The confrontation between Australia and China is getting serious. The Australian Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense, and the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs have all publicly stated in recent days that Australia will not sit back and watch conflicts in the Taiwan Strait and will support the allies of freedom. In fact, after the strong advocacy of the U.S. for an Indo-Pacific strategy, the U.S. has been doomed to confront China, and Australia must move closer to the U.S. However, Australia has been reluctant to openly confront China due to its dependence on its economic and trade relations with China. Last year (2020), COVID-19 started, and Australia requested to investigate the origin of the pandemic and criticized China’s policies on Hong Kong and Xinjiang. China’s countermeasures against Australia with retaliatory trade measures catalyzed the antagonism between the two countries and led to a sharp increase in the percentage of Australians that believe that China is a threat, changing Australia’s original vague triangular strategy for China and the U.S. of not siding with either.

In the administration of Kevin Rudd, when Australia had the closest relationship with China, the white paper of national defense published in 2009 only used “rising power” to imply China’s military threat. As issues such as China’s military expansion, the South China Sea, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang emerged, Australia’s anti-China strategy gradually took shape. It is clear that the conflicts between Australia and China in human rights, economics, and trade are getting worse. Since Australia has restricted Chin’s participation in its 5G infrastructure, it has actively guarded against China’s influence.

China’s influence on Australia and its neighboring countries is present at all levels. In domestic affairs, China uses business to control politics. In regional security, China uses the Belt and Road Initiative to influence Australia’s neighboring countries. After the Solomon Islands, Taiwan’s diplomatic ally, was lost to China in 2019, Australia felt even more of a thorn in its side. Australia passed the Espionage and Foreign Interference Act 2018, the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme 2018, the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act in 2018, and so on to curb China’s influence.

Unlike the verbal rivalry between Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, Zhao Lijian, at the end of last year, the Australian-Chinese diplomatic war has intensified and escalated recently. To counter China, Australia announced on April 21 this year (2021) the withdrawal from the agreements reached in the Belt and Road initiative between Victoria and China. On May 2, the Australian Department of Defense announced that under the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act, it would re-examine the 99-year lease of Port Darwin, an important military base, acquired by the Chinese Lan Bridge Group in 2015. China announced on May 6 an indefinite suspension of the Australia-China Strategic Economic Dialogue to get back at Australia. From a strategic point of view, apart from retaliating against Australia’s aforementioned actions, China also intends to intimidate Australia into withdrawing from the statement of the G7 foreign ministers to support Taiwan.

China has long been bribing the South Pacific island nations in the backyard of Australia and neighboring countries in the north, such as Papua New Guinea and East Timor. As China expands its influence, Taiwan’s South Pacific allies have not only become a community with Australia to fight against China together, but Taiwan itself is also an issue on which Australia must take a stance. On April 25, Australian Minister for Defense Peter Dutton accepted an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on ANZAC Day. He responded to the issue of Taiwan by saying that the Australian military should shift its focus to neighboring areas in response to the rising military threat of China. Mike Pezzullo, the secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, echoed Dutton by emphasizing that while Australia is committed to reducing the possibility of war, it must also be determined to defend freedom. He said that the drums of war are beating with China, and Australia must once again send soldiers to fight for freedom with allies. In a radio interview on May 6, Morrison responded to the attack of China against Taiwan, saying that Australia has always fulfilled its agreement to support the U.S. and its allies in the Indo-Pacific region.

The South China Sea, the Diaoyu Islands, and the Taiwan Strait are all areas where conflicts between the U.S. and China may occur in the Indo-Pacific strategy. These three areas are also related to Australia’s geostrategic interests:

The South China Sea is vital to Australia’s trade. About 60% of Australia’s trade is on the seaway through the South China Sea. If Japan and China would have conflict around Diaoyu Islands, the chain relationships between the U.S.-Japan alliance and the U.S.-Australia alliance will force Australia also to get involved in the conflict. Taiwan is at a key position on the first island chain.

Once the U.S. and Japan intervene in a conflict in the Taiwan Strait, Australia cannot stay out of the matter. Most importantly, would China once win Taiwan, Chinese submarines would freely enter and exit the first island chain and the second island chain, and Australia’s anti-submarine warfare would become more difficult.

Given this, Morrison announced last July an investment of 270 billion Australian dollars (about 5.5 trillion Taiwan dollars) to plan a 10-year plan to strengthen national defense. To cooperate with the Indo-Pacific strategy to contain China by developing long-range hypersonic strike weapons and high-tech underwater surveillance systems, and by enhancing cyber defense capabilities and the intelligence system.

The senior foreign editor of The Australian Greg Sheridan used the title “Thinking the Unthinkable” in his column on May 8 to describe Australia’s chances of staying out of the conflict in the Taiwan Strait. The changes in the U.S.-Australia-China relations over the past 20 years can conclude Sheridan’s analysis. Since the economic and trade relationship with China has been the main driving force behind Australia’s economic growth, for more than 20 years, “to the U.S. for defense” and “to China for economy” have dominated the foreign policy of Australia. In the past, Australian political and academic circles often argued strongly about siding with the U.S. or China when the U.S. intervenes in conflicts across the Taiwan Strait. Today, China’s trade sanctions against Australia and infiltration of the society and politics of Australia have revised its China policy. In the relationship of the U.S.-Australia alliance, Australia as the deputy sheriff of the U.S., has also made a crucial change in its original stance on conflicts in the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan has now become the key to Australia’s beating war drums to defend freedom against China.

（Hsu Chien-jung, Adjunct Research Associate at Monash University in Australia.）

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