Australia’s China experts, who often consider themselves pragmatists, insist that any conflict between China and Taiwan will have little if any impact on Australia. Tweeting in July 2023, former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, who is regarded as a senior statesman in the galaxy of Australian security and international relations intelligentsia, said that outside of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a leading Australian think tank that he said has “U.S. govt and arms industry funding,” “no Australian wants us to go to war over Taiwan.”
Carr has also said: “If the highly worst thing that faces the people of Taiwan would be what prevails in Hong Kong today, then we haven’t got a cause for war. … Hong Kong still has substantially its own system and if that were the outcome that applied in Taiwan, then I can live with that.”
Another highly regarded China expert, Michael Wesley, envisaged a scenario where Australia can continue to trade with China (as he assumes the rest of the Southeast Asian region will do) even if China attacks Taiwan. Wesley is regarded as one of Australia’s most knowledgeable experts on security and international relations, and he endorses the so-called Echidna Strategy proposed by the other prominent name in the field, Sam Roggeveen. The Echidna Strategy is based on the belief that in the event of war between China and Taiwan, Australia can use its advantage of being an island surrounded by oceans to defend itself like the native echidna, which when disturbed or threatened rolls into a ball or burrows into the ground so that only its spines are exposed.
Wesley, Carr, Roggeveen, and others of the Australian security and international relations intelligentsia argue for a re-alignment of Australia’s alliances away from the United States. Therefore in their new order, any requests from the United States to impose trade sanctions or other measures against China can be ignored.
It is at this point that their grand vision comes apart, for it does not look likely that the Southeast Asian nations want to see any dilution of United States influence in this region, especially in favor of China. To understand that sentiment they need to first look at the Australia-China trade relationship, in which China relies on Australian imports of coal and iron ore and Australia and Commonwealth governments rely on the royalty and other revenue from those imports to underwrite growing social welfare obligations, as well as commitments to the energy transition and net zero. The Australian strategy therefore assumes that China and Australia will continue to trade as usual, regardless of any conflict over Taiwan or the South China Sea.
However, that business-as-usual view is naive for a number of reasons. To begin with, in the event that China attacks Taiwan, Southeast Asian nations, particularly those that are already facing China’s aggression in the South China Sea, are not likely to remain neutral for fear of even greater Chinese aggression against them in the future. That, to paraphrase Lee Kuan Yew, will require U.S. firepower, for China is not likely to abide by international law. In fact, a U.S. Navy task force has been present in Singapore since July 1992.
Even in Malaysia, where Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has insisted (despite the facts that would suggest otherwise) that Malaysia and he do not have a problem with China, the government appears to be taking steps to strengthen the U.S. presence. For example, the decision to sell Malaysian airport operator MAHB to U.S. giant Blackrock will, among other things, give the American corporation an interest in 17 short takeoff and landing airfields on Borneo and in proximity to the South China Sea and the Philippines.
Anwar has been adamant that the deal will go ahead despite public opposition, much of it from the majority Malay Muslim population angered by Blackrock’s investments in companies that they say supply the Israel Defense Forces in the Gaza War. The same Malay Muslim protesters have, however, remained silent about the oil and gas exploration and production businesses operated by ExxonMobil in conjunction with Petronas, since the 1970s, which have financed successive Malaysian governments for over 50 years.
Indonesia is also reported to be strengthening its bases in and around the Natuna Islands in response to China’s incursions into the area around the islands, even as President-elect Prabowo Subianto declares that he views China as “one of the key partners in ensuring regional peace and stability,” with which he would seek to enhance defense and trade relations.
Against this backdrop Australia continuing to provide China with the resources needed to build, maintain, and enhance its armed forces, even after it attacks Taiwan, is not likely to be perceived by Southeast Asian leaders as strictly business but rather a threat to their own security. That eventuality does not appear to have ever been considered by Australia’s security and international relations intelligentsia, and as a result, the consequences of that sentiment appear to be beyond their contemplation. These could include some form of disruption to Asia-Australia shipping lines, so as to inhibit exports, or even imports, to coerce the Australian government into denying China resources. For example, Australia is almost entirely reliant on refined oil imports from Singapore and has very limited storage capacity.
Then it may even be in the interest of, say, Indonesia to permit China unrestricted access to its maritime and airspace to force Australia into submission, in exchange for a treaty of neutrality and peace. Finally, given China’s reliance on Australian resources, China’s military planners would have to plan for guaranteed access to Australian coal and iron ore and quite likely other resources. That can only be secured by some preemptive or simultaneous attack on western and northern Australia coincident with an attack on Taiwan, or perhaps even the Philippines.
In short, Australia cannot keep out of any conflict commenced by China against Taiwan, or in the South China Sea. Business as usual is highly unlikely and thus honoring the U.S. alliance would in fact be the pragmatic solution. The AUKUS pact is therefore vital, even if an eminent personality such as former Prime Minister Paul Keating, in furious agreement with the experts named above, has argued that AUKUS is the “worst deal in history” for an Australia that has nothing to fear from China. That China has recently demanded that Australia be excluded from U.S. nuclear sharing and extended deterrence should put paid to that fantasy.