Tag Archive for: Australia

In case we forgot, Typhoon attacks remind us of China’s cyber capability—and intent

Australians need to understand the cyber threat from China.

US President Donald Trump described the launch of Chinese artificial intelligence chatbot, DeepSeek, as a wake-up call for the US tech industry. The Australian government moved quickly to ban DeepSeek from government devices.

This came just weeks after the Biden administration stunningly admitted on its way out of office that Chinese Communist Party hackers were targeting not just political and military systems but also civilian networks such as water and health. The hackers could shut down US ports, power grids and other critical infrastructure.

These incidents remind us that China has the intent, and increasingly the capability, to seriously challenge US and Western technology advantage. Australia will be an obvious target if regional tensions continue to rise. It must be well-prepared.

As ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker highlights, China’s advances in critical technologies have been foreseeable for some time. US and Western confidence is manifesting as complacency.

DeepSeek has emerged as a cheap, open-source AI rival to the seemingly indomitable US models. It could enable Chinese technology to become enmeshed in global systems, perhaps even in critical infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Chinese hackers have stealthily embedded themselves in US critical infrastructure, potentially enabling sabotage, or the coercive threat of sabotage, to extract something Beijing wants. The two main perpetrators of these operations are Salt Typhoon and Volt Typhoon. The Chinese government backs both.

Salt Typhoon’s infiltration of at least nine US telecom networks has enabled CCP-sponsored hackers to geolocate individuals and record phone calls, directly threatening personal privacy and national security. This devastating counterintelligence failure includes the identification of individuals that US agencies suspect are agents working for China. It also enables CCP surveillance and coercion of US nationals and Chinese dissidents.

If anything, Volt Typhoon poses a greater threat, with covert access to critical infrastructure networks. Each reinforces the dangers of the other.

Some US officials involved in the investigation have said the hack is so severe, and the networks so compromised, that the United States may never be sure the intruders have been fully rooted out.

Both operations demonstrate sophisticated stealth. In particular, Volt Typhoon’s technique of living off the land—in which they sit at length in the systems, using its own resources—made detection harder. It could gain outwardly legitimate access without the requirement for malware. This reveals an intent to map and maintain access to critical systems, not for immediate destruction, but for whenever best serves Beijing’s interests. In this sense, it can be seen as a precursor to war.

The focus on critical infrastructure underscores how malicious cyber operations can undermine national resilience during peacetime and crises and sow doubt on a government’s ability to safeguard the people. Through these operations, adversaries could influence a target country’s decisions as leaders avoid taking any action that might provoke a disruption or sabotage.

Australia’s intelligence agencies are aware of these risks. Australia’s director-general of security, Mike Burgess, warned in his 2024 annual threat assessment that ‘the most immediate, low cost and potentially high-impact vector for sabotage [by foreign adversaries] is cyber’. This was reinforced in his 2025 assessment when he declared that ‘foreign regimes are expected to become more determined to, and more capable of, pre-positioning cyber access vectors they can exploit in the future.’ He warned that we’re getting closer to the threshold for ‘high-impact sabotage’.

The Australian Signals Directorate has been improving preparedness and resilience. It has helped Australian organisations to defend themselves and mitigate prepositioning and living-off-the-land techniques. ASD has also been building offensive capabilities needed to impose costs on attackers.

We must avoid the traps China sets as it seeks global information dominance. First, we can’t be complacent. It’s unsafe to assume that the US and its allies will remain decisively better than China, and that we can counter whatever Beijing can do. Second, we must reject the viewpoint that ‘everyone spies so it would be hypocritical to condemn China’, as it is a false moral equivalence. Third, we must avoid arguing that there isn’t present threat just because Beijing doesn’t have the intent to go to war today. This wishful thinking is a dangerous mistake. If we fall into these traps, we present Beijing with more time and render ourselves incapable of advancing our interests.

Chinese capabilities are strong and growing, and the way they are being used by the CCP demonstrates clear malign intent. This should be pushing elected governments to take the protective action and prepare for future cyber operations.

The reluctance to see the threats in the information domain as equal to traditional threats is a decades-old mistake that must be corrected. We need to minimise our dependence on China for technology.

China’s naval deployment should invigorate Australia’s election debate

The Australian government’s underreaction to China’s ongoing naval circumnavigation of Australia is a bigger problem than any perceived overreaction in public commentary. Some politicisation of the issue before a general election is natural in a democracy—and welcome if it means Canberra’s defence and China policy settings feature more prominently in debates ahead of the election due by May.

How times have changed. Fifteen years ago, Australia was worried that the quadrilateral partnership with India, Japan and the US would spook China, making it worry that it was being strategically encircled by the US and its regional allies and partners. Wind the clock forward to 2025 and China’s navy is off Perth, circumnavigating Australia with a potent surface action group.

This is the furthest south that a Chinese naval flotilla has ventured. This one is composed of a cruiser, a frigate and a replenishment ship—above the surface, at least.

Naval analysts have urged Australia to temper its reaction to the deployment because Canberra has a reciprocal interest in freedom of navigation in China’s maritime periphery. This is certainly a factor, and to some extent puts the government in a bind. The Chinese navy has a clear legal right to operate in waters close to Australia, even if it is going very far out of its way to make a point. That includes the right to conduct live-fire exercises.

But what point is Beijing making? Even while noting legal reciprocity in freedom of navigation, ordinary Australians are quite entitled to read hostility in China’s intentions. The flotilla was not invited here, and China didn’t notify us it was coming. Carrying out live fire exercises in the Tasman Sea with little or no notice, as the flotilla did on 21 February, wasn’t just unprofessional; it sent an unmistakably coercive signal to Australia and New Zealand.

By sending its navy all the way around Australia, the Chinese Communist Party is signalling that all of Australia lies within reach and is part of its area of direct military interest. It is showing it can project combat power and potentially hold Australia’s maritime communications at risk even though it lacks a base close to the continent. (And we should not think that Beijing has given up on getting one.)

The initial response from Australia’s government was muted and, on the issue of whether China had given warning of its live fire drills, muddled. This, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s evident desire to downplay the significance of the deployment will have been noted by Beijing, which with the deployment is testing and comparing reactions in Canberra, Wellington and Washington.

The United States, under new political management, has so far stayed silent on the deployment, despite the concurrent presence in Australia of the chief of its Indo-Pacific Command and a US nuclear submarine at HMAS Stirling, near Perth. There is still time for the US to show its support this week, before the task group completes its tour of Australia and returns to the South China Sea through the Indonesian archipelago, as it can be expected to do.

New Zealand’s initial response was conspicuously better than Australia’s. Defence Minister Judith Collins linked China’s motivations to its strategic quest for greater influence and access to marine resources in the South Pacific, uncomfortably underscored by a recent deal between Beijing and the Cook Islands that blindsided Wellington.

A firmer Australian government reaction could have set the tone for a less divisive political debate. Canberra’s contention that it has stabilised bilateral relations with China looks increasingly questionable in light of the unsubtle ‘or else’ message trailing in the Chinese navy’s wake as it sails around Australia. China’s coercion of Canberra since 2020 has never stopped; it has simply taken different forms.

