proposal

Australia's Security Perceptions and the "Asia Threat"

Tomohiko Satake
Senior Fellow, Defense Policy Division, Policy Studies Department, NIDS

Introduction

Australia's security and threat perceptions cannot be discussed without mentioning its geographical characteristics. Australia is a continental nation but, surrounded by sea on all sides, shares no border with other countries. It is called the "lucky country" 1 because it enjoys a mild climate, abundant natural resources such as coal and iron ore, and can keep its distance from various global problems. On the other hand, since the 1788 settlement, the Australian people have contemplated how to protect a vast country (about 20 times the size of Japan) with a small population. 2

Due to Australia's remote location in the Southern Hemisphere (often referred to as "Down Under"), its people have never been free from the fear of isolation from the global or regional trends. As a result, Australia maintained close ties with its "great and powerful friends" (Prime Minister Robert Menzies), Britain before World War II, and the United States after, and has pursued an active foreign policy toward international organizations and regional countries.

Australia, with its European roots, has traditionally been tormented by threats from Asia such as Japan and China. Responding to the "Asia threat" were an overriding challenge for Australian defense circles --- the explosive influx of Chinese immigrants during the gold rush in the mid-nineteenth century; Japan's threatening rise from the early twentieth century; and Chinese and latent Indonesian threats in the first half of the Cold War era. Although Australia's threat perceptions became less acute markedly after the US-China rapprochement in 1972, the recent rise of China has resurrected the "Asia threat" in Australia. 3

This paper will provide a chronological review of how Australia perceived threats from Asia, especially from China, and of how it responded to them in each of the following four periods: (1) post-World War II years to the US-China rapprochement, (2) the US-China rapprochement to the end of the Cold War, (3) post-Cold War years into 2000s, and (4) late 2000s to the present day. In this way, this paper aims to highlight the characteristics of Australian perceptions of security and threats.

1. Post-World War II - US-China Rapprochement

For a few years after World War II, Australia's security concern centered on the revival of Japanese militarism. As the Cold War became intensified, however, its focus shifted from Japan to China. After the Communist Party of China came to power in October 1949, Australia considered, emulating Britain, to recognize the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s government. However, the subsequent conclusion of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance, Chinese military involvement in the Korean War, and China's support for Vietnam in the Indochina War made Australia warier of China. 4 Prime Minister Menzies of the Liberal Party declared that China's communism and expansionism posed a threat to Australia and positioned China as a "potential aggressor" for Australia. 5 This Australian perception of a threat from China became reinforced by the intensifying Sino-Soviet split that surfaced in the late 1950s and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s.

In countering the threats of China and communism, Australia adopted the "forward defence" strategy to proactively intervene in regional conflicts together with the United States and Britain and preemptively contain threats at a great distance from the country. Following this strategy, Australia sent troops to the Korean War, the Malayan Crisis, and the Vietnam War and fought communism alongside Britain and the United States. Such a contribution by Australia may be mostly accounted for by its emphasis on the alliance with the United States. But it was also motivated by Australia's grave concern about the threat of communism in the region. Prime Minister Menzies argued that the CCP was pursuing hegemony in Southeast Asia and was trying to make Vietnam its "puppet." 6

When he announced the deployment of a combat battalion to Vietnam in April 1965, Menzies justified it by estimating the Chinese invasion of South Vietnam as a Chinese "thrust" between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. 7 Australia continued to dispatch more troops, and by October 1967, the number of soldiers sent rose to 8,000 (more than 50,000 in total). Australia also joined the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO), an anti-communist military organization in Southeast Asia, and actively contributed to its activities. 8

In this way, the Menzies administration stressed the threat from China, but its China policy was not necessarily the same as that of the United States. For example, Prime Minister Menzies secretly supported the return of the islands of Kinmen and Matsu to China and refused the US request for Australia to establish an embassy in Taipei. 9 The Menzies administration also expressed interest in recognizing the "two Chinas." (Afterward, as the Vietnam War intensified, Australia abandoned its "two Chinas" policy and established an embassy in Taiwan in 1966.) 10

In addition, the Menzies administration effectively acknowledged private-sector trade with China from the 1950s. As a result, trade with China, mainly wheat and wool, grew steadily. By 1965 China became Australia's fourth-largest export partner after Britain, Japan, and the United States. 11 Australia's view of China, which Prime Minister Tony Abbott described after the Cold War as "fear and greed," has had its prototype in this period.

