chancellor, Nancy Faeser, Saskia Esken, SPD Federal Chairwoman, Karl Lauterbach, Svenja Schulze and Hubertus Heil at the SPD Federal Party Conference. At the party conference, the SPD intends to elect a new executive committee and initiate a program process. Kay Nietfeld/dpa via Reuters Connect

Does Germany’s ruling coalition have a peace problem?

Europe

Surfacing a long-dormant intra-party conflict, the Friedenskreise (peace circles) within the Social Democratic Party of Germany has published a “Manifesto on Securing Peace in Europe” in a stark challenge to the rearmament line taken by the SPD leaders governing in coalition with the conservative CDU-CSU under Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Although the Manifesto clearly does not have broad support in the SPD, the party’s leader, Deputy Chancellor and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil, won only 64% support from the June 28-29 party conference for his performance so far, a much weaker endorsement than anticipated. The views of the party’s peace camp may be part of the explanation.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.