If Australia’s 2009 Defence White Paper was a red rag to China, then the 2013 White Paper looks more like the white flag of surrender. Trust a journalist to thrust that wonderful juxtaposition of colour and contrasting choice at the Defence Minister, Stephen Smith. Take a bow William Choong, formerly hacking for The Straits Times, now wonking for IISS.

The only other question at Shangri La that came close was the Reuters hack who asked the US Defense Secretary, ‘Does North Korea have a right to exist’? If only Asia’s leaders could come up with answers as sharp as the best questions.

The red-rag-versus-white-flag image expresses in sharp terms the tensions and choices tearing at Australia and the rest of Asia in trying to answer the big questions posed by China. On that red rag claim, see John Garnaut’s view that the 2009 White Paper ‘exploded like a bomb beneath the China relationship’and his judgement that after Canberra’s frank assessment of Chinese military growth, ‘bilateral relations plunged to the lowest point since the Tiananmen massacres of 1989’. Read more

The Defence White Paper gives an excellent description of the Asia Pacific but is calm about its dangers. It is heartening on the ADF’s capacity to defend the nation and its near neighbourhood and rightly reaffirms ANZUS and the US role: ‘It is unambiguously in Australia’s national interest for the US to be active in our region as economic, political and military influence shifts towards it’. It’s also correct not to name China as an adversary. Saying what we stand for in the Asia Pacific, and how we plan to protect it, is more pertinent than saying who we fear.

But we can’t hide the fact that China is probing on multiple fronts for more space and clout, sustaining quarrels with numerous neighbours who are Australia’s friends. The only reason Australia is not among those nibbled, along with Japan, Vietnam, Philippines, India and others is that’s so far away. This partially justifies the White Paper’s silence, but is short-sighted.

There is no integration of the Alliance with the overall regional picture to manage what is a marked new challenge to the status quo. The White Paper seems reluctant to state the values that bind Australia and its friends together. Stating our values is not provocative. If that’s a message to China, it’s in the eye of the beholder.

The White Paper speaks eloquently of the need to protect prosperity and stability. But where do these two desiderata come from? Long-term stability comes from democracy and freedom of the individual. Prosperity comes through free markets and free trade. Happily, China has embraced the values of economic liberalism to a considerable extent, but they are not Chinese values. Rather they are long-time Western values, and if the US and its allies don’t defend them they might not endure.

Confusion over Japan is related to this point. You can’t talk of the US and China as the two ‘global powers’ and relegate Japan to ‘regional power’. It is not just that in a decade or two the labels might have to be changed, but right now the White Paper’s assessment of power undervalues democracy and free markets in the making of stability.

True, the entire White Paper assumes the centrality of a US-led equilibrium to Australia’s security and prosperity. But it’s content with a vague hope to ‘develop the security structures on our region to help ensure cooperation…’. Lame references to ‘rules of conduct’ and a ‘rules-based global order’ (which doesn’t exist) send no message to Beijing that Australia opposes the weakening of the existing equilibrium in the Asia Pacific. Beijing respects strength more than Western-derived rules of conduct.

Ross Terrill of Harvard’s Centre for Chinese Studies is a visiting international senior fellow at ASPI. Image courtesy of Flickr user Julia Gillard.

Peter Jennings’ recent op-ed in The Australian (PDF) recognises some of the pressing issues confronting Australian strategists, but fails to identify an underlying cause. Two of the issues­­­­­­ he addresses discretely—divergent Australian and American views of Asia and a current lack of Australian Government enthusiasm for the alliance—are actually underpinned by an issue he dismisses.

Peter dismisses the prospect that Australia might have to choose between the US and China, but it’s this possibility which is driving, in part, our determination to see developments in Asia with a ‘relentlessly glass half full perspective’. It’s also probably responsible for a ‘perceived cooling of Australian support for enhanced co-operation’ with the US. Read more

In every relationship, personal, professional and diplomatic, negotiations and their subsequent compromises take place every day. Advantages are leveraged and exploited continuously. Some situations see small concessions or trade offs for mutual satisfaction while others are thinly veiled power plays that blatantly favour one side over the other.

The hottest topic of the year thus far has been China’s increasing use of cyber attacks on both government and businesses. Cyber is gaining ground as an internationally important issue for anyone that does anything on a computer, ie everyone.

But what leverage does the rest of the international community have when it comes to changing the behaviours of China? What can be done to realistically change actions that are suiting the needs of one player not others? Read more

One of the key questions US allies and partners have been asking is whether America will actually be able to pull off the Asia–Pacific ‘pivot’. More than twelve months after the announcement there are doubts persist all around; whether the US as a global power can afford to shift more military assets from the Middle East to the Asia Pacific, whether growing pressure on the US defence budget might render the ‘pivot’ (or ‘rebalance’) unsustainable anyway, or even if the political will exists to persist in the face of rising Chinese power. However, a good case can be made that the ‘rebalance’ is not only in full swing but will also be sustainable in the long-run.

First, a shift of military assets away from other regions towards the Asia Pacific is already underway. US ongoing strategic interests in the Middle East and elsewhere don’t require a massive military footprint. As the Pentagon’s 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance made clear, major US land wars are a thing of the past. Deterring potential Iranian attempts to overthrow the regional status quo does not necessarily depend on the forward deployment of strategic assets such as aircraft carriers. In fact, provided US aerospace forces in the Gulf are reinforced, US deterrence vis-à-vis Iran could be more credible without high-value targets such as carriers. Moreover, counterterrorism operations in Africa and South America will be conducted by a mix of special forces and CIA operatives. And European NATO allies such as France and the United Kingdom have stepped up their leadership in military operations in Northern Africa and the Levant. Read more