Australia yesterday unveiled its first National Defence Strategy, signaling a new focus on deterring China’s “coercive tactics” in the Indo-Pacific region.
The 80-page document offers a gloomy assessment of Pacific security and sets out a massive increase in defense spending to retool Australia’s military to cope with the challenge.
“The optimistic assumptions that guided defense planning after the end of the Cold War are long gone,” Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said as he presented the new strategy.
Warning that “China has employed coercive tactics in pursuit of its strategic objectives,” the text describes an Australia vulnerable to foes strangling trade or preventing access to vital air and sea routes.
“We are a maritime trading island nation,” Marles said. “The invasion of Australia is an unlikely prospect in any scenario, precisely because so much damage can be done to our country by an adversary without ever having to step foot on Australian soil.”
Instead of focusing on maintaining a military that can do a range of tasks almost anywhere in the world, Marles said the focus would be on building a force that can protect Australia’s interests in its immediate region.
At the center of the strategy are plans to develop a fleet of stealth nuclear-powered submarines to triple key missile capabilities and develop a large surface combatant fleet.
“Having the most capable navy in our history will be at the heart of our projection and our strategy of denial,” Marles said.
As a share of GDP, defense spending is set to increase from about 2 percent now to 2.4 percent within a decade.
Australia predicted increased risk of conflict in the Taiwan Strait, the South and East China seas, or on the Indian border.
Marles said that old assumptions about how much time Australia would have to prepare for war were gone.
“Australia no longer has the luxury of a 10-year window of strategic warning time for conflict,” he said.
Asked about Canberra’s strategy at a regular briefing, Beijing urged Australia to “refrain from making accusations against China at every turn.”
“China poses no threat to any country,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lin Jian (林劍) said. “We hope that the Australian side can view China’s development and strategic intentions in a correct light, abandon the Cold War mentality [and] do more to safeguard regional peace and stability.”
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
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