It has been 56 years since the last person was executed in Australia and almost 40 years since the last death sentence was given by an Australian court. The death penalty has been abolished in every Australian jurisdiction, and the federal parliament passed legislation in 2010 to ensure that it can’t be reintroduced anywhere in Australia.

Given this, does the fact that today, 10 October 2023, is the 21st World Day Against the Death Penalty have any continuing relevance for Australia?

We would suggest that it does, for two key reasons.

The first is that the universal abolition of the death penalty continues to be a key human rights issue, and Australia’s continued global leadership is strategically important.

Australia’s opposition to the death penalty has become an express part of our global human rights advocacy. Australia’s strategy for abolition of the death penalty, released in 2018, reaffirms that Australia ‘opposes the death penalty in all circumstances for all people’ and commits Australia to pursuing the universal abolition of the death penalty.

The reality is that the use of the death penalty has been increasing. Amnesty International recently reported that recorded executions reached a five-year high globally in 2022, with 883 people known to have been executed across 20 countries. That number reflects only confirmed judicial uses of the death penalty, and the actual number of executions is likely to be significantly higher.

At the end of 2022, an estimated 28,282 people around the world were facing death sentences. Fifty-five countries still use the death penalty, with the highest numbers of known executions in 2022 taking place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United States.

We should be particularly concerned about the way that the death penalty is being both imposed and carried out. For example, one year after the death in custody of Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, Iranian authorities have reportedly imposed death sentences on at least 26 individuals in connection with the subsequent protests and seven individuals have been executed. They included Mohammad Mehdi Karami, a 22-year-old karate champion, who was executed after reportedly being given less than 15 minutes to defend himself in court.

The UN Human Rights Commission’s fact-finding mission on Iran has suggested that these penalties ‘are being imposed following legal proceedings that lack transparency and fail to meet basic fair trial and due process guarantees under international human rights law’.

In the US, the Death Penalty Information Center labelled 2022 ‘“the year of the botched execution” because of the high number of states with failed or bungled executions’. A shortage of lethal-injection drugs led Idaho to pass a law in March this year restoring the use of firing squads in executions. In August, the Alabama attorney-general confirmed that the state intended to carry out an execution using nitrogen hypoxia. This method kills the prisoner by forcing them to breathe pure nitrogen. It has been described as ‘a human experiment’ because it has never been used before in a judicially ordered execution.

Australia’s continued leadership in this area is strategically significant given that the list of countries around the world that still use the death penalty includes some of our key allies and regional neighbours. Examples include the US, Japan, Singapore and Indonesia. The practical reality is that the death penalty is an issue that needs to be carefully navigated by our law enforcement agencies as part of their routine interactions with retentionist neighbours and allies. For this reason alone, it is not an issue that we can ignore.

The second key reason that World Day Against the Death Penalty continues to matter in Australia is that we should never risk taking human rights for granted.

We can’t simply assume that future generations of Australians will automatically be abolitionist, or that they will understand why Australia’s opposition to the death penalty has, for so many years, been ‘bipartisan, multipartisan, unanimous, principled, consistent and well known’.

History teaches us that when it comes to human rights, progress can be reversed and hard-won rights and freedoms can easily be lost. We need to constantly renew and strengthen our commitment to human rights and freedoms, and make sure that the generations that follow are left in no doubt about why these things matter.

When it comes to the death penalty, we need to ensure that Australians continue to understand exactly why the death penalty should never be used. This includes that it is an irrevocable punishment and for that reason alone has no place in an inevitably imperfect criminal justice system. It is too often used disproportionately against the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, is not an effective deterrent, and is irreconcilable with both human dignity and the right to life.

Today is a day to remind ourselves of exactly why Australia stands against the death penalty. It is also an opportunity to renew our commitment to the efforts to consign the death penalty to history, not just in Australia but in every part of the world.

The case for Australia to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations rests on the challenges ASEAN confronts as much as the association’s strengths.

Australia needs to take the next logical step in its long history of strong and sustained support for ASEAN’s central role.

As disorder becomes the future order of the sadly troubled ‘rules-based order’, Southeast Asia is even more vital to Australia’s interests in strategic order.

