Another week and more shots fired in the US-China war, this time America is the aggressor while Australia mutely remains in step with the escalation.
No, the shots did not come out of a cannon, but they were real enough.
Let there be no doubt, the United States – Australia’s foreign policy and defence master – is at war with China, just not actually killing people. Yet.
Rather than high explosives, the missiles this week took the form of billions of dollars aimed at damaging Chinese business and foreshadowing further trade sanctions.
More worrying, the latest declaration of intent was followed by a report that the US was working on “pre-emptive sanctions” against China over Taiwan.
Sports fans will be familiar with Willie John McBride’s famous “getting our retaliation in first” comment. That was one thing back in Test rugby back in the day – it is simply crazy weird in the context of international relations and superpowers.
The idea that imposing sanctions on China would deter it from invading Taiwan is bizarre, but Reuters claims two anonymous sources for the story.
“The United States is considering options for a sanctions package against China to deter it from invading Taiwan, with the European Union coming under diplomatic pressure from Taipei to do the same, according to sources familiar with the discussions,” Reuters reported.
“The sources said the deliberations in Washington and Taipei’s separate lobbying of EU envoys were both at an early stage – a response to fears of a Chinese invasion which have grown as military tensions escalate in the Taiwan Strait.
“In both cases, the idea is to take sanctions beyond measures already taken in the West to restrict some trade and investment with China in sensitive technologies like computer chips and telecoms equipment.”
There seems to have been no follow-up to the story. It might not be true. It could have been a misinterpretation of plans for sanctions should China invade Taiwan.
But it also could well be something anti-China hawks are mad enough to push. It’s partly ideological, partly Sinophobic, partly in keeping with the American exceptionalism cult, partly big money to be made by the already rich in escalating the conflict.
As Professor James Laurenceson, director of UTS’ Australia-China Relations Institute, told ABC radio, “pre-emptive sanctions” would have the opposite effect to deterrence. It would lead Beijing to conclude the US was not serious about maintaining the status quo over Taiwan.
It doesn’t help when professional talking head John Bolton, a former US national security adviser, is not only advocating for the US to recognise Taiwan as an independent nation but forecasting that a new Republican president would do so.
It’s almost as if some American hawks want a hot war with China. Some reportedly do, in the Strangelovian belief it needs to happen now while the US has arms superiority.
Meanwhile, the latest shots actually fired (rather than rumoured) were in an executive order from President Biden that China has to be kept in its place, beneath the United States which has a divine destiny to be the world’s greatest economic and military power.
He did not use those words, but that is what he meant in announcing billions of dollars to be thrown at the domestic biotech industry in all its forms.
As the Washington Post reported: “Speaking on a background call Sunday, administration officials said the executive order is partly a reaction to competition from China, which they said has a robust development program in biotechnology. The United States needs to safeguard against losing dominance in biotech manufacturing as it did in manufacturing of semiconductor chips, said one of the officials.”
On the record, President Biden said: “Today’s action is going to ensure that America leads the world in biotechnology and biomanufacturing — creating jobs, reducing prices, strengthening supply chains so we don’t have to rely on anywhere else in the world.”
That’s the President of the United States, the country that proclaims a “rules-based” world order and freedom of trade – unless it doesn’t like it.
China is not to be allowed to be better than the US in high tech, whatever it ends up taking.
The US is already forbidding the sale of advanced computer chips to China, citing the danger of their military use, and has passed the $US52 billion CHIPS Act to boost domestic chip manufacture.
It is part of Washington’s determination to divide the world – you’re either with the US or against it.
Half a century after Henry Kissinger used opening the door to China to damage the Soviet Union, there is bipartisan US policy to close the door on China, driving it closer to Russia and others less enamoured of the swallowing the American line.
It’s working.
Overnight, Xi Jinping was scheduled to meet with Vladimir Putin in Uzbekistan. There also will be meetings with the leaders of India, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and lesser lights.
A bifurcated world is not in Australia’s best interests. It’s not in anyone’s best interests, unless perhaps you are a weapons manufacturer.
“Supply chain security” becomes a euphemism for protectionism, for exclusion, creating the great power tensions that drive ever greater defence spending at the expense of other demands on government.
There is no indication of Australia being anything other than in lockstep with this American policy.
The Defence Strategic Review is being rushed through at such a pace as to indicate its outcome has already been decided.
Defence Minister Richard Marles remains full-speed ahead on the nuclear-powered submarine debacle and damn the review. Mr Marles increasingly looks like the Peter Dutton of the Labor Party – and not just because of his portfolio.
“Marles is determined to get nuclear submarines for Australia to fire cruise missiles into China from offshore,” writes Brian Toohey, the vastly experienced defence and security observer, in John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations.
“Everything is wrong with this forward defence stand.”
Mr Toohey doesn’t drink the Canberra Kool-Aid.