Australians and New Zealanders should not fall into the trap of viewing China’s naval deployment to their neighbourhood in isolation and adopting a defensive mindset. In fact, the Chinese military is mounting concurrent drills at several locations, including near Japan, Taiwan and the Gulf of Tonkin, close to Vietnam. Beijing is ramping up its military presence across the Western Pacific to calibrate regional reactions, most likely with an interest in probing the strength of US alliances and security partnerships early on in the second Trump administration.

The more Australia and other countries speak with one voice on China, the harder it will be for Beijing to exploit potential wedges.

This will not be the last time a Chinese surface action group undertakes a three-ocean deployment around Australia. But the current deployment may turn political debate to defence spending increases, the hollowed-out state of the Royal Australian Navy’s surface capabilities and the government’s supposed stabilisation policy settings. If it does, we may owe a debt of gratitude to the Chinese navy.

China drops flares ahead of RAAF plane, sends ships to Australia’s northern approaches

Highly provocative and unprofessional action by the Chinese military has again put the Albanese government’s approach to relations with Beijing under pressure. So has deployment of a powerful Chinese naval flotilla close to Australia.

China’s aggressive actions in the South China Sea and beyond make it much harder for the government to stabilise the relationship with Beijing—under its formula of ‘cooperate where we can, disagree where we must, and engage in the national interest’.

On 11 February, a Chinese air force J-16 fighter released flares just 30 metres in front of an Australian P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft, in what the Department of Defence has described as an ‘unsafe and unprofessional’ interaction. Such interactions with China’s military are now becoming normal. The flare release, reported on 13 February, was the fifth known incident of unsafe behavior by the Chinese military towards the Australian Defence Force since 2022.

It should reinforce the need for caution by the current, and indeed any future Australian government, in approaching its relationship with China.

In another statement on the same day the department said a Chinese naval task group was operating in Australia’s northeastern maritime approaches. Among the ships was a Jiangkai-class frigate, a Fuchi-class replenishment vessel and a Type 055 Renhai cruiser.

Deployment of the cruiser is important. It is likely the first ship of its class to have operated so close to Australia. Renhais are among the most formidable warships afloat. Each has 112 vertical-launch missile cells and can carry a large load of weapons, including anti-ship cruise missiles, surface-to-air missiles, torpedoes and anti-submarine weapons. Although it’s not yet clear whether China is incorporating land-attack cruise missiles in the Renhai class, room for them could easily be found in a vessel with so many launch cells.

It is important to emphasise that the flotilla is operating within international law, just as it’s important to note that Australian warships and aircraft in the South China Sea operate in international waters and airspace—as they have done for decades.

The two developments announced on 13 February send important signals regarding China’s future military posture. Firstly, deployment of the cruiser-led flotilla sends a message to Australia that China can and will project power and presence into our maritime approaches. As the Chinese navy works towards becoming a global force, it will continue to perform more missions beyond the First Island Chain, the string of islands from Japan to Indonesia. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, we have seen the Chinese navy operate off the West Australian coast and through the Torres Strait in 2022, sit off north-eastern Australia during the Talisman Sabre military exercise in 2023 and sail a Renhai and an advanced destroyer through the Coral Sea on their way to Vanuatu in 2024.

Moreover, the Chinese military seems to be applying its unsafe and unprofessional South China Sea tactics closer to Australia. Indeed, its first publicly reported unsafe incident in relation to Australia occurred in our northern approaches on 17 February 2022.

This global ambition by the Chinese navy means that the Department of Defence cannot assume that Australia will always have a degree of isolation across a strategic moat, epitomised by the notional sea-air gap that an adversary supposedly cannot cross. The Renhai deployment reinforces the shrinking relevance of geographic isolation in Australian defence planning. The ship could, in a crisis, hold at risk any Royal Australian Navy warships within range of its YJ-18 anti-ship missiles, and Royal Australian Air Force aircraft could be threatened by its HHQ-9 air-defence missiles.

Australia must expect more aggression by Chinese fighter pilots against RAAF maritime patrol aircraft in international airspace over the South China Sea. Beijing has a reputation for such provocations, especially against US allies. Defence needs to think about a response if an incident leads to the loss of an aircraft and crew or forces them to land on a Chinese-occupied feature in the South China Sea.

In relation to the new Trump administration, China probably wants to keep its powder dry, seeking to minimise an impending trade conflict and to manage a deteriorating economy that relies heavily on exports. However, we should expect that China’s military will continue to target smaller countries, such as Australia, to end their long-standing military presence in the First Island Chain.

Thus, even though China’s military has recently softened its approach towards the United States, it continues to target the militaries of smaller countries exercising freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea. In addition to Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and the Philippines have all been subjected to unsafe actions from China’s military in the past 18 months.

Notice the contrast between how China treats foreign military forces operating in its vicinity and how others treat China when it approaches them. China engages in dangerous intimidation and invariably blames the other party.

But when China deploys a powerful naval flotilla close to Australia, Canberra’s response is cautious and subdued. After all, there’s no indication that the Chinese ships were not in international waters.

‘Australia respects the rights of all states to exercise freedom of navigation and overflight in accordance with international law, just as we expect others to respect Australia’s right to do the same,’ the department said.

But it must be asked whether anyone in the Chinese leadership listens to Australia’s polite statements?  These incidents over the South China Sea keep on happening, suggesting that our current approach to deterring future incidents simply isn’t effective.

What Donald Trump can learn from allies on foreign aid

There are smarter and more effective ways to streamline and re-strategise US foreign aid.

The Trump administration is not the first Western government to envision a stronger, safer, and more prosperous country by integrating foreign aid with strategic objectives. The experiences of the United States’ Five Eyes partners, particularly Australia and Britain, offer encouraging evidence for reform, having achieved tightly targeted development programs supporting diplomatic and strategic priorities. They also offer sobering lessons about implementation pitfalls, including the abrupt disruption of established programs, especially those already aligned with strategic policy, loss of critical skills among government personnel and heightened unease among international partners.

The logic driving aid integration is compelling. In an era of great power competition, maintaining separate tracks for diplomacy and development is an unaffordable luxury. China has harnessed development, along with trade and financial investment, as an instrument of strategic influence through both soft and hard means. Both Australia and Britain recognised this reality, merging their aid agencies into their foreign ministries to create more strategically coherent development policies. Having made clear its intent to fundamentally reshape USAID, the Trump administration has the opportunity to learn from its allies in the pursuit of the American national interest.

A unified strategy: Australia 

The Australian government integrated the Australian Aid Agency (AusAID) with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in 2013 with the stated goal of better aligning Australia’s development, foreign policy, trade priorities, strategies and objectives while bringing an enhanced focus on the Indo-Pacific. The integration accompanied a reduction of Australia’s development funding. After reaching a peak of more than $5 billion in 2013–14, or 0.33 percent of gross national income, Australia’s development budget has progressively declined. In 2023-24, the budget was $4.8 billion, or 0.19 percent of gross national income. This change is also stark in terms of the slice of the Australian budget spent on foreign aid compared to defence expenditures.

An independent review of the integration in 2019 found that 90 percent of the Australian government’s strategic targets for the integration had been met, driving development allocations towards infrastructure and the Pacific. The review also found ‘examples of development goals being more strongly advanced through joined-up, whole-of-department efforts.’

