{"id":72275,"date":"2022-05-02T06:00:27","date_gmt":"2022-05-01T20:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=72275"},"modified":"2022-05-02T09:29:05","modified_gmt":"2022-05-01T23:29:05","slug":"calculating-chinas-power-amid-the-oz-election-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/calculating-chinas-power-amid-the-oz-election-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"Calculating China\u2019s power amid the Oz election contest"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

A senior Asian diplomat quips that China\u2019s leadership fears the numbers two, three, four, five and seven.<\/p>\n

The superstition is the way the numbers are stacking up.<\/p>\n

China agonises over the bilateral alliances represented by the number two (US\u2013Japan, US \u2013 South Korea, US\u2013Australia), three represents the members of AUKUS, four is the Quad, five is the Five Eyes intelligence community and seven is the G7.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d add to the list the number one, which is too serious for any jest. Beijing wants to be number one. And it wants to enforce the one-China policy on Taiwan. Beijing\u2019s great fear is Taiwan\u2019s growing singularity. China and Taiwan peer intently at Ukraine: the wolf warrior and the porcupine<\/a> seek invasion lessons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The way the numbers stack up was the theme last week of an ASPI masterclass, offering an accounting of China\u2019s emerging military and strategic capabilities.<\/p>\n

The conference star was former prime minister Kevin Rudd, who noted that China is constantly counting, measuring its \u2018comprehensive national power\u2019, judging the power balance with the US. It was a notable \u2018twins\u2019 moment having the two ASPIs together for a session\u2014Peter Jennings for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and Rudd as head of the Asia Society Policy Institute.<\/p>\n

Characteristically, Rudd is doing two things simultaneously as he zips around the wide brown land. He\u2019s campaigning for Labor in the federal election and promoting his new book, The avoidable war<\/em><\/a>. The book is Rudd at his best: deeply detailed at 400 pages, but vivid and driven in its discussion of the \u2018unfolding crisis\u2019 between the US and China and the danger of \u2018global carnage on an industrial scale\u2019. The Strategist<\/em>\u2019s Jack Norton reported on<\/a> Rudd\u2019s presentation, including his comments on the controversial deal between China and Solomon Islands.<\/p>\n

From Washington, ASPI\u2019s Mark Watson<\/a> offered the masterclass a US perspective, describing the American shift from engagement to competition to deterrence. The engagement decade (2000\u20132010) was defined by economics as China joined the World Trade Organization. The competition decade (2010\u20132020) saw economic cooperation bumping against China\u2019s rising military capability and the arrival of Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n

Now in the deterrence decade, Watson said, the US \u2018no longer sees China as a constructive player but as an outlaw\u2019. China is one of the few things Democrats and Republicans in Washington agree on. Despite Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, Watson said, the US remains focused on the Indo-Pacific: \u2018Long term, China is still the main game.\u2019<\/p>\n

John Lee<\/a>, former senior national security adviser to foreign minister Julie Bishop, described a reversal of the mindset of the past three decades where cooperation with China was an \u2018absolute good\u2019 and Asia was \u2018sleepwalking into becoming a Sino-centric region\u2019.<\/p>\n

Lee stressed the limited but important ability of other powers to shape China\u2019s understanding of the costs of its actions. \u2018One of the tricks China plays on the world is to suggest it can\u2019t be deterred,\u2019 Lee said. \u2018We do have the weight to significantly change the cost calculations of the Chinese Communist Party.\u2019<\/p>\n

The University of Sydney\u2019s Gorana Grgic<\/a> offered a range of conceptual frames for the future that\u2019s coming into view:<\/p>\n