Aim for in-principle agreement on a form of ASEAN partnership next year, the 50th anniversary of Australia becoming the first ASEAN dialogue nation.

Stormy geopolitical weather means the ASEAN stars are aligned to consider such a dramatic idea. Confronting dimming diplomatic fortunes, ASEAN must bolster its convening powers and coherence.

Australian partnership would be a game-changer for ASEAN, as well as altering Canberra’s role in the game. If Australia got serious and started pushing, ASEAN would get a buy-one-get-one free offer—Australia plus New Zealand. If Australia wants in, so will New Zealand.

The justification for Australia enlisting was succinctly offered by former prime minister Kevin Rudd in this aside in his 2021 In the National Interest essay, ‘The case for courage’:

Australia should seek to join ASEAN, although this will be resisted by various association members to begin with. ASEAN is becoming weaker and more divided over time. Australian membership would add to ASEAN’s economic ballast by more than a third. It would also help Australia and Indonesia manage their own long-term bilateral relationship—particularly as Indonesia becomes more powerful—as common members of an important regional institution.

Australia could offer ballast burnished with ambition. Add to this a trend Australian leaders note softly—the inevitable decline in Australia’s relative power compared to Southeast Asia’s.

When I started writing about Southeast Asia nearly 50 years ago, Australia’s economy was far bigger than the region’s combined economy. That’s long gone. Rudd’s reference to the economic ballast Australia can bring is true, but our relative weight continues its inevitable decline. And we welcome the growing strength and wealth of a region of 688 million people. The economic ground lost mirrors the reality that Australia has less strategic importance for Southeast Asia than we used to. We should want to join because we need to join.

Paul Keating’s 2012 call for Australia to join ASEAN came with a nod to our shrinking power and influence. To matter in the future, the former prime minister said, it’ll be ‘completely natural’ for Australia to line up with ASEAN: ‘In the longer run we should be a member of it—formalising the many trade, commercial and political interests we already share. This is the natural place for Australia to belong; indeed, the one to which we should attribute primacy.’

A recipe for Australia joining the club is detailed in my 2018 ASPI report Australia as an ASEAN Community partner: the association should create a new category of partner for Australia and New Zealand. That was the view of a former secretary-general of ASEAN, Ong Keng Yong, whom I cite in the report.

The ‘partner’ language would sidestep the geographical veto (‘They aren’t in Southeast Asia; they can’t be part of ASEAN’). Get all the rights and obligations of a member with a partnership. The title I gave this new form of belonging is ‘ASEAN Community Partners’. Behold a classic ASEAN fix: give Australia and New Zealand membership rights but call it some form of super-partnership.

Turn to how the ASEAN stars are aligning for Australia to take a historic step in its efforts to achieve security with the region rather than from the region.

First and foremost, Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo thinks Australian should belong. Five years ago, he said Australia joining the association was ‘a good idea’. He ends his second term in October next year. An in-principle deal on partnership in his final year in office would be a region-building move that also reflected Indonesian interests. As Widodo proclaimed in an address to the Australian parliament in 2020: ‘Australia is Indonesia’s closest friend.’

I was mighty chuffed after the ASEAN summit in Sydney in 2018 when word came from Jakarta that the last document Widodo looked at before his bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was the ASPI report Australia as an ASEAN Community partner.

With Indonesian backing, the rest of ASEAN’s members would be prepared to discuss the partnership idea. My division of individual country views into ‘favourable’, ‘maybe’ or ‘no’ gives Australia plenty of hope.

Singapore has always been Australia’s strongest supporter for joining ASEAN. These days Malaysia is more favourable than opposed (even Australia’s great foe of yesteryear, former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, has mused that Australia might be ‘entitled’ to join). Mark the Philippines under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr as warmer than his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte’s administration.

The atmospherics of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s June visit to Vietnam, celebrating 50 years of diplomatic relations, highlighted the ties of ‘a strategic and economic partner and enduring friend’. Hanoi leans beyond ‘maybe’.

Edging by the inward obsessions of junta politics, a new government in Thailand is potentially warmer, so shifts to become a ‘maybe’. Brunei is always a welcoming ‘maybe’, awaiting the ASEAN tide.

