By Denis Bright
NATO leaders met in Brussels to anticipate more policy confusion after the US Presidential elections on 5 November 2024. From ten major opinion polling institutes, the trendlines on oncomes are quite inconsistent and with wafer thin according to feedback from media monitoring by Microsoft Copilot to anticipate the election outcomes. This raises the possibility of continued tensions between the incoming president and the houses of congress.
Co-ordinated strategic commitment to Ukraine was the appeal to the world from the 75th birthday function for NATO in anticipation of this US leadership instability extending into the late 2020s (NATO 4 April 2024):
Foreign Ministers concluded two days of talks in Brussels on Thursday (4 April 2024) with a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council, and another meeting with Indo-Pacific partners and the European Union. Thursday marked 75 years since NATO’s founding. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed the landmark, saying: “since 1949, we have been the strongest and most successful Alliance in history.”
The foreign ministers in attendance at these NATO forums from thirty-two NATO states are generally representatives of conservative governments elected on preferences from far-right parties. The exceptions are largely Iceland, Malta, Norway and Denmark. Germany has a minority social democratic government which must seek accord with the Free Democrat to remain in office. Austria and Switzerland are not represented at the NATO forums because of their neutral status.
Australians might be comforted by our distance from the conflict zones between Russia and Ukraine. Closer to home, there is strategic pressure on Australia from military and intelligence units loyal to the traditional goals of the Five Eyes Network. This Network supports strategic jaunts to rattle Chinese defence installations near the Taiwan Strait and in the vicinity of Hainan on the fringes if the South China Sea.
It is difficult to understand just how our commercial relationships with China have been allowed to deteriorate over just a few years when Australia defence units participated in events with the Chinese PLA even after leadership of the federal LNP was seized by Scott Morrison on 24 August 2018 (Australian Department of Defence 9 October 2019):
Australian Army members have travelled to China to take part in the annual bilateral adventure training Exercise Pandaroo, which begins on Hainan Island today.
First held in 2015, Exercise Pandaroo is an example of the constructive military engagement undertaken as part of Australia’s defence relationship with China.This annual exercise will see Australian Army personnel working alongside their Chinese counterparts during a series of adventure training activities.
Despite recent strategic problems with China, the latest edition of World Economic Situation and Prospects released by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs is cause for great optimism. Australia has a box seat so close to the world’s major growth economies across Asia and the Pacific (26 March 2024).
The healthy state of nearby regional economic relationships contrasts with stagnant levels of economic growth in developed economies from Europe to Britain and Japan. The current positive regional outlook contrasts with the market volatility associated with high interest rates, unacceptable levels of inflation and fluctuating levels of economic growth in the decade after the 1981 recession which defied the wisdom of policy-makers during the Hawke-Keating eras (1983-96).
To assist readers in consolidating the big picture of the mixed state of the global economy, readers might consider looking at Geopolitics and Geometry of Global Trade and Investment from the McKinsey Global Institute in New York (17 January 2024). The McKinsey Institute in New York has no affinity with the current round of megaphone diplomacy about making American Great Again.
The McKinsey brand of economic diplomacy has just brought a large delegation of US executives and academic leaders to China (South China Morning Post 28 March 2024). This follows a delegation from Australia organized by the International Trade Council (18 March 2024). Even delegations from Taiwan are being well received in China as reported by Nikkei (7 February 2024). From Taipei, President Biden’s commitment to strategic stability of the Taiwan Strait is a positive development (Taiwan Foreign Affairs 3 April 2024). Meanwhile, Taiwan has rejected offers of Chinese assistance with its earthquake relief during the recent natural disaster in Hualien (South China Post 3 April 2024).
Getting on top of the strategic barriers to our future trading and investment ties should be a talking point in the lead up to the Australian elections in 2025. Tentative moves for better commercial relations with China should be a plus for the Labor Government in winnable regional seats like Capricornia, Leichhardt, Flynn and Page.
Perhaps our naval brass should take ferries or fly with one of Taiwan’s own airlines if they are seeking carefree perspective on the Taiwan Strait. There are also slow ferries operating across the Taiwan Strait three times a week between terminals adjacent to Taichung in Taiwan and Pington Port near the Chinese City of Fuzhou. Direct flights are available from Taichung to Kinmen Island within Taiwan and adjacent to the City of Xiamin. From here there are ferries into Wu Tong Pier every thirty minutes. Passports are checked at the ferry terminals as the short ferry journey is an international transit.
Megaphone diplomacy did nothing to assist in the development of this improved cross-strait harmony.
Ferry services commenced operations between Taiwanese territories in Kinmen Island and the adjacent Chinese city of Xiamin in 1987.