These initial efforts—such as the Pacific Seasonal Worker Scheme and the Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific—have since grown to enable more ambitious and innovative integrated development and strategic initiatives. Key among these are the Falepili Union with Tuvalu (which provides Australia with strategic denial rights and Tuvalu with climate resilience monies and opportunities for migration), the agreement between Australia and Papua New Guinea (which encompasses development and security elements) and Telstra’s acquisition of Digicel Pacific, the largest mobile provider in the Pacific, with the Australian government’s support amid rumors of interest from China Mobile. While the review stepped carefully around the issue, it found integration had increased Australia’s ability to counter efforts to overshadow Australia’s influence, like China’s Belt and Road and Digital Silk Road initiatives.

However, the review also found several areas of concern. Early morale problems among staff arising from the abrupt way the integration was implemented had largely dissipated by 2019, but a ‘pronounced deterioration in skills and systems’ remained. The review found that ‘almost 1000 years of experience left [government service] shortly after integration.’ Additionally, ‘estimates suggest another 1000 years of experience’ left the department in the five years before 2019 due to the department underestimating the capability needed to design and deliver development programming.

This loss of know-how continues to hamper effectiveness over a decade later. While development is now firmly accepted as a tool of statecraft, best wielded as part of a whole-of-government strategy, an article by the review’s author 15 months ago suggested DFAT still had room to improve in terms of fully harnessing its development delivery.

Strategic prioritisation: Britain

The merger between Britain’s Department for International Development and its Foreign and Commonwealth Office occurred in 2021. The principal intention behind the merger was to better align Britain’s development activities with its wider diplomatic, trade and geopolitical interests, both in strategic terms and in terms of in-country representation. The merger coincided with a decision to reduce the Britain’s development funding commitment from the 0.7 percent of GDP enshrined in law to 0.5 percent of GDP. Notably, the integration occurred while Britain was experiencing the economic slowdown of the Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in a double blow to funding in absolute terms, constituting a 30 percent reduction overall.

Alongside the budget reductions, a strategic prioritisation of development initiatives was pursued, in which Britain focused on bilateral funding to a smaller group of countries where measurement of effect is often easier to determine, but at the expense of some wider bilateral and multilateral commitments which were deemed to deliver less tangible value to Britain.

In addition, Britain identified a select set of issues for its development focus, namely climate investments, girls’ education, and global health, where it had demonstrated expertise and where funding would have constructive spillover effects. For example, improving girls’ education is found to reap positive dividends for local security, prosperity and governance. These initiatives, concentrated in Africa, the Indo-Pacific and South Asia, are all areas in which Britain’s adversaries were harnessing development as an instrument of influence, dependence and coercion.

Britain’s National Audit Office (NAO) review of the progress of the merger in 2024 found positive evidence ‘of where a more integrated approach has improved the organisation’s ability to respond to international crises and events, which has led to a better result.’

Two such examples were Britain’s coherent humanitarian, diplomatic, and military response as the leading European power supporting Ukraine after Russia’s invasion, and the joint humanitarian and political response to the Ebola crisis in Uganda. The findings supported the rationale for the merger and the modernisation of the department as fit-for-purpose in sharpening the Britain’s geopolitical interests. However, the NAO also noted that ‘the indirect costs’ of the merger ‘in terms of disruption, diverted effort and the impact on staff morale should not be underestimated.’

The NAO also reviewed the effect of the overseas development aid reduction and found that while the prioritisation compelled in the government’s activities had some positive dividends, ‘the speed and scale of the budget reduction, and the lack of long-term planning certainty, increased some risks to value for money.’

What can the US learn?

These cautionary tales suggest some considerations for the Trump administration:

First, pace matters more than may be immediately apparent. While decisive action has its advantages, too rapid a transformation risks institutional damage that could take years to repair. Recipient partners need to be assured about the value of the relationship, as reputation matters when development partners have the luxury of choice. A phased integration that maintains critical expertise while gradually aligning strategic direction would likely prove more effective in the long term.

Second, capability preservation requires active management. Both Australia and Britain learned the hard way that development expertise isn’t quickly or easily replaced. The technical knowledge required for effective commissioning, procuring, financing and managing of development programs, while not unique to the aid world, is distinct from traditional diplomatic and geostrategic policy skills. Any US reforms must include concrete plans for retaining and developing each of these specialised capabilities and empowering them to work together to deliver coherent whole-of-government priorities.

Third, funding stability enables strategic coherence and builds influence with partners. Britain’s experience shows that simultaneous organisational and budgetary upheaval can undermine even well-conceived reforms. While efficiency gains are desirable, treating integration primarily as a cost-cutting exercise risks strategic self-harm. With strategic competitors snapping at our heels, such interruptions cannot always be remedied.

Fourth, clear metrics for success must encompass traditional development indicators and strategic effects. Australia’s focus on its immediate neighbourhood and Indo-Pacific infrastructure and Britain’s emphasis on areas of demonstrated expertise and reputational value offer useful models for linking foreign aid and development assistance to broader national interests.

The stakes for getting this change right are immense. China has outflanked the West in harnessing foreign aid as a strategic tool of statecraft, having learned from the experiences of Western development agencies. The US cannot afford to unilaterally disarm in this arena and sacrifice its many areas of retained advantage through poorly executed reforms.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s framework of strength, safety and prosperity provides useful guideposts. Development programs should demonstrably enhance US security partnerships, expand trade relationships that benefit US workers, or strengthen allies facing authoritarian pressure. Programs that cannot do this should be reconsidered.

Achieving these goals requires maintaining the US’s development capabilities even as they are more tightly aligned with strategic objectives. The experiences of Australia and Britain suggest this balance is achievable but demands careful attention to ensure areas of national strength and influence are strengthened, not squandered.

As antisemitism strains Australian social cohesion, the government must step forward

Australia’s national resilience and social cohesion are under strain, with the most visible cracks seen in the alarming rise of antisemitism. Governments, most particularly the federal government, whose responsibility it is to lead national debates, desperately need to engage more forthrightly with the Australian public.

The discovery in Dural of a caravan containing explosives and, reportedly, an antisemitic message and the addresses of a synagogue and other Jewish buildings, is the latest shock that will heighten anxiety in Australia’s Jewish community and further inflame public tension.

We can give police some benefit of the doubt that they had operational reasons for secrecy about the caravan, but these decisions must be balanced against the need to confront the underlying problems of extremism and hatred, and to reassure Australians that we have national leaders who are facing up to them. If our politicians had been leading the conversations that we need, there would be greater goodwill for understanding operational decisions, rather than the fraying patience that we are seeing.

Instead of confronting extremism, radicalisation and the growing influence of ideological violence, policymakers have retreated into reticence, offering platitudes that fail to give the public confidence or deter those who seek to cause harm. This absence of leadership is a communications failure and a strategic miscalculation that threatens social cohesion and national security.

The federal government’s reluctance to educate and inform the public about terrorism and extremism is fuelling uncertainty and fear. Security agencies such as the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Federal Police play a vital role in countering threats, but their mandate is to act once the danger has escalated to the level of criminality and national security risk.

