{"id":39614,"date":"2018-05-31T06:00:14","date_gmt":"2018-05-30T20:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=39614"},"modified":"2018-05-30T16:11:36","modified_gmt":"2018-05-30T06:11:36","slug":"australias-real-choice-about-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/australias-real-choice-about-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s real choice about China"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Australia\u2019s problem with China is bigger and simpler than we think, and thus harder to solve. It isn\u2019t that Beijing doesn\u2019t like Julie Bishop, or that it\u2019s offended by our new political interference legislation, or that it\u2019s building impressive new armed forces, or staking claims in the South China Sea. It\u2019s that China wants to replace the United States<\/a> as the primary power in East Asia, and we don\u2019t want that to happen. We want America to remain the primary power because we don\u2019t want to live under China\u2019s shadow.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s a big problem for Beijing. Its ambition for regional leadership isn\u2019t something the Chinese are willing to compromise. Nothing\u2014not even economic growth\u2014is more important to them. So our opposition is a big fault line running through the relationship.<\/p>\n

This shouldn\u2019t come as news. China\u2019s ambition, and the problems it poses for Australia, have been unmistakably obvious for a decade, but most of us have been in denial about it. And we all know why. Opposing China would risk the economic relationship, and we cannot imagine a future for Australia without the opportunities that only China can offer. But equally we cannot imagine a future for Australia in which China takes America\u2019s place as Asia\u2019s dominant power, and America withdraws.<\/p>\n

So we\u2019ve tried to pretend that our problem would go away, by assuming that America could handle it for us. We\u2019ve been convinced that \u2018we don\u2019t have to choose between America and China\u2019 because we have clung to the hope that China, overawed by US\u00a0power and resolve, would meekly abandon its challenge and accept American leadership in Asia after all.<\/p>\n

Washington has been hoping for the same thing. It has also been in denial, unwilling either to accommodate China or to confront it. Few in Washington could consider stepping back from leadership in Asia, but even fewer were willing to face up to the spiralling costs and risks of opposing China as its power grew. So they convinced themselves that China wasn\u2019t serious.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why their response\u2014President Barack Obama\u2019s \u2018pivot to Asia\u2019\u2014was so feeble. Its architects assumed that a low-cost, low-risk response would be enough make China retreat, so there was no need to risk an economic rupture, or a military conflict. They massively underestimated China\u2019s power and resolve.<\/p>\n

Now, however, they\u2019re starting to wake up to reality. The Trump administration\u2019s new US\u00a0National Security Strategy, and the defence and nuclear strategy documents which followed, finally acknowledged that China is a serious strategic rival, and committed America to resist it. But nothing was said then or since about how to do that, or how much America is willing to pay.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s because there\u2019s real doubt about whether America\u2019s fundamental interests in Asia really justify the costs and risks of resisting China\u2019s bid. Of course America wants to remain Asia\u2019s leading power, but does it want it enough<\/em> to confront China head on?<\/p>\n

Whatever answer the policy experts in Washington give to this question, it\u2019s abundantly clear that Donald Trump, and the America that elected him, are likely to say \u2018no\u2019. As president, Trump has remained true to the isolationist nationalism of his \u2018America First\u2019 campaign, and there\u2019s no reason to expect him to change. So while Trump\u2019s America could well blunder into a confrontation with China, it will not marshal the sustained commitment of statecraft, resources and resolve required to resist China\u2019s challenge and preserve the US\u2011led order in Asia.<\/p>\n

This has filtered through to Canberra. Last year emerged as the year that our leaders really started to worry about China because it was the year they really started to worry about whether America could be trusted to fix our China problem for us.<\/p>\n

This produced the change of tone from Canberra that has angered Beijing. Before last year we walked both sides of the street. We told Washington that we fully supported them in resisting China\u2019s challenge, and told Beijing the opposite. For all the tough talk about the South China Sea, we did nothing substantial enough in support of America to worry Beijing, and we were careful never to express direct opposition to China\u2019s wider regional ambitions. That kept Beijing happy.<\/p>\n

But in the months after Trump was inaugurated, our government decided that Washington\u2019s resolve in Asia could no longer be taken for granted. Trump must be talked out of \u2018America First\u2019, and encouraged to stand up to China. Both Julie Bishop and Malcolm Turnbull made major speeches that acknowledged for the first time that the Chinese were challenging the US\u2011led status quo<\/em> in Asia, and committed Australia to resisting them.<\/p>\n

Then later in the year the government published its Foreign Policy White Paper, which was all about Australia\u2019s determination to resist China\u2019s assault on the \u2018rules-based order\u2019\u2014code for US regional primacy. And finally, at the end of last year, the government announced new laws to prevent covert political interference, clearly aimed at China.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when China decided to exert a little pressure. It didn\u2019t take long for Canberra to get the message. By early this year, Turnbull and Bishop were already backpedalling hard. They tried to deny that the foreign interference laws were aimed at China, talked up China\u2019s positive contribution to the region, and even took the remarkable step of repudiating Washington\u2019s new tough language about China as a rival and a threat.<\/p>\n

But Beijing hasn\u2019t been assuaged, and so the pressure is still on. It isn\u2019t much so far\u2014at least compared to what they could do if they wanted to cause us real pain. But it\u2019s enough to remind Canberra\u2014and the rest of us\u2014what national power means. It means the capacity to impose costs on another country at relatively low cost to oneself, and China now has that in abundance. We\u2019re being warned.<\/p>\n

This problem isn\u2019t going to go away, so we have to make some choices. Now we know that China is serious, what price are we willing to pay to resist it, and how far are we prepared to go? Those choices must be based on a realistic assessment of China\u2019s power and ambitions, and of the cost we will incur by opposing them.<\/p>\n

We haven\u2019t had that kind of realistic assessment until now, in part because it has been so easy to accuse those who recognise the reality of China\u2019s power and ambition as advocating surrender to it. That is, of course, absurd. And now, perhaps, we can put this absurdity behind us and start seriously to discuss how to deal with the biggest foreign policy challenge since at least World War Two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australia\u2019s problem with China is bigger and simpler than we think, and thus harder to solve. It isn\u2019t that Beijing doesn\u2019t like Julie Bishop, or that it\u2019s offended by our new political interference legislation, or …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":39616,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52,285,31],"class_list":["post-39614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-china","tag-foreign-policy","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAustralia\u2019s real choice about China | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/australias-real-choice-about-china\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Australia\u2019s real choice about China | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Australia\u2019s problem with China is bigger and simpler than we think, and thus harder to solve. 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