Australia-China relations: If Anthony Albanese says nothing else to … – WAtoday Feedzy

After years of punishing economic coercion and the diplomatic cold shoulder, Australia-China relations are entering a new spring. China’s trade restrictions are tumbling, and the two sides are talking at the highest levels.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Bali last year.Credit: AAP

Fresh from a widely feted trip to Washington, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will want to emphasise the upside in the Australia-China relationship during his Beijing visit next week. Not least because it will be the first visit by a serving Australian prime minister in more than seven years and will coincide with the 50th anniversary of Gough Whitlam’s first-ever leader-level visit to the People’s Republic of China.

Amid all the bonhomie, Albanese should also deliver a pointed message to Chinese President Xi Jinping: an attack on Taiwan would be disastrous for Australia and the world, and would risk dealing a body blow to China’s economy.

As well as being essential for the preservation of international peace and security, deterring China in the Taiwan Strait is vital for the Australian national interest.

Military conflict in the Taiwan Strait is likely to make Australia’s worst strategic nightmare become a reality by forcing a stark choice between our trade ties with China and our military alliance with the United States.

Short of a hardline isolationist in the White House, the United States would likely come to Taiwan’s aid. President Joe Biden’s repeated public pledges to defend Taiwan are testament to that.

Taiwanese soldiers take part in National Day celebrations in Taipei.Credit: AP

In the wake of an expanded US military presence at Australian bases and the AUKUS deal to furnish Australia with nuclear-powered submarines, the pressure on Canberra to join a US effort to repel a Chinese invasion would be titanic.

Of course, the ANZUS Treaty only calls on Washington and Canberra to “act to meet the common danger” when attacked, without specifying precisely how to do so. But these treaty technicalities are unlikely to tamp down US expectations of Australian military involvement.

Saying no to such a US request would mean choosing to sit out a conflict in which Washington was up against an adversary stronger than any that the United States has previously vanquished, including even Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany.

Australia would be naive to imagine that America would maintain its ANZUS obligations if Canberra declined the request. But a decision to join a US-led counteroffensive against a Chinese effort to take Taiwan by force would also be disastrous.

Such a move would probably bring to a shuddering and painful end the era of Australia’s mutually beneficial economic intertwinement with China.

With China accounting for nearly 28 per cent of Australia’s total export earnings in 2022, the economic aftershocks would be devastating. It would also likely mean shortages of all manner of Chinese-made goods that currently fill nearly every shop and home in Australia.

Regardless of whether one thinks we should join a US-led campaign to defend Taiwan, all Australians can agree that it would be better to never have to make such an invidious choice.

Contrary to periodic speculation, there’s no publicly available hard evidence that President Xi is planning an imminent invasion. According to CIA director William Burns, Xi has instructed his military to be “ready by 2027 to invade Taiwan”. However, being prepared to fight and win isn’t the same as deciding to start a war.

But as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine makes painfully plain, world leaders are liable to unexpectedly embrace stratospheric military and economic costs in the name of geopolitical goals. We don’t know that President Xi is planning to do that. But we also can’t be sure he isn’t.

Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines will likely help deter China. With their phenomenal speed, stealth, and endurance, these submarines could be used to signal to President Xi the added dangers of seeking to seize Taiwan by force.

Yet Australian nuclear-powered submarines won’t be in the water for years, and Australia won’t have command of the full complement of eight boats until the 2050s.

If the goal is to ensure that President Xi remains chastened in the 2020s and 2030s, then AUKUS is an incomplete and likely ineffective answer.

Hard though it might be, Australia should start thinking about other tools that might be used to contribute to US-led efforts to deter China.

With its globally competitive agricultural sector and vast reserves of iron ore, natural gas, gold, lithium, copper, coal, rare-earth elements, and much besides, Australia is economically indispensable for China.

Albeit delivered privately and with a suitably tactful diplomatic gloss, Prime Minister Albanese should leave President Xi in no doubt that if he decides to pull the trigger on a Taiwan invasion, then China risks losing access to imports that are essential for China’s energy, resources, and food security.

As the enduring enthusiasm for trade with China despite years of economic coercion illustrates, Australia doesn’t want to decouple. Canberra also knows that any successful effort to deter Beijing will start and finish in Washington. But the costs of conflict in the Taiwan Strait are likely to be so great that Australia should do more to share the work of deterring China.

Considering the as-yet incomplete repair of the Australia-China relationship, this would be a high-stakes warning for Prime Minister Albanese to deliver in Beijing.

The risks of leaving President Xi undeterred may be even greater.

Any Chinese leader who launches a war on Taiwan would not just endanger millions of lives on both sides of the Strait. They would blow up Australia’s efforts to straddle its economic ties with China and alliance with the United States.

For the sake of the world and all Australians, Prime Minister Albanese should warn President Xi.

Benjamin Herscovitch is research fellow at The Australian National University and author of Beijing to Canberra and Back, a newsletter chronicling Australia–China relations.