Over 1.3 million Chinese citizens cross into Taiwanese territories on Kinmen Island according to Microsoft Copilot. Kinmen Island is a popular tourist spot with Chinese visitors for day trips and short holidays. Here the ruins of the old fortresses extended during the lengthy period of Japanese occupation of Taiwan between 1895 and the defeat of Imperial Japan in 1945 are no longer used for Cold War hostilities as in 1960.
If the situation is explained calmly, a different mainstream narrative will evolve in time. The Advance Australia Network has no commitment to this consensus-building. As Advance Australia is not a political party, it can campaign from the sidelines and by-pass spending caps on campaigning.
Microsoft Copilot offers the following profile of the Advance Australia network. These interpretations can be critically investigated by readers for accuracy in the absence of detailed mainstream reporting beyond the columns of The Guardian newspaper:
- Donations and Funding:
- In the 2022-23 financial year, Advance Australia received a substantial $5.2 million in donations and other receipts, more than doubling its previous year’s amount.
- Approximately 47% of these funds came from unknown sources, falling into the category of “dark money”.
- The group positioned itself as a right-wing alternative to progressive campaign group GetUp!, advocating for Australian “battlers” against the “woke” elite.
- Some of its prominent financial backers include wealthy investors and businesspeople.
- High-Profile Backers:
- Maurice Newman, a businessperson, is one of the notable backers of Advance Australia.
- Sam Kennard, the managing director of Kennards Self Storage, has also supported the group.
- David Adler, the president of the Australian Jewish Association, is another influential figure associated with Advance Australia.
Australians live in a highly prosperous regional enclave that will be advanced by increases in the Chinese economic growth and the investment outreach of its Belt and Road Agendas. The negativity in election campaigning from Advance Australia does nothing to advance commitment to more strident national sovereignty compatible with enhanced and sustainable prosperity.
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Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building in these difficult times. Your feedback from readers advances the cause of citizens’ journalism. Full names are not required when making comments. However, a valid email must be submitted if you decide to hit the Replies Button.
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Spending Aus $4 trillion on armed forces globally has not brought more security as the mid 2020s approach and spending goes up each year.
People become chronically ill in adjacent countries like Timor-Leste and PNG through a lack of medical support for curable health problems. This commitment to the arms race by Australian leaders has become compulsive. Thinks for your continued interest in this problem, Denis.
Good to see critical use being made of AI Technology for hypothesis testing by readers. Australia is not a particularly open society on some sensitive issues. Our leaders have been conditioned to toe the tine in support of conventional wisdom. I think that you of AI is a valid tool in investigative reporting.
Fusion voting across party lines with a commitment to the pragmatic mainstream maybe a new factor favouring the Democratic Party. It has been tilting back towards progressivism over Israel’s antics in Gaza. This trend isolates Donald Trump as an extremist. Watch out foreign ministers at those NATO forums. A home front may be emerging within the USA that favours more isolationist policies with commercial ties to China over more strategic tensions. This is a good reference on the changing domestic politics within the USA.
Schmitt, M., & Strano, M. (2023). From Polarization to Pluralism: Harnessing Parties and Fusion Voting for a Healthier Democracy. New America.
Australia seems to be spending just less than $70 million in its current UN Budget. Our defence budget is approaching $60 billion for 2024-25
Our local National Party federal MP would be a strong supporter of Freedom of Navigation to rattle those Chinese shore installations. The Cold War goes on in my federal electorate as if we are in some sort of time warp. The more disadvantaged the polling booth, the higher the National Party goes.
Denis, Thanks for an interesting and well researched article on a complex geopolitical time.
What a waste of time and resources: US and Filipino jaunts in the South China Sea this weekend over the sovereignty of uninhabited rock outcrops and undersea reefs: a distraction from attention to the poverty and social divides in the Philippines and those sleezy bars near US air bases and shore installations
https://apnews.com/article/south-china-sea-united-states-japan-philippines-6f2c83d4157d9c8902d161ba2b23075a (AP)
Australia has descended into cycles of stupidity, unclear thinking, impulsive agreements with error and stupidity, and, is likely to continue this endless pursuit of the wrong and expensive non-solutions. If we had a better outlook, decent people, attitudes of diplomacy, agreement, discussion, negotiation, compromise, resolution, we could be at peace, be prosperous, be forward thinking, contribute to a better world. It is a rotten enough world now, with false leadership crushing us. Let us reform and rethink.
Thanks Denis, interesting straightforward article.
The world strategic / commercial situation is labile to say the least, particularly prone to the matters in Russia / Ukraine and Israel / Gaza (not forgetting serious instabilities west to east in northern and central Africa), all within a massive industrial / economic / financial pivot urgently underway to facilitate climate change abatement and the saving / restoration of ecologies.
