Written by Nile Bowie
For a nation who has historically subordinated itself to larger
powers, Australia’s Labour-led foreign policy shows little divergence away from
being wholly complicit to American full spectrum dominance in the region. For all
of its pristine natural beauty, the continent-nation has become a treasure
chest of precious natural resources managed by a monopolistic elite, and a
martial subsidiary of the world’s most militaristically aggressive empire. While
the potential exists for Australia’s economy to hemorrhage in the absence of
Chinese trade and demand, the permanent
force of 2,500 US marines building up in the Northern Territory certainly
does not appear to be in the public interest.
A document issued by the
Australian Ministry
of Defense in 2009 entitled "Defending Australia in the
Asia-Pacific Century: Force 2030" cites the introduction of an
expansive military program, which seeks to enable a “comprehensive set
of reforms that will fundamentally overhaul the entire Defense enterprise,
producing efficiency and creating savings of about $20 billion.” The agenda’s efficiency and
the savings it can potentially yield however, are unquestionably a subject of speculation.
Reconfigurations of Australia’s armed forces under Julia Gillard’s Labour
government have ratified a $100 billion program to purchase
advanced military hardware from the United States, such as F-35 jet fighters, missile-guided
frigates and submarines.
With naval expansionism being cited as a high
priority, Australia seeks to maintain twelve submarines, three destroyers equipped
with SM-6 long-range anti-aircraft missiles, eight new frigates and a fleet of
LHD amphibious ships by
the mid 2030s. Australia
has also recently purchased ten C-27J
aircrafts
equipped with missile warning systems and radar from the United States, to the
tune of $95 million. While the Gillard government pays lip service to China by welcoming its rise, the zeros on her
defense receipt suggest otherwise. With regards to China, the Ministry of Defense
document states “China’s rise in economic, political and military terms has become more
evident. Pronounced military modernization in the Asia-Pacific region is having significant
implications for our strategic outlook.”
By heavily depending on China in the
economic sphere and aligning itself militarily with the United States, playing
both sides of the coin may prove to be most injudicious. Australia’s
involvement in the ostensibly
anti-Chinese multilateral trade
agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) appears to be fencing China into
an economic exclusion zone at the behest of US corporate interests. Much like
the detested US-Korea
Free Trade Agreement, the TPP requires participating countries to
restructure their economies to benefit transnational entities. The carbon
tax-pushing Gillard has also
aligned closer to India in the form of a new trilateral security pact, which
also incorporates the United States. The Chinese perspective on these
developments remains plausible; commentators such as People’s Liberation Army
Major General Luo Yuan reiterate, “The
intent is very clear - this is aimed at China, to contain China".
As a means strengthen the foundation of the
new trilateral pact, the Labour government has overturned its own ban on selling uranium to countries that are not
signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). By giving India access to 40% of
the world’s identified uranium reserves (possessed by Australia), the country
plans to build 30 nuclear power stations in the next 20 years, earning billions
for the Australian corporate elite. Australian
uranium is also sold to the General Atomics Corporation;
a producer of unmanned aerial drone aircrafts, which are frequently deployed
against sovereign nation-states to indiscriminately exenterate any living being
in its focus. The Australian leadership’s contribution to such unethical forms
of warfare is truly against the will of the Australian people.
As the US faces economic torpidity and
abject bankruptcy, it’s clear that a restored focus on Asia is not solely in
the interest of economics, as professed by Hillary Clinton in her manifesto, America’s
Pacific Century. The skulking encroachment of American militarism
beneath the public relations-jargon of the State Department is increasingly
evident in dealings with Australia. Although the Gillard government criminalized certain lethal armaments such as Cluster
munitions under Australian law, US
personnel transit and stockpile the weapons at US military facilities in
Darwin. The people of Australian cannot tolerate a foreign military power
illegally conducting operations on their territory and a
foreign President asserting, “we’re here
to stay.”
The underlining initiative of recent US
foreign policy has been to continually thwart Chinese economic interests in
various parts of the globe, irrespective of moral and ethical consequence. The
moment that it’s provocations appear too reckless, China may incite a collapse
of the US dollar by dumping its holdings of US treasury bonds. While the current Labour government spends
an unjustifiable amount of money on military expansion, the original
inhabitants of Australia have the shortest life expectancy of any of the
world’s indigenous groups. The Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander Commission has reported that half of the
Indigenous people in the Northern Territory do not have adequate housing, while
various communities are unable to access potable water.
