Balancing act: Experts warn we can’t stay out of China’s conflicts

The country is attempting to balance the two competing interests, which are our first and third largest trading partners respectively, without getting too involved in the hostile conflict over the South China Sea.

In a Four Corners report, which aired Monday night, ABC reporter Peter Greste investigated the rise of China and how Australia fits into it.

“Australia sits at the intersection of these two great powers,” he said.

“The problem for us is the historical forces driving each of them are far greater than anything we can possibly control, so we need to find out how those forces might play out.”

Retired Admiral Dennis Blair, one of the United States’ most senior ex-military officers, warned that compromise may be an impossible task.

He acknowledged China and the US do not wish to go to war, but said both powers are locked into opposing positions.

Blair also called on the Australian Defence Force to participate in joint military exercises with the US in the South China Sea.

“I think Australian and American ships should exercise together in the South China Sea, showing that, when they need to, they will send their armed forces in international airspace and water,” he told Four Corners.
 

“We count on Australian mates being there when serious issues are at stake.”

But Foreign minister Julie Bishop was noncommittal in her response, saying the United States had never asked Australia to take part in exercises that would go within disputed territorial waters,”.

She wasn’t buying in, adding: “and we will continue to do what we’ve always done, and that is traverse the South China Sea, exercising our rights of passage um over water, through the skies”.

“Australia has been carrying out uh operations in the South China Sea for many years and will continue to do so”.

For the past 20 years, Australia has been trying to balance its alliance with the US with its mostly uninterrupted economic growth on the back of China.

That’s become increasingly difficult of late, defence analyst Prof Hugh White toldFour Corners.

“This is the first time in our history where our biggest trading partner is a strategic rival of our principal ally, so this introduces a whole level of complexity into our strategic situation we’ve never known as a country before,” Prof White said.

He said the presence of US marine corps training in Australia and the US presence in the South China Sea is an attempt by the United States to “demonstrate to Australia, to the rest of the region and to China and to Americans that Australia is there at a on America’s side as it pushes back against China’s challenge to American primacy”.

Asked by Greste if that locked Australia into a fight with China, Prof White said: “That’s certainly what the United States would like ... they want us to see ourselves as deeply committed to supporting the United States in whatever the United States does, to resist China’s pressure and of course many Australian political leaders and many Australian voters would think that’s inherently a good idea”.

Prof White said concerns heightened late last year with the Northern Territory government’s decision to use Chinese money to develop the Port of Darwin, and award a half billion dollar lease to Chinese company Landbridge to lease it. Critics said the deal compromised national security for the sake of the economy..

“Many people in Washington were worried that Australia’s willingness to allow a Chinese company to take that lease, showed how deeply Australia’s economic future was being embedded with China’s,” Prof White told Four Corners.

“I think more than the narrow intelligence concerns, they were worried broad more broadly about what that meant about the direction Australia is going … there is a concern in the United States about how far Australia is being drawn into the Chinese economic hemisphere.”

In July this year, Australia supported an international court decision ruling that China had no legal basis to claim historical rights in the South China Sea.

The court found heavily in favour of The Philippines, which initiated the case, but Chinese President Xi Jinping said his country’s “territorial sovereignty and marine rights” would not be affected by the ruling.

China subsequently pronounced itself “very unsatisfied” with the actions of countries like Australia, warning of “serious measures” if global powers continue to oppose its development in the South China Sea.

The Chinese government said Australia’s position was “detrimental to the political foundation of our relationship”, and “present co-operation” would be “damaged” if it took further action.

But Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told Greste she believes Australia can balance competing with the US and China, “as other countries do”.

“We are an economy that’s built on foreign direct investment so we’re able to manage these issues as well as a relationship and alliance with the United States,” she said.

Asked where Australia will be left if China continues to build its defence force, and becomes the strongest military power in the region, displacing the US, Bishop was succinct.

“Well, I don’t believe that it will displace the United States anytime soon,” she said.

In an earlier interview with news.com.au, security expert Dr Adam Lockyer from Macquarie University said it’s becoming increasingly difficult for Australia to separate its relationships with the two powers.

“Australia’s position is we don’t want to choose,” he said. “As soon as we’re forced to make a choice, we lose. The guiding principle of Australian foreign policy is ‘Don’t choose between the US and China’. Doing so will either affect our security or our economy — or both.”

He said as preferable as it may be, we can’t simply sit back and ignore the situation.

“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to do nothing,” he said. “Our military is just there to be a part of it without being too provocative. This is what we do. It’s a symbolic gesture. For the most part, we stand to do as little as we can get away with.”

Four Corners report “China Rising” replays at 10am Tuesday, 11am Wednesday and 8pm Saturday on ABC, catch up on ABC iview.