Australians would overwhelmingly reject siding with close ally Japan against top trade partner China over a dispute in the East China Sea and prefer to remain neutral, according to a survey published yesterday.
Beijing and Tokyo have been engaged in a long and bitter battle over ownership of a contested island chain also claimed by Taiwan, the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台列嶼), known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan.
Australia has a long-standing military alliance with Japan’s close ally the US, which could arguably see it drawn into the dispute, but a poll commissioned by the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology, Sydney, suggested that 71 percent of Australians would prefer to remain neutral should a conflict arise.
“The poll confirms Australians overwhelmingly want their country to stay neutral,” said former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr, director of the institute, an independent research think tank.
Asked what Australia should do if armed conflict broke out between Japan, the US and China over the islands, only 15 percent said they supported backing a Japan-US alliance.
Four percent said Australia should back China and 9 percent were unsure, the poll of more than 1,000 Australians found.
Should the US president call and ask the Australian prime minister to join in supporting Japan, 68 percent said Australia should declare itself neutral and not make a military contribution.
Fourteen percent said Canberra should join its allies in war, while 17 percent were unsure.
Carr said as far as the public was concerned, Australia was not obliged under the Australia-New Zealand-US (ANZUS) treaty to make a commitment.
The treaty binds Australia, New Zealand and the US to cooperate on defense matters.
“We know that Australians overwhelmingly support the ANZUS treaty, but this poll confirms they do not want it invoked in conflict between China and Japan over the islands in the East China Sea,” Carr said.
Australia and Japan have recently moved to strengthen military and economic ties, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has described Canberra as Tokyo’s “best friend,” but China is Australia’s biggest trading partner, with the two-way flow exceeding A$150 billion (US$122 billion).
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing