Tag Archive for: Asia & the Pacific

AUKUS and critical minerals: hedging Beijing’s pervasive, clever and coordinated statecraft

AUKUS has a heavy focus on R&D of military capabilities. A number of departments, including defence, foreign affairs and prime ministerial equivalents are engaged. The science and technology to deliver those capabilities must resolve issues of insecure supply chains. Currently, supply chains for processed critical minerals and their resulting materials aren’t specifically included.

Yet all AUKUS capabilities, and the rules-based order that they uphold, depend heavily on critical minerals. China eclipses not only AUKUS for processing those minerals into usable forms, but the rest of the world combined. Without critical minerals, states are open to economic coercion in various technological industries, and defence manufacturing is particularly exposed to unnecessary supply-chain challenges.

This is where Australia comes in. Australia has the essential minerals, which are more readily exploitable because they’re located in less densely populated or ecologically sensitive areas. Australia also has the right expertise, including universities offering the appropriate advanced geoscience degrees, as well as advanced infrastructure, world-class resources technology and deep industry connections with Asia and Africa, which are also vital global sources of critical minerals.

This paper outlines why Australia offers an unrivalled rallying point to drive secure critical-mineral supply among a wide field of vested nations, using AUKUS but not limited to AUKUS partners, how WA has globally superior reserves and substantial expertise, and why northern Australia more generally has a key role to play. The paper also explains why policy action here must be prioritised by the Australian Government.

North of 26 degrees south and the security of Australia: views from The Strategist, Volume 7

The Northern Australia Strategic Policy Centre’s latest report, North of 26 degrees south and the security of Australia: views from The Strategist, Volume 7, is a series of articles published in The Strategist over the last six months. It builds on previous volumes by identifying critical intersections of national security, nation-building, resilience and Australia’s north.

This issue, like previous volumes, includes a wide range of articles sourced from a diverse pool of expert contributors writing on topics as varied as critical minerals, rare earth, equatorial space launch, agriculture, advanced manufacturing, fuel and water security, and defence force posturing. Importantly, it addresses the Defence Strategic from a northern Australian perspective. It also features a foreword by the Honourable Madeleine King MP, Minister for Northern Australia.

Minister King writes, “Northern Australia is central to the prosperity, security and future of our nation and will be the engine room of Australia’s decarbonisation effort and drive towards net zero.”

The 24 articles propose concrete, real-world actions for policy-makers to facilitate the development, prosperity and security of Australia’s north. The authors share a sense that those things that make the north unique – its vast space, low population density, specific geography, and harsh investment environment – are characteristics that can be leveraged, not disadvantages.

Impactful mateship: Strengthening the US–Australia defence relationship through enhanced mutual understanding

AUKUS, and the Australian Government’s release of the 2023 report of the Defence Strategic Review (DSR), reinforce to Canberra and Washington DC that there’s an urgent need to continue strengthening the US–Australia alliance. Those efforts underpin allied cooperation within the Indo-Pacific, which is an increasingly complex security environment. 
 
This report highlights 9 opportunities for both US and Australian defence decision-makers at a vital time in the relationship as it develops in complexity and builds towards the ambitions of AUKUS over the coming decade. 
 
A series of ‘quick wins’ for the US DoD are recommended, including arranging more training for inbound DoD personnel and conducting allied-centric training for relevant US-based action officers and planners at US headquarters. US DoD Funding should be provided for US action officers to visit Australia to build rapport with their counterparts and facilitate appreciation for the relationship in person. Broadly, US professional military education at every level should incorporate Australian Defence-centric views when appropriate, and the DoD can better leverage its US liaison network throughout Australia earlier in planning and when considering new initiatives. 
 
Recommended quick wins for Australian Defence to include further leveraging of US-based Australian Defence personnel and encouraging greater transparency with US counterparts regarding capacity. Enhanced transparency would provide maximum clarity on capacity challenges at all echelons, especially regarding the potential impacts of a future crisis within the Indo-Pacific. It’s also recommended that Australian Defence provide greater clarity regarding sovereignty and security concerns for the US DoD. 
 
Finally, this report also makes a major long-term recommendation that will require more resourcing, coordination and focus from US and Australian defence decision-makers, and that’s to establish and empower a US Forces Australia headquarters (USFOR-A) to synergise US DoD efforts with the Australian defence establishment. It’s inevitable that the US–Australia defence relationship will grow in scope and complexity. That will quickly outgrow and challenge the current coordination structure, which was built and implemented decades ago. This report also notes that there are lessons to be learned from the US–Japan bilateral coordination mechanisms, especially in the light of the US–Japan–Australia defence relationship, as it is set to grow in importance in the coming years.

Smooth sailing? Australia, New Zealand and the United States partnering in–and with–the Pacific islands

Australia, New Zealand and the United States should help create an ASEAN-style forum for Pacific island nations to discuss security and manage geopolitical challenges.

The call for a dialogue, modelled on the ASEAN regional forum, is one of several recommendations to improve security partnerships and coordination in the region, reducing the risk that the three countries trip over one another and lose sight of the Pacific’s own priorities as they deepen their Pacific ties out of strategic necessity amid China’s growing interest.

While focussing on those three countries, this report stresses that wider partnerships should be considered, including with France, India, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and European Union.

The report states that the three countries will have to get used to greater Chinese involvement in the Pacific, even if they don’t accept it, much less like it.

Quad Technology Business and Investment Forum outcomes report

The Quad has prioritised supporting and guiding investment in critical and emerging technology projects consistent with its intent to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Governments cannot do this alone. Success requires a concerted and coordinated effort between governments, industry, private capital partners and civil society.

To explore opportunities and challenges to this success, the Quad Critical and Emerging Technology Working Group convened the inaugural Quad Technology Business and Investment Forum in Sydney, Australia on 2 December 2022. The forum was supported by the Australian Department of Home Affairs and delivered by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

The forum brought together senior Quad public- and private-sector leaders, laid the foundations for enhanced private–public collaboration and canvassed a range of practical action-oriented initiatives. Sessions were designed to identify the key challenges and opportunities Quad member nations face in developing coordinated strategic, targeted investment into critical and emerging technology.

Attendees of the forum overwhelmingly endorsed the sentiment that, with our governments, industry, investors and civil society working better together, collectively, our countries can lead the world in quantum technology, artificial intelligence, biotechnology and other critical and emerging technologies.

This report reflects the discussions and key findings from the forum and recommends that the Quad Critical and Emerging Technology Working Group establish an Industry Engagement Sub-Group to develop and deliver a Quad Critical and Emerging Technology Forward Work Plan.

China, climate change and the energy transition

This report surveys China’s enormous energy transition to renewables. It begins by sketching the energy challenges China faces and its climate-change-related energy policies, in the context of the global geopolitics of the energy transformation. Next the report focuses on conventional energy sources (oil and natural gas), followed by electricity, and energy technologies. Although the report is intended primarily to survey developments to date, it concludes with some brief observations about the considerable energy challenges China faces in the years ahead.

China, climate and conflict in the Indo-Pacific

This paper surveys the current reporting and analysis on climate and security to explore the implications that climate change may have for China’s ability to prosecute its security goals in the region’s three major hotspots: the SCS, Taiwan and the India–China border conflict. Those three hotspots all involve longstanding border and territorial disputes between China and other nations and may draw in various levels of US involvement should China continue to escalate tensions.

Escalation risks in the Indo-Pacific: a review for practitioners

The outbreak of war in the Indo-Pacific is a real possibility. Increased competition, a growing trust deficit between global and regional powers and potential miscalculations heighten the risk. There needs to be a more engaged Australian discussion on conflict-escalation risks and how they might be managed.

Policymakers and leaders need to understand escalation risks as they manage Australia’s relationship with the US, China, North Korea and Australia’s key regional defence partners over coming decades. In rhetoric and in action, Australia also needs to be attentive to how the acquisition and employment of our own new capabilities—strike missiles, evolving cyber capabilities and nuclear-propelled submarines—affect strategic stability dynamics in a fast-changing world.

Multiple factors mean that there are all-too-imaginable possibilities for inadvertent and accidental escalation around flashpoints like the Korean peninsula, Taiwan, and in the East and South China Seas. Moreover, the maritime nature of the Western Pacific as a military theatre, combined with emerging technologies like hypersonics, means that decision makers could face very strong pressures toward pre-emption in a crisis. Put more simply, the fear-driven pressure to ‘shoot first’ could be very strong and very dangerous.

Managing these risks has clearly been made a priority by the Australian government – with senior ministers frequently talking about ‘guardrails’ – and the report suggests some options for doing so.

State-sponsored economic cyber-espionage for commercial purposes: tackling an invisible but persistent risk to prosperity

As part of a multi-year capacity building project supporting governments in the Indo-Pacific with defending their economic against the risk of cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, ASPI analysed public records to determine the effects, the actual scale, severity and spread of current incidents of cyberespionage affecting and targeting commercial entities.

In 2015, the leaders agreed that ‘no country should conduct or support ICT-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sectors.’

Our analyses suggests that the threat of state-sponsored economic cyberespionage is more significant than ever, with countries industrialising their cyberespionage efforts to target commercial firms and universities at a grander scale; and more of these targeted industries and universities are based in emerging economies.

“Strategic competition has spilled into the economic and technological domains and states have become more comfortable and capable using offensive cyber capabilities. Our analysis shows that the state practice of economic cyber-espionage appears to have resurged to pre-2015 levels and tripled in raw numbers.”

In this light, we issued a Briefing Note on 15 November 2022 recommending that the G20 members recognise that state-sponsored ICT-enabled theft of IP remains a key concern for international cooperation and encouraging them to reaffirm their commitment made in 2015 to refrain from economic cyber-espionage for commercial purposes. 

This latest Policy Brief, State-sponsored economic cyber-espionage for commercial purposes: tackling an invisible but persistent risk to prosperity, further suggests that governments should raise awareness by better assessing and sharing information about the impact of IP theft on their nations’ economies in terms of financial costs, jobs and competitiveness. Cybersecurity and intelligence authorities should invest in better understanding the extent of state sponsored economic cyber-espionage on their territories.

On the international front, the G20 and relevant UN committees should continue addressing the issue and emphasising countries’ responsibilities not to allow the attacks to be launched from their territories. 

The G20 should encourage members to reaffirm their 2015 commitments and consider establishing a cross-sectoral working group to develop concrete guidance for the operationalisation and implementation of the 2015 agreement while assessing the scale and impact of cyber-enabled IP theft.

‘With a little help from my friends’: capitalising on opportunity at AUSMIN 2022

The annual Australia-US Ministerial Consultations have been the primary forum for bilateral engagement since 1985. The Australian Minister for Defence and Minister for Foreign Affairs will meet with their American counterparts in Washington in 2022, in the 71st year of the alliance, and it’s arguably never been so important.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute is proud to release ‘With a little help from my friends’: Capitalising on opportunity at AUSMIN 2022, a report featuring chapters from our defence, cyber and foreign policy experts to inform and guide the Australian approach to the 2022 AUSMIN consultations.

In this report, ASPI harnesses its broad and deep policy expertise to provide AUSMIN’s principals with tangible policy recommendations to take to the US. The following chapters describe Australia’s most pressing strategic challenges. The authors offer policy recommendations for enhancing Australian and US collaboration to promote security and economic prosperity.

The collection of essays covers topics and challenges that the US and Australia must tackle together: defence capability, foreign affairs, climate change, foreign interference, rare earths, cyber, technology, the Pacific, space, integrated deterrence and coercive diplomacy. In each instance, there are opportunities for concrete, practical policy steps to ensure cohesion and stability.”

Tag Archive for: Asia & the Pacific

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