The broader responsibility—explaining the ideological drivers of extremism, reinforcing shared values, and setting clear boundaries of acceptable conduct—belongs to the government. Yet, time and again, the government has abdicated this duty, preferring to let ASIO’s annual threat assessment stand as the only authoritative voice on extremism in Australia. That is not enough. National security is not just about neutralising threats but about preventing them from taking root in the first place.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hardly lifted anyone’s morale when speaking defensively about the discovery of the caravan during two radio interviews on Thursday morning. On ABC radio, he failed to mention antisemitism at all. He refused to say when he’d learnt about it, describing that as ‘operational details’, and refused to say whether the national cabinet had discussed the investigation. Most of his commentary was about what the police had said and done. The closest he gave to an expression of the government’s view was by saying: ‘We remain concerned about this escalation.’

It wasn’t until a press conference later in the day that Albanese said, unprompted, that there was ‘zero tolerance in Australia for hatred and for antisemitism’ and that he wanted ‘any perpetrators to be hunted down and locked up’.

One of the core failures underpinning this crisis is a misinterpretation of tolerance. Australia prides itself on being an open and inclusive society, but inclusivity does not mean tolerating the intolerable. Support for terrorist leaders and groups is not free speech, nor is it a legitimate expression of diversity—it is a direct threat to social stability. When governments fail to call this out unequivocally, they enable a dangerous dynamic by which extremists feel emboldened, and the broader population grows resentful and anxious. An anxious public is not a resilient one.

While the rising cost of living is at the forefront of most Australians’ minds, physical and social security must remain the government’s highest priority. People need to feel safe, and that safety is reinforced not just by policing, but by clear, decisive leadership.

The government’s approach—avoiding public discussion for fear of inflaming tensions—belongs to a bygone era. Excessive reticence was a flawed strategy even before social media, but now, in an age in which digital communications dominate every aspect of our lives, it is a liability.

Government hesitancy leaves a vacuum that is filled by those who want society to break. Without direct and frequent public engagement, we give ground to those who distort facts, push dangerous ideologies and promote violence.

ASIO head Mike Burgess was left swinging in the breeze last September after he told the ABC that the organisation assessed entrants to Australia for any national security risk, which might not cover someone who had only expressed ‘rhetorical support’ for Hamas. Amid the political controversy that followed, the government should have swung in quickly and stressed that the wider visa check would, of course, include rhetorical support for Hamas but that this wasn’t ASIO’s job. That failed to happen, leading to days of public anger and confusion.

Equally dangerous is the government’s willingness to indulge in false equivalencies. Responding to attacks on Jewish Australians by condemning ‘all forms of hate’ or vaguely mentioning ‘antisemitism and Islamophobia’ is both politically weak and strategically harmful. Each act of violence or intimidation should be condemned for what it is—without hedging, without lumping disparate issues together, and without fear of offending those who sympathise with extremists.

This failure of clarity extends to the review of Australia’s terrorism laws, where there is discussion about removing the requirement for an ideological motive. Instead of diluting definitions, the government should lead the discussion on what ideology is, why it matters, and how it fuels extremism.

The government’s refusal to deal with reality is at the heart of this crisis. There is no neutral ground when it comes to national security. Attempting to placate all sides by responding too slowly and downplaying threats only emboldens those who seek to justify intimidation and violence.

Everyone accepts that history and geopolitics are complex—not least in the Middle East—but there is no justification for bringing foreign conflicts onto Australian streets. Like it or not, the federal government’s faltering responses have facilitated a false equivalence between Israel and Islamist terrorist groups, emboldening extremists who now see Australia as a battleground for their ideological struggles.

Australians can see the world is unstable and don’t appreciate being dismissed or misled. The government’s failure to engage honestly is backfiring. Public trust erodes when people feel their concerns are ignored, and social cohesion weakens without leadership. To maintain our national resilience, the government must step up, speak clearly and reassert the values that make Australia a safe and united society. Silence is not a strategy—it’s a surrender.

DeepSeek’s disruption: Australia needs a stronger artificial intelligence strategy

The success of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, has thrown a wrench in the middle of what many observers thought were largely American, or at least democratic, gears.

While the world seems to have been woken up by an AI surprise, DeepSeek’s breakthrough should be a timely reminder for Australia of the need to reduce consumer dependence for technology on China through a proactive and strategic approach to AI.  The Australian government should not want our public to be getting its world view from only the ‘facts’ Beijing permits.

DeepSeek’s development of ‘R1’, a highly efficient and cost-effective AI model, has sent ripples through the global tech community, challenging the perceived dominance of the US in AI and raising questions about the effectiveness of current export controls in preserving technological advantage.

DeepSeek’s R1 model represents a significant departure from conventional AI development paradigms. Reportedly twice the size of Meta’s open-source model and trainable at a fraction of the cost of US-developed models, R1 has fuelled speculation that DeepSeek may have circumvented export controls to access restricted US-made Nvidia chips.

While DeepSeek’s CEO has denied these allegations, attributing the company’s success to innovative development methodologies, he has also openly acknowledged that US export controls have inadvertently spurred his efforts to reduce China’s reliance on American technology. This statement highlights a broader trend of indigenous innovation in China, driven by a desire to achieve technological self-reliance and reduce vulnerability to external pressures. If true, it doesn’t mean the US export controls were so ineffective to be dropped, but rather that the US and its allies have more work to do.

DeepSeek’s emergence as a major player in the AI arena has profound implications for AI in Australia.

First, it challenges the prevailing assumption that US technological leadership, which has long underpinned Australia’s strategic and economic partnerships, can be taken for granted in the medium term.

Second, it shows that while export controls are a tool for maintaining technological advantage, it needs to be part of a full toolbox in an era of rapid technological diffusion and globalised innovation networks.

Third, and most importantly, it underscores the urgent need for Australia to cultivate sovereign AI capabilities. In this regard sovereignty is not going it alone, but not relying on our partners, even our great ally the US, to do all the heavy lifting. Over-reliance on China is a national security threat while overreliance on the US is national negligence. This is why in addition to Australian investment in indigenous AI capabilities, doubling down on the AUKUS partnership is required to safeguard our national interests, maintain our competitive edge, and ensure our strategic autonomy in a technology-driven world. And it is why Australia, the UK and the US made AI one of the six advanced capabilities of AUKUS Pillar 2.

Australia cannot continue the current approach of responding to each new tech development—whether it’s HikVision surveillance, TikTok data manipulation, smart car communications or the risk of AI facts delivered by the Chinese government. As such, we must adopt a comprehensive tech strategy that covers AI.

This strategy should encompass the following key elements:

—Investing in sovereign AI capabilities: Increased investment in AI research and development is essential, along with the development of a national AI strategy that prioritises areas of national interest, such as defence, cybersecurity, and critical infrastructure. This investment should focus on building a robust and resilient AI industry that can support innovation, drive economic growth, and enhance national security.

—Fostering international collaboration: In addition to AUKUS, strengthening partnerships with like-minded nations, such as Canada, Japan, and South Korea, is crucial for collaborative AI development, knowledge-sharing, and the establishment of international standards and norms for responsible AI development and deployment. Ideally groups like the Quad and the G7 plus should take this on.

