{"id":84769,"date":"2024-01-23T12:30:27","date_gmt":"2024-01-23T01:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=84769"},"modified":"2024-01-23T12:29:44","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T01:29:44","slug":"australia-and-china-have-very-different-notions-of-stability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/australia-and-china-have-very-different-notions-of-stability\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia and China have very different notions of stability"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Last week\u2019s Chinese embassy press conference was a further effort to corral Australia into compliance and compromise with Beijing\u2019s views.<\/p>\n

Remarks by Chinese ambassador Xiao Qian and other embassy officials confirm what many national security observers have been worried about for months.<\/p>\n

If we pull our punches, if we subordinate our values and long-term interests to a short-term effort to orchestrate a trouble-free diplomatic relationship, we won\u2019t actually buy stability. Rather we\u2019ll find ourselves on a slope where nothing we do is good enough, and we will be eternally tempted to find unilateral compromises.<\/p>\n

The embassy press conference demonstrated Beijing is looking for Australia to keep sliding ever closer to positions that will satisfy the Chinese Communist Party.<\/p>\n

Questions about the sonar burst that our government says injured Australian naval personnel prompted an official to warn against making trouble on China\u2019s doorstep.<\/p>\n

Questions about the Taiwanese election elicited further demands that Australia stay silent when Taiwan freely elects a new leader.<\/p>\n

These would be breaches of Australia\u2019s core values. We have every right to operate in international waters as\u00a0HMAS Toowoomba was doing<\/a>\u00a0in support of a United Nations mission late last year. And Australia should never shrink from championing the expression of democracy through free and fair elections, as we have through statements on Taiwan\u2019s election that were actually fairly mild.<\/p>\n

The day we fail to celebrate people\u2019s participation in their own government\u2014something mainland Chinese people don\u2019t enjoy\u2014is the day we might as well pack our bags and go home, geopolitically speaking. Xiao stated bluntly that Beijing could show no flexibility or compromise on Taiwan, meaning any shift to smooth the waters would have to come from Australia.<\/p>\n

Stabilisation is the stated goal of the Australian government, but Beijing has a different definition of stability. Australia wants to co-operate where we can and disagree where we must, but Beijing doesn\u2019t accept when we disagree. This was clear from Xiao\u2019s opening remarks, which painted an ambitious picture of an ever deepening relationship that ignored differences and sought increased co-operation, including joint defence exercises.<\/p>\n

How could we seriously have joint exercises with a military that is\u00a0bullying a democratic nation in the Philippines<\/a>\u00a0through steady and calculated harassment of its vessels in the South China Sea? We couldn\u2019t speak out with a straight face the next time the Chinese navy used water cannon on a Philippines ship. But that\u2019s the idea.<\/p>\n

Beijing is trying to achieve its strategic objectives through aggression, coercion and threats. This is its own doing, not Australia\u2019s. Xiao\u2019s naked threat to Australia ahead of the Taiwan poll, warning that support for Taiwanese independence\u2014which is not Australia\u2019s position\u2014would push the Australian people \u2018over the edge of an abyss\u2019 should be intolerable.<\/p>\n

For the sake of staking out consistent positions on core issues, Canberra should make clear that such remarks are unacceptable. While unlikely to change Beijing\u2019s malign objectives, we would send a signal that stability, to us, doesn\u2019t mean submission, but prioritising our own security, transparently and consistently.<\/p>\n

Sonar attacks, threatening Australians with the abyss, unfair trade sanctions\u2014they all demand condemnation because they are breaches of rules and norms that are essential to our region\u2019s future. Inconsistent responses only contribute to the degradation of the rules that have helped keep us secure since 1945.<\/p>\n

Xiao also continued the recent Chinese government effort to drive divisions between Australia and Japan, hinting preposterously that the Japanese Armed Forces might have been responsible for the sonar attack.<\/p>\n

This points to another Beijing ambition\u2014ham fisted though its execution might seem. It would prefer that regional partnerships are weakened so that it can manage others bilaterally, giving it a sizeable advantage.<\/p>\n

But Australia needs friends, partners with whom we co-ordinate and collaborate. We can\u2019t have regional stability unless we work together to balance and deter China, impose costs for its transgressions and gradually persuade it that bullying and coercion will be ineffectual and detrimental to its own interests. Stabilisation can\u2019t become code for tolerating Beijing\u2019s destabilising activity. The UK made this mistake in the 1930s, with disarmament and appeasement policies that tolerated German rearmament and illegal land grabs.<\/p>\n

As we start 2024 with increasingly confident authoritarian regimes, wars in Europe and the Middle East and increased tension in the Indo-Pacific, democracies like Australia are faced with two roads diverging. The pathway ahead is not a confected improvement to the bilateral relationship with Beijing that rests on our biting our tongue and entering into arrangements that only leave us more vulnerable, such as returning to an excessive and risky trade dependence.<\/p>\n

We are no longer in a period of stability to be maintained but an era of instability that means a business-as-usual approach will be insufficient. Our approach needs extra effort ranging from greater defence investment to diplomacy that manages tensions rather than ignoring them\u2014because whatever the rhetorical niceties, our long-term values shouldn\u2019t be sacrificed for short-term interests. Both roads cannot be travelled.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week\u2019s Chinese embassy press conference was a further effort to corral Australia into compliance and compromise with Beijing\u2019s views. 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