Myanmar’s military regime, in disgrace and exiled from ASEAN councils, has no current voice (or veto) in the association. With Myanmar sidelined, that’s seven ASEAN members as maybes or favourable for Australia.

The members closest to China, Cambodia and Laos, are both in the ‘no’ column. ASEAN’s consensus rule means it takes only one veto. Yet Cambodia is also under ‘new’ leadership. Hun Sen has handed the top job to Hun Manet (the son also rises). ASEAN issues may be an area in which the son is allowed to demonstrate difference from the father.

The main opposition to Australia and New Zealand joining ASEAN would come from the outside, from China. In a strange way, China’s animosity would help. The last time China leaned on the association to close the door to Canberra and Wellington—in the creation of the East Asia Summit—the attempt backfired. ASEAN wasn’t prepared to obey China’s veto; Australia and New Zealand joined as inaugural members of the EAS. When China pressures ASEAN, it forces the association to ponder both symbolic and substantive moments of resistance.

Australia has been doing lots of groundwork.

In October 2021, the first annual ASEAN–Australia summit established a comprehensive strategic partnership. The Labor government has fulfilled its promise to create a special envoy for Southeast Asia, appointing former Macquarie Group CEO Nicholas Moore to the role in November 2022.

Australia’s ASEAN ambassador in Jakarta does the high politics while the special envoy does the high economics. The government has just released a report by Moore, Invested: Australia’s Southeast Asia economic strategy to 2040.

The Office of Southeast Asia was established in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade last year to coordinate Australia’s whole-of-nation efforts to deepen engagement with Southeast Asia. DFAT talks of ASEAN’s ‘profound significance for Australia’s future’ and for strategic equilibrium in the region.

An upgrade is agreed for the ASEAN–Australia–New Zealand free trade area. The fresh work on AANZFTA is a good omen, because completing its arduous negotiation in the first decade of the century formed the victory arch for Australia and New Zealand to reach the East Asia Summit.

The country that still has to be convinced and commit is—as ever—Australia. We have to decide before ASEAN will do the same. The significant shift must be in the Australian mindset.

If we come to believe, many in ASEAN would be interested in the conversation. The ultimate arguments won’t be about the geography of Southeast Asia, but about attitudes, understandings and beliefs. And the right to belong that comes from a sense of belonging.

In the latest issue of Australian Foreign Affairs, the Lowy Institute’s Sam Roggeveen makes assertions about the priorities of China’s nuclear targeting of Australia, as well as what he claims will be Australia’s missile targeting of Chinese territory. I consider much of what he has written to be wrong.

In ‘Target Australia: Is the alliance making us less safe?’, Roggeveen asserts that the basing of US B-52 bombers at the Tindal airbase near Darwin will make the site a priority nuclear target of China because the bombers could strike China’s nuclear missile silos and bases, early warning radars and nuclear command and control facilities. But the distance from Tindal to military targets in the south of mainland China is over 4,500 kilometres and the B-52’s operational speed is subsonic (900 km/h). This means that it would take in the order of five hours to reach key military targets in China’s south. And flying from Tindal to Beijing would take more like eight hours, providing China with plenty of warning.

In contrast, the joint US–Australia intelligence facility at Pine Gap near Alice Springs will be by far China’s most important and time-urgent nuclear target because of its ability to give the US instant, real-time warning of a Chinese nuclear attack, the precise number of missiles, their trajectory and their likely targets. There’s nothing novel about Pine Gap being identified by potential nuclear adversaries as a priority target. In the late 1970s, it was made quite clear to me during talks in Moscow that Pine Gap was a priority Soviet nuclear target. And in 2016, I was warned: ‘In the event of nuclear war between Russia and America, you Australians will find that nuclear missiles fly in every direction.’

The fact is that the KGB had detailed evidence in the late 1970s from two US spies, Andrew Lee and Christopher Boyce, with access to the Pine Gap ‘intelligence take’ of its key role—together with the joint facility at Nurrungar near Woomera—in detecting and tracking Soviet ballistic missiles and listening to the USSR’s military communications. We can assume that the Russians will have briefed China about Pine Gap, which now includes the space-based infrared detection capabilities of the old Nurrungar base, being a much more time-urgent target than Tindal. Roggeveen asserts that China would not strike Pine Gap because of its important role in US nuclear deterrence. That is not my view: we’re not talking about deterrence and nuclear arms control here but a decision by China to use nuclear weapons. Tindal would not be targeted with the urgency that Roggeveen claims.

