Geopolitical Impact of Australia's China Strategy: Michael Green / CEO, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney

Hello and welcome to Deeper Look from New York.

I'm Del Irani, it's great to have your company.

Many countries are still trying to figure out how to deal with a rising China.

Australia is one of them.

China is Australia's largest trading partner, however, in the last couple of years, official relations have strained.

There have been growing concerns over China's political influence on Australian society as well as security fears over the construction of a Chinese naval base in a neighboring country.

So how will Australia's strategy toward a more powerful China impact the geopolitical landscape of the Asia-pacific region?

Joining me once again to talk more about this is Michael Green.

He served as the senior official on the National Security Council specializing in Asia Policy during the George W. Bush Administration.

He's now the CEO of the United States Study Center at the University of Sydney.

And he joins us once again. Welcome back to the program, Dr. Green. Great to have you with us.

Thank you very much.

So, China has been strengthened ties with Pacific countries.

I mean, earlier this year, the announcement of the new security agreement between China and Solomon Islands certainly rattled a lot of leaders in Washington.

Can you tell us what is the significance of China's expansion towards the Pacific?

And why should we be keeping an eye on this?

Well, I should probably begin by talking about the importance of the Pacific.

At the beginning of the Second World War, Japan's strategy, Admiral Yamamoto strategy was to take those islands and cut off Australia.

Because it was from Australia that the US would fight back.

And of course, the US strategy General MacArthur, Admiral Nimitz, President Roosevelt was to beat Japan in these epic battles in the Solomon Islands,

so that the US could save Australia and then defend and fight back from Australia.

So, if you picture the Pacific Islands, even though they're very small areas of land, and not heavily populated, they spread across the most important geopolitical approaches to Australia

that the Australian Government can't tolerate a hostile power controlling it.

And China's interests in the Pacific Islands stems from a number of things.

One is natural resources.

Fishing, in particular, also votes.

These are small states but they vote in the UN.

China always wants votes; against Taiwan, against human rights.

But more maliciously or malevolently China also wants military access, and the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced about five years ago,

he was very concerned that China was attempting to build a submarine base in Vanuatu.

So, there is a very strong geopolitical dimension to China's interest in the Pacific Islands.

Many of these governments and countries do not have strong governance, do not have strong democratic institutions.

So, it's very easy for China to come in with a large amount of money.

And let's just say win loyalty quickly.

Given what you've just said, how is Australia responding to Beijing's engagement and, I guess, growing influence in the South Pacific?

Ten years ago, in Australia, and in the US, most people said China's a friend, not an adversary.

So quite different from Japan.

But now over the past few years, in opinion polls about 80% of Americans and Australians also say like the Japanese, "We don't trust China."

What happened?

Well, 15-20 years ago, China started flexing its muscle against Taiwan, in the East China Sea, and especially against the Senkaku Islands and Japan's controlled islands in the East China Sea.

That happened to Australia a few years ago.

When China put a massive economic embargo on Australia.

But they've also watched the Australians, as Chinese ambassadors in these small countries have gone on social media to say Australia is not your friend; China is your friend.

A very aggressive zero-sum Chinese diplomacy.

You know, the Australian Government seen this for at least five years now.

And they've urged the US and Japan, New Zealand, France, to do more.

They call it the "Step-Up" strategy, stepping up to play more of a role.

The US, Australia, Japan have financed undersea cables and infrastructure to help countries in this region.

The US is reopening embassies, Fulbright and the Luce Fellows, an educational exchange opportunity are now being extended from the US.

And Australia and France, and New Zealand and Japan are all doing the same.

We've been a bit asleep at the switch.

Australia has been deepening their security ties.

Not just with the US, but particularly Japan and South Korea in recent years.

For example, the Japanese Prime Minister and the Australian Prime Minister recently signed a joint declaration on security cooperation for the next decade,

under which the two countries will quote, "expand and strengthen their ties."

How does this change the geopolitics in the region?

I mean, to what extent is this Australia's way of, sort of mitigating the security risk, or the threat from China, and I guess, responding to what you just mentioned, the changing attitudes?

When the network of US alliances was established in Asia in the Pacific in the 1950s; meeting in San Francisco in 1950.

These were all bilateral alliances.

The US Japan alliance, the US in time the US Korea alliance, ANZUS was Australia and New Zealand.

But this was not NATO.

It's not like Europe, where we created one Alliance, everybody was in.

In Asia, they were all separate.

And that worked fine for everyone.

Now, these bilateral alliances are starting to come together more.

They're not creating a NATO.

They're not creating one collective security agreement.

Because unlike NATO, which was created to contain the Soviet Union.

Japan, Australia, Korea, they don't want to contain China.

They want to counterbalance China.

They want to protect themselves from Chinese pressure.

But they also want to trade with China.

They trade much more with China than any European country ever did with the Soviet Union.

So, they don't want a NATO.

They don't want a collective security arrangement.

But there's a growing sense that the old so-called "hub and spokes," the US senses these bilateral alliances, it's not enough.

It's not enough because China is bigger and more powerful, and it's throwing its military muscle around and intimidating and pressuring countries.

It's not enough because the US power is not what it was.

So, these other allies Australia, Japan, Korea, and new partners like India, they want to do more with each other.

In some ways, it's to shore up the American Alliance system by connecting the spokes; the Australian-Japan spoke, Japan-Korea spoke.

