- The Strategist - https://www.aspistrategist.org.au -
China truth and consequences
Posted By Graeme Dobell on June 4, 2018 @ 06:00
Our Indo-Pacific strategy informs our relationship with China. We are aware China will face an array of challenges and opportunities in coming years. We are prepared to support China’s choices, if they promote long-term peace and prosperity for all in this dynamic region. Yet China’s policy in the South China Sea stands in stark contrast to the openness of our strategy—it calls into question China’s broader goals. China’s militarisation of artificial features in the South China Sea includes the deployment of anti-ship missiles, surface-to-air missiles, electronic jammers and more recently, the landing of bomber aircraft at Woody Island. Despite China’s claims to the contrary, the placement of these weapons systems is tied directly to military use for the purposes of intimidation and coercion. China’s militarisation of the Spratlys is also in direct contradiction to President Xi’s 2015 public assurances in the White House Rose Garden that they would not do this.
I think there are consequences to China ignoring the international community. We firmly believe in the non-coercive aspects of how nations should get along with each other, that they should listen to each other. Nothing wrong with competition, nothing wrong with having strong positions, but when it comes down to introducing what they have done in the South China Sea, there are consequences … I believe there are much larger consequences in the future when nations lose the respect of their neighbours, when they believe that piling mountainous debts on their neighbours and somehow removing the freedom of political action is the way to engage with them. Eventually, these things do not pay off, even if on the financial ledger sheet or the power ledger they appear to. It’s a very shaky foundation to believe that militarising features are somehow going to endorse their standing in the world and enhance it. It is not. It’s not going to be endorsed in the world.
Certainly, we have had some unusual approaches—I’ll be candid with you, some unusual approaches to how we deal with these issues. But I’m reminded that so long as nations continue dialogues, so long as they continue to listen to one another and to pay respect to one another, nothing is over, based on one decision, one day.
Nations must also have the right to be free from coercion or criticism when they lawfully and reasonably communicate concerns about the behaviour of others. This extends to the reasonable expectation that rules, not the exercise of power, govern our actions.
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[1] Shangri-La Dialogue: https://www.iiss.org/en/events/shangri-la-dialogue
[2] cooperation–competition calculus: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/us-china-status-quo-powers-revisionist-times/
[3] Reprising last year’s crunch: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/deal-steel-us-asia/
[4] China has broken its promise: https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1538599/remarks-by-secretary-mattis-at-plenary-session-of-the-2018-shangri-la-dialogue/
[5] more tariffs on allies than on China: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/05/31/trump-has-officially-put-more-tariffs-on-u-s-allies-than-on-china/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4d0b5bc0824e
[6] Marise Payne: https://www.iiss.org/-/media/documents/events/shangri-la%20dialogue/sld%2018/sld18%20prepared%20speeches/marise%20payne.pdf?la=en