{"id":71676,"date":"2022-04-04T06:00:28","date_gmt":"2022-04-03T20:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=71676"},"modified":"2022-04-03T19:45:36","modified_gmt":"2022-04-03T09:45:36","slug":"the-geopolitics-and-geoeconomics-of-australias-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-geopolitics-and-geoeconomics-of-australias-election\/","title":{"rendered":"The (geo)politics and (geo)economics of Australia\u2019s election"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

\u2018Tonight, as we gather, war rages in Europe. The global pandemic is not over. Devastating floods have battered our communities. We live in uncertain times.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014 Treasurer <\/span>Josh Frydenberg<\/a>, budget speech, 29 March 2022<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The federal budget is the starter\u2019s flag for the race to Australia\u2019s May election.<\/p>\n

Cash splash is prelude to campaign dash.<\/p>\n

Or\u2014less slang, more formality\u2014the national accounts are presented as the government prepares to account to the voters.<\/p>\n

As prefigured by the budget, the election race is a deeply domestic affair with those well-tried horses Costa Living, Jobs \u2019N\u2019 Growth and Pet-Roll Prices dominating the form guides.<\/p>\n

This year, though, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse round the bend close on the heels of the domestic nags.<\/p>\n

Before turning to Costa and Pet-Roll, Josh Frydenberg started his budget speech with that nod to war, conquest and disaster, and \u2018the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression\u2019.<\/p>\n

The introductory thought to the government\u2019s \u2018vision and plan for a stronger future\u2019 was the need to be \u2018realistic about the growing threats we face<\/a>\u2019. The section on national security<\/a> began with rumination on the reality of a \u2018world less stable\u2019, confronting \u2018aggression\u2019 and \u2018coercion\u2019.<\/p>\n

The election race will gallop across domestic terrain with a constant eye over the shoulder at the (geo)politics and (geo)economics.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine, the budget predicts, will cut global growth by three-quarters of a percentage point in 2022 and increase global inflation by about 1.5%. Treasury is relatively sanguine about what Ukraine will mean<\/a> for the Oz economy:<\/p>\n

As an energy and food exporter with very limited direct trade exposure to Russia, Australia is better placed than most countries to absorb the economic effects of the conflict and associated disruptions. Higher fuel and other prices will negatively affect consumers and dampen consumption growth, but higher commodity prices will provide a positive boost to national income through higher export earnings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The state-of-the-world survey offered by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade gives a flavour of the \u2018incoming government brief\u2019 DFAT will offer after the May election. The added benefit with the portfolio budget papers is that swathes of pages aren\u2019t \u2018redacted\u2019<\/a> in the way that the government brief is cut when it dribbles out through freedom of information requests.<\/p>\n

A \u2018deteriorating strategic environment\u2019<\/a> confronts Australia, DFAT reports: \u2018Many Indo-Pacific countries remain vulnerable following the COVID-19 pandemic, while great power strategic competition is intensifying. The rules, norms and institutions that support Australia\u2019s prosperity and security are under persistent pressure.\u2019<\/p>\n

The linking of China and Russia\u2014what Prime Minister Scott Morrison calls \u2018a new arc of autocracy\u2019<\/a>\u2014gets this DFAT judgement: \u2018Growing alignment between Russia and China, with its increasing military capability and growing assertiveness, has significant geo-strategic implications and underlines the importance of established rules and norms instead of a \u201cmight is right\u201d approach.\u2019<\/p>\n

For the Department of Defence<\/a>, the money keeps rolling in, as promised. See ASPI\u2019s Marcus Hellyer<\/a> on the 2022\u201323 defence budget: \u2018In key ways it acknowledges and responds to a changing world, but in others it is a relic of an earlier time.\u2019<\/p>\n

In the cyber domain, Australia is going to spice it up with REDSPICE<\/a>, which stands for Resilience \u2013 Effects \u2013 Defence \u2013 Space \u2013 Intelligence \u2013 Cyber \u2013 Enablers. The promise is $9.9 billion over the next decade for new cyber and intelligence capabilities and 1,900 new people at the Australian Signals Directorate. The supernerds of Defence\u2019s cyberworld think it \u2018the most significant<\/a> single investment\u2019 in ASD\u2019s 75 years.<\/p>\n

The celebration of ASD\u2019s 75th birthday was why Jeremy Fleming, head of Britain\u2019s signals and cyber intelligence agency, GCHQ, was in Canberra to give a speech on \u2018a period of generational upheaval\u2019<\/a>\u2014pandemic, the \u2018dominance of technology and cyber\u2019, the rise of China, the end of the Afghanistan campaign, and Russia\u2019s invasion.<\/p>\n