—Promoting ethical AI development: Australia must play a leading role in promoting ethical AI development and ensuring that AI systems are designed and deployed in a manner that respects human rights, promotes fairness, and safeguards against bias and discrimination but that does not politically censor.

—Engaging the public: A public education campaign is necessary to raise awareness of the potential benefits and risks of AI, foster informed public discussion, and ensure that AI development and deployment align with society’s values and expectations.

As former Google CEO Eric Schmidt wrote yesterday: ‘DeepSeek’s release marks a turning point … We should embrace the possibility that open science might once again fuel American dynamism in the age of AI.’

Australia should work with the US and other partners to ensure it is our ‘open science’ and not Beijing’s closed world that is keeping the world informed. This underscores the importance of international engagement to shape the global AI landscape.

By taking a strategic approach that recognises the enormous impact that AI will have on every field, by investing in sovereign capabilities, by fostering international collaboration, and by promoting ethical AI development, Australia can navigate the AI revolution and secure its place as a leader in this transformative technological era.

Codifying conventions on Australia going to war

Australia has codified government responsibilities to parliament when going to war.

The code is set out in a memorandum issued by the Prime Minister’s Department at the end of November.

The conventions cover decisions to deploy the Australian Defence Force in a major military operation in armed conflict overseas.

The prime minister’s profound prerogative to launch war is still unfettered. But the conventions set minimum requirements for openness and accountability to the parliament about war aims, the deployment and its legal basis. The conventions nudge at Australia’s quasi-presidential war powers, listing basic steps the executive owes parliament and the people.

The government action follows the recommendations of a report on international armed conflict decision-making by Parliament’s Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, which pointed to ‘a clear need to improve the transparency and accountability of government decision-making’.

The memorandum affirms that deploying the ADF into armed conflict is a prerogative of the executive, flowing from section 61 of the constitution. The document notes: ‘In practice, the National Security Committee [NSC] of Cabinet exercises this power collectively to enable informed decision-making on matters of national significance.’

The code implies that cabinet practice should evolve to align more closely with the command structure envisaged in the constitution.

When John Howard was elected in 1996, he created the NSC as the peak decision-making body for national and foreign policy, a structure retained by all governments since. Unlike other cabinet committees, NSC decisions do not have to go to full cabinet for approval.

The NSC focus and habits of government meant that in deciding to go to Afghanistan and Iraq, cabinet relied on the minister’s power to direct the ADF under the Defence Act 1903. Using the Defence Act departed from the way it was done in World War II, when war was declared using the governor-general’s constitutional power as commander in chief of the military.

The new code means that future decisions to deploy the ADF to fight overseas should be made using the governor-general’s constitutional authority, not the Defence Act.

The memorandum then turns to the need to inform parliament of decisions for armed conflict, and to provide regular updates.

Within 30 days of a deployment, the government must convene both houses of parliament to deliver a statement on the conflict and open debate. The conventions call for the government to table an unclassified written statement outlining the objectives of the ADF deployment, the orders made and its legal basis.

The obligation to convene, inform and debate, is balanced by this statement: ‘Notwithstanding these practices, and consistent with long-standing policy, the Australian Government reserves the right to determine the appropriateness of disclosures with respect to questions of international law and advice on questions of legality, as well any considerations of national security or imminent threat to Australian territories or lives.’

The conventions promise regular updates to parliament on deployments to armed conflict and on military strategy.

During any active deployment of the ADF, the prime minister and the government leader in the Senate should give each house a statement on Australia’s involvement at least once a year.

At least two other times a year, the defence minister and their representative in the other chamber should deliver statements to each house to update on operations.

And the government is to brief parliamentary committees on the conduct of significant military operations.

As for military strategy, the government is to table publicly released Defence strategy documents in each house of parliament within 30 days of their publication.

All this might seem the obvious minimum in a parliamentary democracy. Yet practice has too often strayed towards the presidential rather than the parliamentary.

The norm in recent decades has been that defence white papers weren’t delivered to parliament, but released on a navy ship or in front of an air force jet; television’s needs trumped parliament. The habit-of-mind got so bad that Julia Gillard’s government did not even bother to table in parliament the 2013 Defence white paper or the 2013 National Security Strategy.

As I noted in my submission to the parliament inquiry, what a democracy demands of its parliament in conflict must be balanced against many other needs, from secrecy and security through to military imperatives.

Because the parties of government, Labor and Liberal, are united in protecting executive prerogative, no legal check is likely. Strengthening conventions is the practical way to strengthen parliament’s role in the use of Australia’s war powers.

The geopolitics of Australia Day

The Founding of Australia 1788 was painted in 1937 by Algernon Talmage. It was commissioned for the sesquicentenary celebrations of 1938. The painting depicts the moment that Captain Arthur Phillip proposed a toast to George III on January 26, 1788.

Imagine that this scene never took place. Imagine that the government of William Pitt the Younger decided in 1786 not to send the First Fleet to Botany Bay but instead to the other site for a penal colony that it was considering, Das Voltas Bay in present-day Namibia.

Would the Indigenous people of the Australian continent and their lands have been left undisturbed? Or would Europeans have inevitably arrived at some later point? Instead of a British colony, might several different colonies have been established under Britain, France, The Netherlands and Spain, each of which had, at various times, explored the continent’s coastline and its surrounding seas?

We assume the present was always going to be. That the past was destined to lead to the inevitable present. Counter-factual thinking prompts us to examine alternative historical timelines to better understand the contingent choices, forgotten circumstances and patchwork of occurrences that constitute the history of the present.

Those who consider Australia Day to be ‘invasion day’ have to ask: had the British not arrived in 1788, would there not have been an ‘invasion’ later? It would have been a different ‘invasion’ – possibly less violent, possibly more violent – but nonetheless it still would have led to the dispossession of the Indigenous people. That is not to justify dispossession but to better understand it in historical terms.

Those who celebrate the day have to ask: is the Australia that has emerged across the course of almost 250 years the only possible version of Australia that might have come into being? Might other possibilities have played out?

Instead of Australia as we know it, might several nations today inhabit the continent, each with different histories, national cultures and geopolitical world views and strategic interests?

It is almost certainly the case that in every plausible alternative historical timeline, the land that is known as Australia was always going to be occupied by one or more of the European powers of the 19th century, in some form or another. When, by whom and how is not certain. We will never know because history is run only once.

Had the colony not been established in 1788, it is most likely that Britain would have occupied points on the eastern seaboard of Australia and perhaps on its northern coastline, probably within 50 years.

In this altered timeline, Talmage might well have painted the scene of the establishment of a British base in Sydney in 1838, as the first European settlement on the Australian continent. From that base, Britain could have challenged the Dutch in the East Indies and the Spanish Empire in the Pacific and South America, in the event of a war with either or both.

From Sydney and from other bases in Port Darwin, Singapore (colonised in 1824) and Hong Kong (colonised on January 26, 1841), Britain could have better protected its trade with China, which had to pass through or close to the Dutch East Indies.

In the event of war in the region, British ships sailing to and from China could have been routed around the east of Australia and protected by a Sydney-based fleet.