2. US-China Rapprochement - End of the Cold War

From the end of the 1960s, as calls for a review of US policy toward Vietnam grew louder in the United States, Australians also raised voices to rethink its Cold War "forward defence" strategy. In particular, the opposition Labor Party argued for the withdrawal of Australian troops from the Vietnam War, based on the prospect that China's influence on the war would be limited. The 1968 British declaration of withdrawal from east of the Suez Canal and President Nixon's announcement of the Guam Doctrine in 1969 favored the Labor Party's argument. 12

Labor Party leader Gough Whitlam, who believed that the world would become more multipolar, thought much of China's potential. 13 In May 1971, Whitlam visited China at China's invitation and met with Zhou Enlai (coincidentally, the US National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger made a secret visit to Beijing at the same time). Later, after Nixon's visit to China in February 1972 led to the US-China rapprochement, Whitlam, who became prime minister in December 1972, immediately recognized the Chinese Communist government and normalized diplomatic relations with China.

Thus, admittedly, Australia's policy toward China had been under review before the US-China rapprochement. However, the normalization of Australia-China diplomatic relations would not have become realized without the US-China rapprochement. In particular, China's de facto recognition of the US military presence in the region and the ANZUS Treaty was crucial to the betterment of Australia-China relations. This move made it consistent for Australia to maintain a close US-Australia alliance and simultaneously improve its relations with China. 14

As a result, Australia's relationship with China developed on the economic, political, and military fronts: its trade with China surpassed A$1 billion in 1984, as against A$158 million in 1973. 15 In 1978, the Australia-China Council, a private exchange organization, was founded to promote bilateral human and cultural exchange. 16 In 1981, Australia became the first Western country to provide aid to China; in the same year, a destroyer escort of the Royal Australian Navy visited Shanghai, marking the beginning of defense exchanges, limited as they were, between the two countries. 17

With the improvement of the relationship with China since the US-China rapprochement, the possibility of direct threats to Australia has significantly decreased. Prime Minister Whitlam stated that there would be no threat to Australia in the foreseeable future; he shifted from the traditional "forward defence" strategy to a "continental defence" strategy, which focuses on defending the Australian mainland. Whitlam and his successor Malcolm Fraser emphasized the independence of Australia's foreign policy and advocated "defence self-reliance" without dependence on the United States.

This policy was set forth more systematically by the "Review of Australia's Defence Capabilities" (commonly known as the "Dibb report"), whose writing was commissioned by Prime Minister Fraser in 1986 and which left a lasting impact on Australia's subsequent defense policies. The Dibb report took the position that Australia, as "one of the safest countries in the world," was not under immediate threat and could therefore build a military force for "self-help defence." 18 The report also predicted that Australia "would receive at least 10 years' warning of a substantial military threat." 19

This does not necessarily mean that the significance of the US-Australia alliance has declined. On the contrary, the Dibb report emphasized its continued importance for improving defense technology, intelligence cooperation, and regional stability, all of which are essential for Australia's defense. The report also argued that Australia should maintain appropriate "denial" in the "sea and air gap" between Indonesia and Australia; that Australia should contribute to the stabilization of neighboring regions, particularly Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. 20 Only in such a stable strategic environment, stated the report, Australia's "self-help defence" would be viable.

3. Post-Cold War Years into 2000s

The close relationship between Australia and China continued after the end of the Cold War. In the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests in China in June 1989, the Hawke administration followed Western countries in imposing sanctions against China. But it was careful not to do fatal damage to the bilateral relations. 21 Australia lifted sanctions against China in early 1991, except for defense exchanges and the export of defense equipment. Labor Party Prime Minister Bob Hawke had strong expectations that Deng Xiaoping's reform and open-door policy would fundamentally change China, and he emphasized China's constructive involvement in the region. 22

Afterward, as the Chinese economy developed and military power expanded, caution about China's rise gradually spread among Australians. The 1994 Australian Defence White Paper ("Defending Australia: Defence White Paper 1994") suggested: "Over the next decade, China is likely to be the most powerful new influence on the strategic affairs of our wider region." 23 In 1994, while explicitly stating that Australia has nothing to fear from China, Prime Minister Keating asked "do we want to be in the Chinese orbit?" and answered, "no, of course we don't." He implied that Australia's views of an international order differed from China's. 24 The Taiwan Strait crisis of 1995-96 also increased Australia's wariness about China.