Roggeveen asserts that Australia’s acquisition of Tomahawk cruise missiles ‘can be interpreted only one way: Australia wants the capability to strike targets on Chinese soil’.  I don’t know how Roggeveen’s imagination jumped to this conclusion. But the 2023 defence strategic review recommends that Australia’s concept of defence have ‘a focus on deterrence through denial, including the ability to hold any adversary at risk’. That does not include striking China’s territory, which would be a dangerous gamble by Australia. But attacking China’s military bases in the South China Sea and contingently in the South Pacific certainly should be included in our future targeting doctrine if—as Roggeveen accepts—there’s a likelihood of a ‘Chinese military assault on Australia’.

Deterrence theory holds two alternatives: deterrence by punishment and deterrence by denial. Deterrence by punishment gives priority to destroying the enemy’s territory, military bases and key population centres. By comparison, deterrence by denial requires Australia to hold potential adversaries’ forces and forward-based military structure at risk from a greater distance rather than waiting for them to operate in a threatening way in our immediate approaches.

My colleague and a former deputy secretary of Defence, Richard Brabin-Smith, and I wrote an ASPI report in 2021 titled Deterrence through denial: a strategy for an era of reduced warning time. We argued that Australia needed to acquire highly accurate, long-range missiles. In this way, we could deter military actions against Australia’s interests with less dependency on warning time than in the past. Holding a potential adversary’s forces at risk from a greater distance would influence the calculus of enemy costs involved in threatening Australian interests directly. For this we need to acquire long-range anti-ship strike missiles, cyber capabilities and area-denial systems.

Any credible future enemy operating directly against us will have highly vulnerable lines of logistics support back to its home base in North Asia. The closer it comes to our strategic approaches the more vulnerable its logistic support will become. If a potential adversary such as China develops—as it already has—several military bases in the South China Sea (or in the South Pacific in future), Australia must be able to destroy them if necessary.

Nowhere in the defence strategic review or in our own writings is there a suggestion that Australia needs to be able to strike mainland China. Attempting such deterrence by punishment would be extremely provocative and dangerous given China’s military capabilities. And no commentator in their right mind would suggest such a high-risk defence policy. The idea of being able to inflict unacceptable punishment on China is not within the realms of credible Australian defence policy.

There are further sweeping assertions by Roggeveen that the AUKUS relationship will increase the likelihood that Australia will be locked automatically into fighting alongside the US should Beijing go to war over Taiwan ‘or for another reason’. It will, of course, be important that we assert our absolute sovereignty over the missions to which we commit our future nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs). When Britain decided to buy US Trident missiles for its ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), London made clear that it would not be subordinate to Washington’s nuclear targeting priorities. Washington confirmed the UK’s sovereignty in formal writing to the British government in this vital regard.

If a future Australian government agrees, our Virginia-class SSNs will be able to use 2000-kilometre-range anti-ship missiles to strike China’s forces in the Taiwan Strait. That could be done from the safety of deepwater trenches east of the Philippines without detection.

As to other roles for our SSNs in a Taiwan contingency, we should consider discussing with Washington our capacity to deny the narrow straits of Southeast Asia to China’s overseas trade (it imports 80% of its oil through the Malacca Strait). That would be an important, independent military role for Australia, but without the potentially high cost of losing our relatively small number of military assets in a direct war over Taiwan.

Roggeveen is correct when he states that the US would be unlikely to subordinate nuclear-related missions to Australia’s submarine fleet. Even so, he observes that Australian SSNs might encounter Chinese SSBNs during future operations. In the Cold War, we regularly operated against the Soviet Navy in close-quarter operations that were greatly valued by Washington. UK SSNs trailed Soviet SSBNs for prolonged periods at distances as close as 500 metres and practised what was coyly termed contingency ‘target acquisitions’. In any such future occurrences, we would need ironclad rules of engagement reflecting our national sovereignty targeting priorities.