Allies are making sure that making sure that the US alliance system is updated for the new challenge from China.

But in some ways, they are cooperating with each other more, because they're not sure the US is up to it.

You know, they want more connections.

Not without the US.

The stronger Japan-Australia tie is premised, for both countries, on a very strong alliance with the US.

Let's talk about South Korea, because they've had a bit of a change in their approach towards China.

The former South Korean President had a very different approach to the current South Korean President has taken a much harder line towards China.

Given this change of stance, you know that we have seen a hardening in recent times of South Korea, how should Asia Pacific allies in the region respond in terms of working with South Korea?

Well, South Korea has a difficult geographic circumstance.

Korea, of course, is very close to China.

China has enormous influence over North Korea.

And so, the South Korean governments, whether they're conservative or progressive, have been loath to anger China, because they need China's help to deal with North Korea.

And because they're so close to China.

And economically the Korean companies have traded a lot more with China than Japan or the US.

But that's changing.

The previous government of Moon Jae-In argued for what they call strategic ambiguity.

They are... it's Korea is an ally of the US.

The support for the US Alliance in Korea is the strongest it's ever been.

But the Moon government, which was left of center, said we want strategic ambiguity.

We want to be like Singapore or Thailand, we don't want to have to choose.

When the new government of President Yoon came to power, they said, "No, we're going to be explicitly on the US side."

Which was easy to say because the public opinion polls show that's where the Korean public was.

And we're going to work with Australia.

And we're going to work more on the Indo Pacific concept of these maritime democracies, because Korea is also a maritime democracy at the end of the day.

That we're going to be part of that group now, we're going to work more together.

So, what can some of these, you know, bigger countries in the Asia Pacific region do to counter China's economic and political pressure?

What strategies could they deploy to try and counterbalance you know, China's rise and China's growing pressure on countries, particularly the smaller nations?

So, Del, there's a very large agenda of what we need to do together.

Not to contain China, but to push back against China's pressure.

So, for example, China embargoed Korea.

Beijing was angry that Korea was welcoming American missile defenses, didn't like it.

Put a massive embargo on Korean companies, cost them billions of dollars.

But instead of coming to the US or others for help, the Korean government said, "No, no, we trade a lot with China. We'll talk to them, they'll understand us."

But failed, they failed.

And then China put massive embargoes on the Philippines and the Philippines said, "No, no, no. We got this. We trade a lot with China, we'll talk to them they'll understand."

And they failed.

Then China put a massive embargo on Australia.

It was angry at Australia for speaking out on human rights and the government's position on COVID, and so forth.

So, the Chinese put a massive embargo on Australia.

And the Australians stood up and said, "No, we're not going to compromise."

So going forward, there's now a recognition when China puts a multibillion-dollar embargo on your economy to punish you, because they're unhappy with something that you did.

You're not better off staying alone, and dealing with China diplomatically, because they don't respect that.

And there's a recognition that there's strength in numbers.

So, I think you're gonna see a lot of democratic governments and open economies working together to prevent that kind of coercion again.

That's one example.

China's Belt and Road Initiative, massive infrastructure financing.

In developing Asia.

You're gonna see a lot more, you already are Japanese, Australian, American, Korean, offers a financing that are a lot more attractive.

Japan actually now provides more infrastructure financing than China.

So, there's a lot of money that these open democratic countries can bring to the table to counter China's Belt and Road.

Each of our countries has a different way of doing this.

And we're not used to doing these things together.

So, there's a lot of clunky bureaucratic maneuvering going on to make sure we can work together, but at a strategic level we know we have to do more together.

In terms of working together, how should the United States and Japan cooperate with Australia to bring more stability to the Asia Pacific region?

Well, it's now recognized, we all need to work together.

Our strategies, our policies, our development assistance, our maritime security, our capacity building, helping countries like the Philippines or Vietnam,

develop their own ships to patrol their own waters.

All of that we are doing together.

We know we have to do it together.

But the mechanics of it, we're making up as we go along.

So, we have the QUAD with US, Japan, Australia and India talk about working together.

We have the US, Japan, Australia, trilateral frameworks for defense, for diplomacy.

We have AUKUS, which includes the US, Australia and Britain to develop advanced capabilities.

There's a kind of a hodgepodge of groupings, where we try to coordinate how we all work together.

We have not created one umbrella grouping, because countries have been hesitant to look like we are creating a NATO; a collective security agreement.

But I think we're getting to the point where, I think you'll start seeing in the coming years, more of a combination of these different groupings to coordinate how we maintain,

you know, what, what Japan's Prime Minister Abe called a "Free and Open Indo-Pacific."

Sitting down together and saying, "You guys are going to do that. We're going to do this.

We're not trying to contain China, but we're not going to let the bribe, punish, boycott, militarize problems in the Indo Pacific."

I think we are heading in that direction, honestly.

And what we see with the QUAD today with the Japan-Australia relationship, people would not have predicted five years ago.

But Beijing has kind of left the rest of us with little choice.

Even as we want a productive relationship with China going forward.

Dr. Green. Thank you so much for joining us once again on the program.

Thank you very much.

The need to deal with a coercive and more ambitious China is growing.

Asia-pacific countries are reeling from a shift in regional power dynamics.

And so, in order to avoid economic conflict and prevent military contingencies - clear and open communication with China may just be the key.

I'm Del Irani, thanks for your company.

I'll see you next time!