Nevertheless, China was not a "threat" to Australia in the 1990s and most of the 2000s. Both Keating and his successor John Howard believed that it would be possible to engage China in the international community in a way favorable to Australia. Their thinking was based on optimistic prospects for modernization and democratization in China and, at the same time, on the bitter experience of the "failure" of the China containment policy in the first half of the Cold War era. 25

Above all, geographically distant China was not a "threat" to Australia as long as the United States, with its overwhelming national power, maintained its engagement with the region and as long as the United States and China maintained a relatively stable relationship. Some Australian defense officials predicted that China would challenge US regional hegemony in the future, but they envisaged it as a distant possibility. 26

These circumstances enabled Australia to opt for a two-pronged policy line: maintain a strong US military presence in the region through the US-Australia alliance on the one hand, and promote engagement with China on many fronts, including the economy on the other. The Howard administration sought to maintain a predominant US military presence in the region through its active contribution to the US-led "war on terror." Simultaneously, it aimed to strengthen, chiefly, economic ties with China through an active engagement policy. As a result, from 2004 to 2005, China overtook the United States as Australia's largest import partner and in 2007 surpassed Japan to become Australia's largest trading partner in both exports and imports.

Australia deepened its "dual dependence" on the United States for security and China for the economy. Australia's defense spending, which at one point was nearly 5% of GDP during the Cold War era, fell to less than 2% after the end of the Cold War. Meanwhile, during that period, Australia's real GDP growth rate was more than 3%, sometimes registering over 5%. Needless to say, Australia benefited from the massive Chinese demand for Australian exports of resources to advance its economic growth. It was nothing short of a "happy era" for Australia. 27

4. Late 2000s to Present

Australia's "happy era" came to an end as the power shift from the United States to China became more pronounced from the latter half of 2000s. Australia's 2009 Defence White Paper, ("Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030") released after the global financial crisis, acknowledged that the world was moving toward a more multipolar one and sounded a strong warning about China's rapid modernization of military power and lack of transparency. 28 Based on this recognition, the White Paper announced a plan for a large-scale defense force buildup, centered on naval power, called "Force 2030."

Since that time, there has been a lot of controversy in Australia over the argument that, as the power shift from the United States to China progresses, Australia will eventually be obliged to "choose" between the United States and China. 29 The Australian government dismissed outright all such pessimism and adhered to its position that a close US-Australia alliance and the development of Australia-China relations are compatible. In 2013, the Labor government's Defence White Paper emphasized Australia's engagement with China, replacing a strong note of caution about China that the previous White Paper sounded. 30 Prime Minister Gillard's Labor Party administration also decided to cut defense spending, and as a result, the ratio of defense expenditure in GDP hit the lowest since World War II. 31

The premise of Australia's two-pronged policy line was the Australian government's steadfast confidence in the superiority of US power and enduring US commitment to the region. The Gillard administration enthusiastically supported the US policy of "rebalancing" the Asia-Pacific and decided to accommodate US Marines in Darwin. The 2016 Defence White Paper, released after the Liberal government came to power, also warned against China's attempt to unilaterally change the status quo by force in the South and East China Seas. It also stated: "The United States will remain the pre-eminent global military power and will continue to be Australia's most important strategic partner." 32 Meanwhile, in the year before the White Paper was released, the Royal Australian Navy and the People's Liberation Army Navy conducted live-fire drills near the South China Sea. The bilateral relations remained steady and cordial. 33

However, Australia's optimistic outlook was overturned by the emergence of the Donald Trump administration in January 2017 and the subsequent escalation of the US-China confrontation. In Australia, many voices claimed the need for a more independent defense posture --- the so-called "Plan B" --- and for more solid relations with regional countries other than the United States. These voices are based on the prospect that US involvement in the region or defense commitment to Australia is no longer self-evident with the advent of the Trump administration. 34