However, the main problem with Roggeveen’s article is that he focuses entirely on the dangers of resisting and deterring China without comparing that approach with the dangers of not resisting and not deterring China. That is not a prudent approach to making Australia’s security policy.

Roggeveen concludes that it’s not in Australia’s strategic interests to be drawn into a war over Taiwan. But neither is it in our interests to see a US defeat in such a war precipitating the acquisition of nuclear weapons by, say, Japan and South Korea. And neither is it in our interests to see Taiwan’s vibrant democracy crushed by the brutal military occupation of the People’s Liberation Army. There should be no place for such value-free judgements in the formulation of Australia’s defence policy.

Security agreements are an increasingly hot topic in the Pacific as Australia, the US, China and New Zealand seek broad arrangements across the region. Melanesian countries have attracted the most attention; over the past 15 months, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands have each signed agreements with at least one partner. Some have been in development for years, and some of those build on previous agreements. Existing and developing agreements are under scrutiny to ensure they are fit for purpose but are also inevitably—and sometimes justifiably—viewed through the lens of strategic competition. Australia’s commitment to respectful and reciprocal security engagement is contingent on nurturing relationships, listening to the needs of our Pacific partners, and adapting to new challenges.

On 1 June, Prime Minister James Marape announced that Papua New Guinea wasn’t ready to sign the bilateral security treaty it has been working on with Australia due to concerns that the wording encroached on PNG’s sovereignty. The treaty was planned as part of the PNG–Australia Comprehensive Strategic and Economic Partnership signed in August 2020. In January it was announced that negotiations would hopefully conclude in April for a signing in June. This timeline should have been viewed as aspirational at best, and Marape’s postponement hasn’t come out of nowhere.

Only a few weeks earlier, PNG Defence Minister Win Daki signed a security agreement with the US, stirring protests by PNG university students and the raising of sovereignty concerns by commentators who saw a leaked early draft. PNG and the US have since made the agreement public, demonstrating transparency and signalling that the agreement is intended to provide better support for PNG. It will still need to be debated in PNG’s parliament to be ratified, and that will take time. The US having open access to PNG’s military facilities has landed easily in Australia because the US is our friend; had PNG’s agreement been reached with China instead of the US, it would have sent shockwaves across Canberra. And the agreement’s comprehensiveness reflects the deep strategic preparations going on in Washington.

The public criticism of the US–PNG agreement wouldn’t have been lost on Marape. His caution may indicate that his government did listen and will ensure that the Australian treaty’s language is appropriate and isn’t seen to encroach on sovereign rights. The PNG government wants to ensure that this agreement works best for the country and doesn’t affect its sovereignty. Australia wholeheartedly supports—or at least should support—attention being paid to any international agreement. It’s not something to be rushed, and it’s certainly not a race. To alleviate any concerns when the details are agreed, Australia should work closely with the media alongside the PNG government to explain what the treaty is, how it differs from past arrangements and agreements, and how both countries will benefit.

The PNG government’s hesitancy does not represent a failure in the bilateral relationship. Australia and PNG are friends for the long haul and their security relationship is deep, enduring and substantial for both nations. That shouldn’t be forgotten as they exercise patience to get things right.

The bilateral security treaties and agreements Australia is pursuing across the Pacific are being treated as treaty-level arrangements. They are the highest and most formal of agreements—and they must be ratified by parliament and registered with the United Nations. The UN maintains a treaty collection and its charter states that any member entering into a treaty should register it with the UN to ensure that it carries weight under international law. For Australia, these arrangements may bestow ‘partner of choice’ status, but not all partners will put agreements on the same pedestal as treaties.

On 28 June, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said that his country’s security agreement with Australia would be reviewed to take into account the changing security challenges faced by both countries. Although this agreement is Australia’s longest standing and perhaps most successful bilateral security treaty in the region, in a rapidly changing environment, sometimes a refresh is necessary. The Australia–Solomon Islands agreement was the first of its kind in the Pacific and was signed in 2017 to follow the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands.

Australia’s response during the 2021 Honiara riots was an example of a bilateral security treaty being used to its full potential. It was designed with the ability to incorporate other partners into security responses, so New Zealand and Fiji also assisted Solomon Islands under Australia’s arrangement.

