09/02/2023 by
Talk of war with China has been mounting over recent years. The current Labor government, and the Coalition before it, have been warning that Beijing has become increasingly aggressive, which is leading to growing tensions in the Indo Pacific that must be countered.
This is not the first time the Australian public has been primed for a potential conflict. At this time twenty years ago, there was rising talk about the threat that Iraq posed due to the weapons of mass destruction it supposedly possessed. And this led to the invasion in March 2003.
Now opposition leader Peter Dutton took
on China in the last years of the Morrison administration. And while the Albanese government has taken a more tactful approach with foreign minister
, war with China continues to be on the agenda.
Indeed, as with most other wars the nation has been embroiled in since World War Two, Australia hasn’t been directly threatened by China, rather it’s blindly following Washington’s lead on the matter, in a conflict that will serve the interests of our US ally.
Unimpeded access
AUKUS is part of the build up to war with China. Unveiled by then PM Scott Morrison
, the pact is an agreement between Australia, the UK and the US, and while its details are sketchy, it’s clear its focus is on “security challenges in the Indo Pacific region”, which means China.
Central to the AUKUS agreement is that our nation will be provided access to US technology that will see it acquire eight nuclear-powered submarines, which will ensure Australia can approach close enough to China that it can strike the mainland with missiles.
Another military pact involving the US and Australia is the
, which provides that an increasing number of US troops rotate through the north of the country on an annual basis, and that Washington has unimpeded access to dozens of Australian military facilities.
Meanwhile, the
continues to be the foundational security agreement between this country and the United States.
However, the commonly held belief that ANZUS ensures that the US would be required to back an Australia under attack is a falsehood, as the United States only ever acts in its own interests, whether that be in relation to Beijing or Canberra.
War or peace?
Long-term Sydney peace activist Nick Deane is taking the opportunity afforded by the passing of two decades since the beginning of the war in Iraq to shine a light on the similarities between the current prepping of the public for a conflict against China and that in the build up to Baghdad.
A member of the
, Deane is hosting a forum on the day that Iraq was invaded in Marrickville next month, which will see speakers like Senator David Shoebridge, Dr Alison Broinowski and Mary Kostakidis consider the rising rhetoric on war with China.
spoke to
convenor Nick Deane about the similarities between the march to war now and that of 20 years ago, the impact of the Force Posture Agreement and the way forward according to peace activists like him.
Marrickville Peace Group convenor Nick Deane
Nick, you’re currently organising the Can War Be Avoided or Will Peace Be Shattered meeting at Marrickville Town Hall, which will deliberate upon Australia’s military stance.
The forum’s timing is significant as it coincides with the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the invasion of Iraq. So, why is it important that the inception and impact of this conflict be reflected upon in relation to the present?
You’ve given me the long title, Can War Be Avoided or Will Peace Be Shattered, but when it’s on the poster, the words will be War or Peace with a question mark.
That’s because, at the moment, we’re standing on the cusp and decisions being made in the next months are going to decide whether we have a warmongering or a peaceful future.
My greatest fear is that we will be dragged into war again.
What we seem to be doing is repeating a pattern we’ve done many times before. You can go back to Korea but, certainly, there’s Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and even Syria.
We’ve gotten involved in all these wars mostly through America’s influence. In particular, in the case of Iraq, we got involved based on lies about weapons of mass destruction.
So, we need to ask ourselves whether we’re being told lies now that will drag us into yet another war, this time with China.
My answer to that question is there is a fabrication being spun, which considers China some sort of threat to Australia, while there’s not a shred of evidence that it poses any sort of a military threat to us.
It’s worth recalling the lies that were told to us in 2003, which dragged us into war, and ask the question, are we going through the same process again? Is this pattern being repeated? Are we being told lies now?
The threat from China is a lie, and the other complete falsehood is the idea that nuclear submarines will somehow guarantee peace.
In my view, and the view of others like me, it’s exactly the opposite: getting nuclear submarines is going to increase tensions in the world and make peace less likely.
These are the basic connections. And that’s why it’s so important that we recall what happened on 20 March 2003, when the invasion of Iraq started and use that as the starting point to talk about what is happening today.
Under the Morrison government, Australia became a key player in the build up to war with China, while trade relations with Beijing soured.
With foreign affairs minister Penny Wong taking the lead, the Albanese government has thawed relations with China, although it’s also deepened our defence relationship with Washington.
How is our nation’s relationship with China at present?
It is absolutely precarious, notwithstanding Wong’s more subtle and genuinely diplomatic approach.
The Chinese are not stupid. They are anything but. They can see what’s going on in Australia, and they’ve got valid reasons for not liking it.
The danger is that China will punish Australia as an example to other nations in the Quad: India, Japan and the USA.
The danger is they’ll take it on Australia just to show those other nations what they’re capable of. That’s if we carry on down the path we’re on.
John Lander suggests that Australia is in the process of being manipulated by the USA into military confrontation with China. What he’s saying is we could become involved in a proxy war for the USA with China.
I don’t quite subscribe to that, but I can see the danger, as our whole relationship with China is precarious, and it wouldn’t take much for us to upset it badly.
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