While Australia's trust in the United States declined, relations with China worsened at an accelerating pace. Prime Minister Turnbull, who gave a keynote speech at the 2017 IISS Asia Security Summit (the Shangri-La Dialogue), harshly condemned China's militarization in the South China Sea, quoting a phrase of "a latter-day Monroe Doctrine." 35 China had also steadily increased its influence in the South Pacific. Furthermore, the CCP's organized "interfering" in Australian politics exposed around that time played a role in disseminating the "China threat theory," which had been discussed mainly in Australian security circles, to the general public. The spread of China-originated novel coronavirus in early 2020 and the subsequent friction between the two countries exacerbated the bilateral relations to the worst level since the establishment of the diplomatic relationship in 1972. 36

In July 2020, the Australian Department of Defence released the "2020 Defence Strategic Update." Based on an analysis of the rapidly deteriorating strategic environment due to the US-China strategic competition and the COVID-19 pandemic, the Update sets forth the shift of Australia's strategic focus to neighboring areas; a continued enlargement of defense spending; a substantial improvement of Australia's defense capabilities, including the strengthening of long-range strike capabilities and the introduction of hypersonic weapons. 37 The Update also states: "Previous Defence planning has assumed a ten-year strategic warning time for a major conventional attack against Australia. This is no longer an appropriate basis for defence planning" due to the development of long-range weapons and the emergence of new threats like cyberattacks. 38

As China rapidly strengthens its military power and the superiority of US power in the region is no longer self-evident, the Chinese threat is looming up before Australia, which has long stayed under the coverage of US primacy. An increasing number of Australians view the growing Chinese military presence in the Indo-Pacific region as a direct threat to Australia. 39 As the US-China strategic competition intensifies, the "Asia threat" to Australia has reemerged.

Conclusion

The above rather hasty review suggests some features of Australia's threat perceptions, including those of China. First, Australia's threat perception is substantially affected by the status of the regional strategic environment. Once the stable strategic environment collapses, Australia, uneasy about its ability to defend its homeland by its own, becomes readily vulnerable to threats from other countries. That is why Australia has actively sought to maintain and strengthen a strategic environment favorable to it through a close alliance with the United States and its commitment to an engagement policy toward Asia.

What matters most in this context is the continuity of US power preponderance in the region. Australia's engagement policy toward China became only possible within the post-US-China rapprochement framework in which China accepted the US military presence in the region. Therefore, as China's power grew and the US-China competition intensified, it was inevitable that Australia's perception of China became more severe. Australia's rapid defense capability buildup in recent years reflects its increasingly vulnerable feelings with the loss of US primacy in the region.

The second point is associated with geography. Direct threats to Australia are supposed to come first and foremost from Southeast Asia and neighboring regions (the South Pacific and the southeastern Indian Ocean). Unquestionably, Australia shows a strong interest in contingencies in Northeast Asia, such as the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan Strait crises. But these have tended to be seen mainly through the filter of the alliance with the United States. In contrast, China's militarization in the South China Sea and its increasing influence in the South Pacific tend to be considered issues more directly related to Australian security.

This does not necessarily mean that Northeast Asia is of less strategic importance to Australia. On the contrary, Northeast Asia will continue to be a strategic interest of Australia as long as the situation there affects the US-Australia alliance and US primacy in the region. With recent technological development associated with long-range strike capability and cyberspace, the distance seems to not matter as much to Australia as it once did. 40 Nevertheless, geography is still a crucial factor in Australian perceptions of security and threat, for Australia has begun to look more to neighboring regions in an increasingly demanding strategic environment.

Finally, the importance of ideological and psychological aspects of Australian threat perceptions should not be neglected. During the Cold War era, Australia's perceptions of China are said to be a mixture of exaggeration, misunderstanding, and racial prejudice. 41 In contrast, post-Cold War perceptions of China threat are more pragmatic, because they are based on the assessment of China's growing physical capabilities. Nevertheless, it may be impossible, without considering these ideological factors, to understand Australia's strong reaction to China's alleged "interference" in Australian domestic politics and its abuse of human rights. Australia regards China as not only its geopolitical threat but also a threat to the very "values" that the nation abides by.

* This manuscript is translated from the original Japanese version. Views expressed in this manuscript are the author's and do not reflect official views of the National Institute for Defense Studies or Ministry of Defense, Japan.

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