Ironically, the effectiveness of Australia’s support under this treaty may have encouraged the Solomon Islands government to formalise its security agreement with China. That agreement allows Solomon Islands to call on China’s security forces in times of instability and provides Sogavare with an alternative to the West. The details of the Solomon Islands–China agreement have not been made public—a stark indication of China’s intent.

China’s agreement doesn’t have the same protections by the UN as Australia’s treaties. And secret wording in secret agreements leaves much to interpretation. The people of Solomon Islands and other foreign partners have been left with unanswered questions and grave concerns about what the arrangement may mean for future engagement between the two countries. By contrast, if Australia and Solomon Islands update their security agreement, it will undoubtedly be public and transparent.

Australia and Vanuatu are also progressing a security agreement that was signed in December 2022. Vanuatu’s Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau has indicated that he’ll ask parliament to ratify it this year. Although the agreement is designed to streamline Australian assistance and enhance cooperation across a wide range of security areas, and while it will ultimately deliver clear benefits to Vanuatu, it will likely remain controversial.

Sovereignty concerns arising from the agreement were among the issues raised during attempts to remove Kalsakau from power this year. While the call for Kalsakau to go was withdrawn, it demonstrated the weight placed on geopolitical competition and security in Vanuatu. The agreement has been made public, but little effort has been made in Vanuatu to explain its intent and its benefits. Australia should encourage discussion on security cooperation by the Vanuatu government and in the media.

In October 2022, Australia and Fiji signed a status of forces agreement, or SOFA. It is simpler than a bilateral security agreement and provides a legal framework to cover practical issues for visiting military forces, including customs procedures and criminal and civil jurisdiction. The agreement will make many activities easier, as in Operation Bushfire Assist, when 54 members of Bula Force comprising members of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces and Fiji’s National Fire Authority deployed to Australia. Last week, New Zealand and Fiji announced their own status of forces agreement, along with a reaffirmation of their security partnership. SOFAs serve their own unique and practical purpose but can lead to more comprehensive partnerships. The US–PNG security agreement was said to simply elevate their existing SOFA. But these are very different types of arrangements.

Beneath these agreements lie memoranda of understanding, or MoUs—the simplest international display of friendship and cooperation and essentially a handshake deal written down. MoUs are often precursors to greater, formalised cooperation and agreements but tend to fizzle out or under-deliver if the attention or will of either party shifts.

MoUs should spark curiosity more than concern but remain a good indicator of intent. Any bilateral arrangement should exist to steer existing friendships towards more efficient and beneficial activities. Thorough consultation is vital, as China learned when it tried, and failed, to secure a regional security agreement with 10 Pacific island countries in May 2022.

Regardless of the status of its bilateral security agreements and negotiations, Australia has deep defence and security relationships across the Pacific, thanks in no small part to its widely successful and extremely well-funded defence cooperation programs. These include the Pacific Maritime Support Program, which has delivered dozens of patrol boats to protect exclusive economic zones, counter illegal fishing and support disaster relief operations.

Australian Defence Force officers are embedded across regional defence forces and, as announced on 2 May, PNG Defence Force personnel will be embedded with the ADF. Our defence relationship with Fiji has kept us connected—through co-deployments into the region for stability operations and disaster relief, through Australia’s infrastructure assistance including to Fiji’s Blackrock defence facility, and through a comprehensive maritime capability relationship.

With Australia’s security engagement and relationships so entwined across the region, a transparent bilateral treaty coming from a true and trusted partner is paradoxically both a big leap forward in the relationship and, for some, almost business as usual. Beyond making Australia’s defence and security efforts in the region more comprehensive and bringing together more elements than just defence in a whole-of-government approach, these agreements should be viewed as another step in deep relationships that ingrain the participants in each other’s systems and make them more dedicated to ongoing engagement.

As competition continues to create tension across the Pacific and security threats become more complex and intertwined, Australia’s regional and bilateral relationships will be crucial. Pacific security will remain intrinsically linked to Australia’s own security. But security treaties and agreements, no matter how legitimate and public they are, aren’t anything without the building blocks before them, or the action that follows.