What of the western and southern seaboards in this altered timeline? Perhaps after the Napoleonic Wars France might have claimed the southwest and southern portions of the continent. In the real historical timeline, France was certainly interested in the possibility.

Concerned about French intentions, in 1825 Britain extended the western edge of its territorial claim to Australia from the 135th meridian to the 129th meridian. Afterwards, it claimed the rest of the continent when it established the colony of Western Australia in 1829. In an altered timeline, imagine the French tricolour being hoisted over the Swan River, perhaps also in 1838, as the British Union Jack was being raised for the first time over Sydney Cove.

Now let us change the timeline again by supposing that no occupation of the Australian continent had occurred in the days of sail. By the 1870s, when steamships were replacing sailing ships, especially after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, and when undersea telegraphy cables were being laid around the globe, the strategic value of a continentally sized territory located at the hinge of the Indian and Pacific oceans would have been irresistible to numerous European powers. Locations around the coastline of the Australian continent would have been occupied, if only for the purpose of coaling trading ships and warships, securing telegraph cable connection points and protecting sea routes.

A scramble for Australia might have taken place, as occurred in Africa during the 1880s, when the quest for empire was at its peak, and European powers were seeking to extend their reach to all quarters of the globe for resources, markets, bases and strategic advantage. It would be ahistorical to think the Australian continent would have been left undisturbed. By 1888, it would have been occupied, with its fate and that of its Indigenous people perhaps determined by negotiation among the imperial powers, as occurred in the case of Africa at the Berlin Conference of 1884-85.

If we take a step back and consider these alternative timelines, there is a strong case to be made that because settlement began when it did in 1788, Australia’s colonial-era development benefited from the fact it occurred under the protection of British sea power and with access to British capital and markets, when Britain was at the peak of its powers. Settlement in 1788, followed by exclusively British colonisation (and with no other flags flying over the continent), also meant that Australia’s development occurred within a single framework of British institutions – especially parliamentary democracy, responsible government and the common law.

Exclusively British colonisation, and the British territorial clean sweep of the entire continent that was achieved finally by way of the claim in 1829 to the western portion, meant there were no European co-inhabitants.

With no land borders with the colonies of other empires (imagine, for instance, a border on the 129th meridian between British Australia and French Australia), the six colonies were able to pursue political, economic and social development in a stable and peaceful environment, even when one allows for the violence of frontier clashes with Indigenous people. No wars were fought between the European powers on the Australian continent. The colonists did not have to fight for their independence or to create a unified nation.

It is little wonder that Douglas Pike titled his history of Australia, which was first published in 1962, The Quiet Continent.

That Australia is a nation for a continent, and a continent for a nation, is a direct legacy of 1788 and Australia’s political development in the 19th century, which of course culminated in Federation in 1901.

Having a single nation on the Australian continent is today a source of geopolitical strength. One might imagine, for instance, the challenge that would be involved today in trying to shape a common defence and foreign policy at an imaginary Council of Australian Governments that was the supranational co-ordinating body for a confederation of four sovereign Australian nations, whose proceedings were conducted in English, French, Dutch and Spanish and whose deliberations were shaped by different and possibly conflicting strategic interests.

For all of its locational advan­tages, Britain never seriously exploited the strategic value of the Australian continent for the purpose of sea control or indeed for any other related purpose. Australia was never home to a significant British fleet. The closest that British sea power ever came was in the form of the great naval base in Singapore (1919-41) that was designed primarily to protect India against Imperial Japan. Australian governments of the interwar period naively hoped it also would provide for the naval defence of Australia. They were wrong.

Writing in 1883, British historian John Seeley famously said of the expansion of the British Empire that the “mighty diffusion of our race and the expansion of our state” had been undertaken indifferently, so much so that Britain had “conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind”. His point was that while Britain had acquired a great empire, its thinking was still unimaginative, concerned more with the affairs of Europe than with the wider world, where the future would be determined by enormous political aggregations, such as the US and Imperial Russia.

Seeley argued a ‘Greater Britain’, by which he meant a transnational union of Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, could rival these two behemoths. Of course, this never came to pass. Instead, it was Australians themselves who led on local matters of strategy and defence, acting more independently than our national myths would have it.

For instance, in 1883 Queensland annexed New Guinea to thwart Imperial Germany’s interest. The British government disallowed this action, although it did establish a protectorate in New Guinea in 1884 that became a colony in the southeast portion of New Guinea in 1888. It was transferred to Australia in 1902. In 1889, Henry Parkes used a report on the parlous state of the defences of the colonies to drive the strategic case for Federation.

Alfred Deakin championed the building of a powerful Australian navy, for use in the Pacific and the Indian oceans, a cause that was given impetus after the victory of Imperial Japan over Imperial Russia in the war of 1904-05.

Australia attacked the Imperial German base at Rabaul in New Britain in 1914, as part of a broader campaign to force that country’s squadron out of the Pacific. In 1919, Billy Hughes aggressively pursued Australian interests at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, prevailing on winning territorial control over New Guinea.

At least until the 1920s, Australians were more independently minded in strategic and defence affairs than we might think today.

However, and unfortunately, as a result of feeble political leadership in the interwar years, independent Australian thinking was not much in evidence at precisely the time when Australia was coming into its own as vital strategic space – that is, when sea and air power were coming together with the advent of aircraft carriers. As a result, by the time Talmage was painting his scene in 1937, Australia had become geopolitically vital in military terms, as was soon to be seen in the Pacific War.

Imagine in another timeline, where the French tricolour flew over the Swan River, what would have happened had French Australia in 1940 been the dominant power in the southern Indian Ocean? What if French Australia had gone with Vichy after the fall of France in June 1940, as had French Indochina? Britain would not have tolerated the resultant threat to India, Ceylon and Burma. Winston Churchill even might have decided to attack French Australia, probably from the British naval base in Ceylon. He did not shy away from doing so in the case of French Algeria in July 1940 and French West Africa in September 1940.

Today, Australia is one of the most vital strategic spaces on the planet, that being first demonstrated in the Pacific War of 1941-45. Its value as vital space started to be fully realised in the 1960s, with the establishment of US communications, space-based surveillance and intelligence facilities at North West Cape, Pine Gap and Nurrungar.

Today Australia is a bastion and a base at the hinge of the Pacific and Indian oceans, from where power can be projected into the rimlands of the Eurasian supercontinent and from where the Western Pacific and the Indian oceans can be guarded. Any conflict fought in the Indo-Pacific inevitably would involve calculations being made, by all protagonists, about how best to use Australia’s strategic space – and how best to neutralise it.

The “tyranny of distance” is one of the most famous and widely understood concepts in Australian historiography. For Australia, distance from war and conflict was for many years a blessing. It long gave us comfort, until the range of military systems and weapons started to eliminate the protective effects of distance. Imperial Japan’s aircraft carriers were the first to overcome the barrier of distance. Long-range bombers and missiles followed later. Today, we are in range – everywhere, all at once, physically and virtually. The sheltered land of our national imagination is no more.

In Richard III, Richard says: ‘All unavoided is the doom of destiny.’ Australia’s ‘doom of destiny’ is to inhabit vital strategic space, whether we like it or not. Our national imagination, which has deep roots in our colonial past and the long period of the solitude of the ‘quiet continent’, is today too conditioned by the comforting but obsolete notion that distance is our shelter and that troubles are far away. This is a strategic illusion.

