Australia yesterday unveiled its first National Defence Strategy, signaling a new focus on deterring China’s “coercive tactics” in the Indo-Pacific region.
The 80-page document offers a gloomy assessment of Pacific security and sets out a massive increase in defense spending to retool Australia’s military to cope with the challenge.
“The optimistic assumptions that guided defense planning after the end of the Cold War are long gone,” Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said as he presented the new strategy.
Warning that “China has employed coercive tactics in pursuit of its strategic objectives,” the text describes an Australia vulnerable to foes strangling trade or preventing access to vital air and sea routes.
“We are a maritime trading island nation,” Marles said. “The invasion of Australia is an unlikely prospect in any scenario, precisely because so much damage can be done to our country by an adversary without ever having to step foot on Australian soil.”
Instead of focusing on maintaining a military that can do a range of tasks almost anywhere in the world, Marles said the focus would be on building a force that can protect Australia’s interests in its immediate region.
At the center of the strategy are plans to develop a fleet of stealth nuclear-powered submarines to triple key missile capabilities and develop a large surface combatant fleet.
“Having the most capable navy in our history will be at the heart of our projection and our strategy of denial,” Marles said.
As a share of GDP, defense spending is set to increase from about 2 percent now to 2.4 percent within a decade.
Australia predicted increased risk of conflict in the Taiwan Strait, the South and East China seas, or on the Indian border.
Marles said that old assumptions about how much time Australia would have to prepare for war were gone.
“Australia no longer has the luxury of a 10-year window of strategic warning time for conflict,” he said.
Asked about Canberra’s strategy at a regular briefing, Beijing urged Australia to “refrain from making accusations against China at every turn.”
“China poses no threat to any country,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lin Jian (林劍) said. “We hope that the Australian side can view China’s development and strategic intentions in a correct light, abandon the Cold War mentality [and] do more to safeguard regional peace and stability.”
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
RSS