Much of the public policy discourse on AUKUS, the security partnership between Australia, the UK and the US, has focused on nuclear-powered submarines (Pillar 1). Far less attention has been paid to Pillar 2, which aims to accelerate the partners’ collaboration on developing advanced capabilities such as hypersonics and autonomous systems. These capabilities, and the rules-based order they uphold, depend heavily on critical minerals. Yet the AUKUS agreements don’t specifically address the supply chains for processed critical minerals and their resulting materials.

Today, ASPI released a report by Ben Halton and Kim Beazley, AUKUS and critical minerals: hedging Beijing’s pervasive, clever and coordinated statecraft, which explores global critical-mineral supply-chain vulnerabilities. The authors argue that through AUKUS, the UK and the US should engage Australia to spearhead mineral diversification.

China eclipses not only AUKUS for processing critical minerals into usable forms but the rest of the world combined. Without a reliable supply of critical minerals, states are open to economic coercion in various technology industries. Defence manufacturing is particularly exposed to supply-chain challenges.

Beijing’s economic coercion, underwhelming global action and haphazard domestic policy have highlighted the risk of disruption to global rare-earth and critical-mineral supply chains. China has developed a virtual monopoly over rare-earth elements and significant control of critical-mineral supply chains and is willing to use its position of strength to limit access to those strategically important materials.

The many attributes of China’s dominance in critical minerals include complex and carefully guarded processes for making critical minerals usable. That extends to manufacturing essential inputs to technologies that require rare earths, such as permanent magnets, which enable technologies such as leading-edge missile guidance, satellites and aircraft. All of that is backed up by strong investment in top-quality research. China’s universities and national labs now lead the world in high-impact research on critical-minerals extraction and processing, highlighting their continued efforts to innovate and achieve technological breakthroughs in this area. ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker provides empirical evidence of China’s lead in the publication of research on critical minerals extraction and processing.

Secure access to processed critical minerals enables the emerging technologies that will ‘win’ or, better still, deter the next global war. It will also help to ensure the continuity of a global economy free from the risks of coercive statecraft. China would benefit, too, from a more diverse supply, since its requirements will continue to grow over the coming decades.

It’s a positive sign that so many like-minded countries like Japan, the US, Canada and Australia aren’t just identifying that there’s a problem but are willing to take action. Unfortunately, creating resilient and commercially viable supply chains is beyond the reach of any one nation. Now is the time for ‘minilateralism’ to take centre stage.

Halton and Beazley argue that AUKUS, as an existing minilateral partnership, is well situated to tackle critical minerals and rare earths in concert with other relevant countries. In doing so, they offer five priorities for consideration. Given that all AUKUS capabilities rely on critical minerals, the AUKUS countries should add critical minerals to AUKUS Pillar 2 and, in doing so, develop a consistent definition of critical minerals among the partners. Contextualising AUKUS against that definition is necessary to prompt informed action. The Australian government must also refine its 2022 critical-minerals list to reflect better the strategic situation we face rather than primarily commercial factors.

AUKUS should be the premier minilateral mechanism for creating resilient critical-mineral supply chains for each partner while working closely with friends and allies. This is consistent with Pillar 2’s remit not being an exclusive arrangement. And it will require the AUKUS partners to cast aside any reservations about working intimately with one another.

AUKUS provides many opportunities for like-minded countries to address the supply-chain vulnerabilities for critical minerals and rare earths. However, other mechanisms could be used in parallel with AUKUS, which could draw in additional partners, who would bring with them demand, capital, experience and technology.

For example, Japan has had plenty of experience working with Australia, Australian companies and Australians to create supply-chain security for energy and rare earths. The Japanese company INPEX’s investment in northern Australia’s Ichthys LNG is among the world’s most significant oil and gas projects. This joint venture provides energy security for Japan. For more than a decade, the Japanese government has invested in Australian company Lynas Rare Earths to gain independence from Chinese processors.

Australia’s trilateral relationship with Japan and the US, and the Quad (which brings India into the picture), should also be part of Australia’s approach to providing the world with an alternative, resilient rare-earth and critical-mineral supply chain.

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. Australia has globally superior reserves and substantial expertise, so it has a crucial role. The Australian government must continue to prioritise policy action to create new economic opportunities and strengthen national resilience and security.