Different timelines generate different fates. With a different past, there is a different present. The debate about Australia Day is, at its core, a debate about different pasts. Even if it came to be accepted that dispossession was inevitable – if not in 1788, then certainly by no later than the great European imperialist expansion of the 1880s – counterfactual analysis can still enrich the discussion by casting new light on questions such as why in the real historical timeline there was no sustained process of treaty-making with the Indigenous people, such as occurred in New Zealand. Can we imagine other timelines where sovereignty, land ownership and Indigenous rights were dealt with differently?

Or imagine Phillip had not been sent, and later occupation had been limited to the establishment of trading posts and naval bases around the coastline, with little or no settlement. Is it possible to imagine, in that alternative arc, that enough might have remained of the pre-colonial political, economic and social structures of Indigenous life, such that an independent Indigenous Australia might have emerged as a sovereign nation, as occurred when other colonies such as the Dutch East Indies, French Indochina and Malaya were granted their independence in the wave of post-war decolonisation?

The semiquincentenary of modern Australia will occur in 2038. The debate about Australia Day no doubt will continue to evolve. One thing about Australia Day is certain. The arc of history has seen Australia emerge and evolve as a single, unified political entity, inhabiting a continent on its own. Geopolitically, this blessing means that Australia, whose territory has been free of great-power conflict and whose people have been able to focus on national development in relative solitude and peace, is today in a position of strength to deal with its looming “doom of destiny”. History’s other arcs would have left us worse off.

That is worth celebrating on Australia Day.

The Quad foreign ministers joint statement: short and sweet

Today’s joint statement from the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting in Washington is short and sweet, particularly for those who have been arguing that the grouping should overtly embrace security cooperation.

The statement’s emphasis on ‘security in all domains’ is a noteworthy and welcome shift from the previous, awkward position that the Quad was not a security partnership, despite working together in health security, cybersecurity and maritime security.

This inherent contradiction was unnecessarily self-limiting and confusing but persisted because Quad members, including Australia, saw this self-constraint as necessary to assuage Southeast Asian sensitivities about counterbalancing or containing China.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade should update its official description of the Quad, which is currently a ‘a diplomatic, not security, partnership’.

Also absent from the statement is any reference to ‘ASEAN centrality’. This is notable because past Quad statements have all dutifully replicated this diplomatic deference to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. This ellipsis is an early indication that the Trump administration does not intend to pursue cooperation through the Quad only at a pace that is comfortable for Southeast Asian countries. In fact, ASEAN doesn’t appear to register at all as a policy concern among some members of Trump’s cabinet line-up.

While China is not named either, a joint commitment to ‘oppose any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion’ leaves little doubt that Beijing is the Quad’s common challenge. A subsequent reference to ‘strengthening regional maritime, economic and technology security in the face of increasing threats’ should remove any remaining doubt. Beijing will inevitably react to such bluntness. But the Quad’s belated embrace of security cooperation is welcome. After all, security is a public good just like other elements of the Quad’s agenda, and something which the four countries should openly aspire to strengthen, without fear of offending others in the region.

Defence cooperation is not mentioned directly in the joint statement as part of the Quad’s security agenda. But it is strongly hinted in the commitment that ‘rule of law, democratic values, sovereignty, and territorial integrity’ should be ‘upheld and defended’ in the Indo-Pacific. (Note ‘defended’.) The Quad navies already exercise together in the annual Malabar drills. It is likely that a military dimension to four-way cooperation will now develop within the Quad, not only in unwarlike activities as disaster relief but also focused on deterrence. This should not dilute the Quad’s collaborative agenda in other policy fields, such as supply chain resilience and maritime domain awareness, but rather complement it.

The fact that the Quad foreign ministers meeting was virtually Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s first official activity will be read as a sign of President Trump’s willingness to back the quartet, which after all was revived in 2017 during his first term in office. This will come as a relief to Australia, India and Japan. And it underlines the Quad’s strategic utility not simply as a counterbalance to China but also as a means to anchor the US security role in the Indo-Pacific via a broad-based partnership with three of its most important regional partners, including its closest regional ally, Australia, and its most important one, Japan. India, which offers the heft as the world’s most populous country and democracy, will host the next summit of Quad leaders this year. Trump’s attendance in Delhi will be essential to maintaining the momentum.

This is a promising turn in the Quad’s fluctuating fortunes. It is tempting to inversely correlate the impact of joint statements with their length. The commendable brevity of this two-paragraph statement packs policy punches that were patently missing from some of the Quad’s recent, prolix pronouncements. When it comes to drafting joint statements, concision should be best practice: less means more.

Preparing Australia for Trump’s return: do more, spend more, risk more

Australia can’t expect Donald Trump to judge its strategic value by historical ties. The focus will be on our willingness to protect ourselves and capacity to contribute to shared strategic interests.

The world is more dangerous today than during the first Trump administration, with competing priorities across Europe, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific. Australia needs to do more, spend more and risk more in response to these threats. This would be the case even without Trump in the White House.

Australia’s trade deficit with the United States helped during Trump’s first term, because of the administration’s focus on fair trade. But it was not the only reason for Australia’s success in working with Trump then. We thrived because, coming out of the 2016 Defence White Paper, our defence spending was rising and because we led efforts to counter China’s malign influence.

The new Trump administration will continue to frame China as the pacing threat. Australia and Britain, the US’s partners in AUKUS, seem in some policies to be putting trade with China ahead of long-term security concerns. That won’t be welcomed by Trump’s team, especially if accompanied by any expectation that the US takes on the economic and security risks emanating from China.

Trump has suggested that NATO allies lift defence spending to 5 percent of GDP—more than double the alliance’s existing spending target of 2 percent. This is, in part, intended as a wakeup call to the nine NATO members that do not meet the current target.

These NATO members and other allies such as Australia should lift their defence capabilities not because of fear of Trump but because they face security threats. In an Australian federal election year, economic ministries will argue any lift in defence spending requires careful balancing against the full range of pressures on the budget. This is true.

Australia needs to show Trump a persuasive value proposition around what it’s doing for its own security and, as a result, for regional security and the Australia-US alliance. So, lifting spending on defence and technologies to enhance military and cyber capabilities is the first priority to consider as we look towards a new Trump administration. With almost daily reports about Beijing’s increasing control of the information domain, including through the hacking of US and Australian critical infrastructure, Australia should make addressing Beijing’s malign actions a top-tier joint effort with the Trump administration, using and going beyond AUKUS Pillar 2 on advanced technologies.

The cyber effort should be complemented by greater investment in space security that allows us to burden-share in orbit. The 2024 National Defence Strategy alludes to the importance of space control to counter threats by hostile actors but this domain has seen spending cuts at precisely the wrong time. Similarly, advanced autonomous systems that are low-cost but able to be acquired in high volumes would enhance the Australian Defence Force’s capability and assist US efforts to counter Chinese threats.