From deep inside the secret world, Fleming emphasised \u2018a remarkable feature\u2019 of the Ukraine conflict\u2014how much Western intelligence has been so quickly declassified to get ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s actions:<\/p>\n

From the warnings of the war. To the intelligence on false flag operations designed to provide a fake premise to the invasion. And more recently, to the Russian plans to falsely claim Ukrainian use of banned chemical weapons.<\/p>\n

On this and many other subjects, deeply secret intelligence is being released to make sure the truth is heard. At this pace and scale, it really is unprecedented.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fleming said Putin\u2019s massive miscalculation produced exactly what Russia didn\u2019t want, galvanising NATO and triggering \u2018an unprecedented international response\u2019.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s choices narrow, while China has big choices to make, Fleming noted:<\/p>\n

We know both Presidents Xi and Putin place great value on their personal relationships. But Xi\u2019s calculus is more nuanced. He\u2019s not publicly condemned the invasion, presumably calculating that it helps him oppose the US. And, with an eye on retaking Taiwan, China doesn\u2019t want to do anything which may constrain its ability to move in the future\u00a0\u2026<\/p>\n

But there are risks to them both (and arguably more for China) in being too closely aligned. Russia understands that long term, China will become increasingly strong militarily and economically. Some of their interests conflict; Russia could be squeezed out of the equation.<\/p>\n

And it is equally clear that a China that wants to set the rules of the road\u2014the norms for a new global governance\u2014is not well served by close alliance with a regime that willfully and illegally ignores them all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the flag went down in Canberra in budget week, Trade Minister Dan Tehan was in Washington to launch an annual strategic economic dialogue<\/a> with US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. The talks covered economic coercion, critical minerals and regional supply chains.<\/p>\n

Australia repeats with the US what it\u2019s doing with Japan and India in the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative<\/a>, to \u2018counter China\u2019s dominance<\/a> as trade and geopolitical tensions escalate across the region\u2019.<\/p>\n

In creating the strategic economic dialogue with the US, Canberra repurposes the title of an agreement it reached with China. The signal to Beijing is sent using China\u2019s own codes.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s strategic economic dialogue with China was born in 2013 as part of the \u2018comprehensive strategic partnership\u2019. The strategic language was part of Beijing\u2019s\u00a0price<\/a>\u00a0for getting an annual leaders\u2019 summit. These days, Beijing won\u2019t take ministerial phone calls, much less do summits.<\/p>\n

Morrison\u00a0bid adieu<\/a>\u00a0to the strategic partnership with China in February 2021. In May, Beijing suspended<\/a>\u00a0the China\u2013Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue (already moribund since 2017), denouncing Australia for disrupting normal exchanges and cooperation \u2018out of Cold War mindset and ideological discrimination\u2019.<\/p>\n

Heading to Washington, Tehan\u2019s headline was \u2018Strategic Economic Dialogue<\/a>\u2019, but by the time of the joint statement, Washington codes were injected, so it became the Australia\u2013US Strategic Commercial Dialogue<\/a>; when the treasurer and treasury secretary join future meetings, expect \u2018economic\u2019 to creep back into title.<\/p>\n

For Australia, this dialogue will be the geoeconomics complement to the geopolitics of AUSMIN, the annual meeting between Australia\u2019s foreign and defence ministers and the US secretaries of state and defence.<\/p>\n

For the US, the dialogue is another piece of President Joe Biden\u2019s attempt to create<\/a> a new \u2018Indo-Pacific economic framework\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The US is in the strange position of having to build a framework because it trashed its own previous creation. The Trump administration dumped the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an impressive effort to build a US version of what the Indo-Pacific trade future should look like.<\/p>\n

Biden can\u2019t join the replacement model Comprehensive and Progressive TPP<\/a>, now in its fourth year of operation. The politics of free trade treaties is toxic in Washington; frameworks will have to do.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what happens when domestic nags gallop in competition with \u2018geo\u2019 steeds.<\/p>\n

Now off and racing towards May, Australia knows the feeling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Tonight, as we gather, war rages in Europe. The global pandemic is not over. Devastating floods have battered our communities. We live in uncertain times.\u2019 \u2014 Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, budget speech, 29 March 2022 The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":71677,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,120,772,376,365],"class_list":["post-71676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australia","tag-budget","tag-geopolitics","tag-politics","tag-trade"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe (geo)politics and (geo)economics of Australia\u2019s election | 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\/the-geopolitics-and-geoeconomics-of-australias-election\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The (geo)politics and (geo)economics of Australia\u2019s election | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u2018Tonight, as we gather, war rages in Europe. 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