The second priority to consider is securing critical supply chains by reducing reliance on China. Focusing on selective technology decoupling from China, the Trump administration is likely to expect Australia to play a leading role in securing resilient supply chains, particularly for critical minerals. Building on its spending on the Future Made in Australia policy, Canberra should consider further developing local processing capabilities, establishing joint ventures with foreign companies, including US companies, and securing diversified long-term supply contracts to reduce reliance on China.

This week we have seen the US make security decisions in these areas, including banning Chinese smart cars. Chinese components in wind and solar panel technology may also be a prioritised concern for the US. The Australian government should make it clear that it supports such decisions and views them in similar terms to 5G policies. It should also signal its intent to similarly prioritise Australia’s national security in these areas, promoting establishment of reliable supply chains and working with the US to gain broader support for them.

Third, we must increase operational support for the US in the Indo-Pacific to counter China’s influence. For our own regional security, Australia should re-align with US efforts to push back—openly, not just privately—on Beijing’s economic coercion, military aggression and abuse of technology. This may require Australia to increase its maritime presence in contested areas such as the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, potentially in cooperation with India, South Korea or Japan.

Another option would be to widen access arrangements for US military forces to operate from Australian defence facilities, particularly in northern Australia, and accelerate plans for investment in defending those bases against growing missile threats from China. The 2023 Defence Strategic Review recommended an urgent move to deploy missile defence capabilities, including interceptor missiles, but the government failed to act on this recommendation in the 2024 Integrated Investment Program, deferring a decision until the 2026 program.

Fourth, we must use regional mechanisms, such as the Quad and AUKUS, to maintain stability. Australia should lead a recommitment to the Quad’s security interests, downplayed in recent years for fear of upsetting Beijing, and expand the group’s public focus on defence and cyber threats. Australia should also strengthen both pillars of AUKUS, contributing to the success of Pillar 1 through local infrastructure and expertise while ensuring Pillar 2 identifies the capabilities the three nations and their partners need.

Australia shouldn’t act just to please the US or Trump. Good national security policy is good for the Australia-US alliance and our international partnerships. Investing in defence and security means we will always be able to say ‘no’ when a request is not in our interest. By articulating our value commensurate with the worsening geostrategic circumstances, Australia also makes clear we don’t rely on just the US, but on each other.

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Labor ‘softly, softly’ tactic, leaves China holding the big stick

As 2023 draws to a close, how should we assess progress on the government’s stated objective of “stabilisation” in Australia-China relations?

On the face of it, the Australian government has built significant momentum this year towards restoring to an even keel relations with China. The Prime Minister’s visit, in early November, was the obvious high point, signalling a diplomatic thaw after a years-long freeze.

We’ve seen the release of journalist Cheng Lei and the prospect of senior Chinese government officials visiting Australia in 2024. And the government can point to some success in the area in which it has put most focus – securing the winding back of punitive trade barriers Beijing imposed against a range of Australian imports from mid-2020.

Stability is, of course, a laudable aim in the abstract. However, it is becoming increasing clear the diplomatic rhetoric of stabilisation is wearing very thin – and in fact risks being distracting or self-delusory – when the underlying reality is so at odds; namely Beijing’s ongoing destabilising behaviour and the fundamental differences in our strategic interests and political systems.

First and foremost, though least obvious, it encourages a damaging relationship-management mindset towards China. This is a common foreign policy trap Beijing knows how to play to its advantage. Whenever China succeeds in elevating subjectively defined atmospherics as a basis for engagement, it undermines national interest considerations if the other side accepts that differences should be minimised in order to establish goodwill or to maintain access.

Canberra needs to be careful not to overemphasise a relationship-building approach towards China, especially one centred on personal diplomacy between Albanese and Xi Jinping. In China, the PM said he regarded Xi as an “honest and straightforward” interlocutor. Earlier, he said Xi “has never said anything to me that he has not done”. While Albanese may have made such comments in the context and spirit of relationship building, such descriptions are a shaky foundation for a substantive relationship.

The most obvious weakness with “stabilisation” is that it runs directly counter to China’s deliberately destabilising behaviour in the East China Sea, Taiwan Strait, South China Sea and across its land borders with India and Bhutan. This has continued unabated since Labor came to power. In particular, the unsafe and unprofessional use of sonar by a Chinese warship, injuring Australian divers from HMAS Toowoomba right after Albanese’s visit to China, dramatically undercut Canberra’s claim to have steadied bilateral relations. This incident forced an immediate course correction from the government, when Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles condemned China’s “aggressive” behaviour, in a media interview in India.

Beyond scripted joint statements issued at international summits, Australia’s ministerial lineup has appeared reluctant to call out China’s concerning pattern of escalatory and intimidating behaviour towards The Philippines in recent months. Official statements of concern have seemingly been pushed down to the ambassadorial level.

Labelling Beijing’s actions as destabilising has arguably become harder for the government now it has made “stabilisation” the main metric of its China policy. That said, the most recent statement issued by DFAT in support of The Philippines marks a noticeable strengthening in our language, though it also highlights the limitations if not contradictions in the government’s stabilisation narrative. It is also abundantly clear Australia continues to compete geopolitically and directly with China in the South Pacific and that this is driving Canberra’s statecraft in the subregion.

As I wrote in Australia’s Security in China’s Shadow, the paradigm undergirding the Australia-China relationship swung from economics to geopolitics around a decade ago and will not swing back again quickly. A competitive, largely adversarial framing is more likely to define the future than one based on expanding co-operation.

Even in the economic arena, where the government’s diplomatic efforts have borne the most tangible fruit, stabilisation is falling short of Canberra’s expectations. Trade Minister Don Farrell has said he is “very confident” that “by Christmas”, China will remove all remaining trade impediments against Australia, predicting “we will have restored that stable relationship that we want with our largest trading partner”.

In fact, China is likely to defy Mr Farrell’s optimism by keeping a range of trade restrictions in place. This is Beijing’s best tactic to ensure Australia remains absorbed in the “low politics” of bilateral trade, averse to the risks of spillover from more contentious policy differences. Businesses desperate to re-enter the Chinese market are likely to counsel caution against holding Beijing to account in their own cause of stabilisation, narrowly defined. China’s efforts to coerce Australia, including through economic means, have not ended – they are merely likely to take on new and more pernicious forms.

The other shortcoming of the stabilisation narrative is that it underplays the fact the primary explanation for China’s fence-mending approach towards Canberra was not Labor’s superior diplomacy in comparison with the previous Coalition government, but Beijing’s own realisation that its efforts to coerce Canberra into a more compliant mindset had failed.

While certain export industries have undeniably suffered as a result of China’s economic punishment campaign, Australia avoided macroeconomic damage because of the success of market diversification efforts, by both government and the business sector. In fact, the value of bilateral trade with China scaled new heights, because China continued to import the commodities it most needed from Australia, at prices inflated partly by its own politically motivated interference.

The most important revelation from China’s attempts to punish Australia economically was Australia’s underlying resilience as a competitive exporter in a global, rules-based trading system. In the final analysis, Australia’s macroeconomic stability was shown not to depend on the political health of its relationship with China.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has recently transitioned to talking about Australia-China relations in terms of a need to “navigate our differences wisely”. As 2024 beckons, with all of its uncertainties, perhaps it is time to quietly retire “stabilisation” as a narrative that has served its limited purpose.