It would seem people across the world are being terrified by the already substantial impacts of anthropogenic climate change already occuring – it is making them pay more attention to the politics of reform and prevention. Yet the web of RWNJs vested in the old status quo of carbon-based industry, funded by the brainless fossil-fuelers is doing its darnedest to warp minds against reform, despite the fact that their resources are depleted and not economically viable, and their massively destructive industry of some 70,000 ff-based toxins are killing people fast (and slowly) and destroying the world’s soils, vegetation and food cycles. They steer minds away from science, and instead focus on political rhetoric designed to destabilize the democratic project – only for the objective of somehow seeking power and dominion in the ‘new system’ to slake their greed.
It is absolutely essential to maintain social / cultural stability to facilitate the massive pivot underway, and that is not easy given the necessity of altered and co-operative alliances this side of hot wars and ongoing cold wars and suspicions. Importantly, it seems the Five Eyes + are very recently making more logical and reasoned grunts towards progress, co-operation and stability in East and SE Asia (particularly China / USA with Oz as a key), whilst there remain loose canons in India / Pakistan / Afghanistan and North Korea. And significant re-emergent instabilities in a north / south axis from Israel to all the way to Kazakhstan. And much of the instability is of old matters fanned by stupidities of the past few decades, and the embedding of ‘criminal’ insurgencies.
It is certainly a sad state of human affairs the startling amounts are spent on deadly, polluting, environmentally and infrastructuraly devastating ballistic weaponry – a moronic way of conquest or to maintain detente. It seems however that the ways of warfare per se is shifting more towards sophisticated espionage and incapacitation via digital means, and these are being undertaken not only by states, but also criminal networks. Suffice it to say that Oz defenses, whether ballistic or digital / comms are in a parlous state. To address that the current govt has increased defense spending from 2.1% of GDP to 2.4%, and that includes the AUKUS spend which is for digital / comms defense and also other commercial securitization in ‘pillar 2’.
At this time and in the near-medium future, no matter the desire, it would be a stretch to imagine that we would not be exposed to the potential insurgence of actors hostile to Oz domestic interests. Equally, there is a cause for hope, in that there are signs of progress, moving towards co-operation, stability and equity.
Thanks for your comment, Clakka. I do support the broader goals of the Labor Movement but I am aware that some of the Labor Insiders have links to the corporate military industrial complexes. This is pretty obvious in any quick search on LinkedIn. Even in wartime, John Curtin in office between 1941 and 1945 was committed to national sovereignty within the British imperial and emergent US alliance. The relationships with the US were formalized with bipartisan support in 1951, Our right to full consultation with allies was part the ANZUS arrangements. The events in Gaza are challenging the value of a unipolar global alliance. I think our government is now part of this reappraisal, Let’s hope this continues and Free Palestine marches continue in our streets.
Yes Denis Bright,
30-odd years ago I too had links to the corporate military industrial complexes, although naively, didn’t realize just how or why at the time. After being weirdly mooched-over on several important occasions, I understood and got out. Regardless of political ideology, many who cannot resist riding on the back of the spoils of supremacy seem to have a bottomless well of platitudes by which to explain themselves.
I too support the broader goals of Labor, and 2022 was very pleased to hear numerous times Wong utter ‘multipolar’, it gave me impetus to keep my eyes well glued to Albo’s buzzing around, and to look at just what comprised that multipolarity, and how it was playing out and may play out in the future.
The Gaza situation has certainly provided a big strain and test on unipolarity, and there are strong signs in the last week that a seismic shift has been let loose, thank goodness. The biggest and most complex situation remains ….. how to unstitch its commercial aspects. America’s exceptionalism has it that they’re not very good at unstitching themselves.
But more patriotic hype this morning about changes in the defence brass. Changing personalities brings more of the same compulsive loyalties to NATO in which far-off Australia is an associate member.
School Days remember: Poetry classes about peaceful commerce and human solidarity which even Conservative Lord Tennyson could support as Queen Victoria’s poet laureate: Did our defence minister participate in such discussions at high school?
From Tennyson:
For I dipt into the future,
Far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world,
And all the wonder that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce,
Argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight,
Dropping down with costly bales…
..
Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer,
And the battle-flags were furl’d
In Parliament of man,
The Federation of the world.
Alas, the NATO Forums also missed an opportunity to work for peace and development. It was no parliament for the advancement of humanity but a preparation for more extended conflict.
The hopes of better consultation with the US Global alliance through AUSMIN have not eventuated in 40 years of trials. AUSMIN events in both the US and Australia are usually patriotic circus fests which defy the text of the ANZUS agreement. The willingness of our leaders to coach NZ away from its more independent stance towards strategic policies is deplorable.
Thanks for the discussion on this important topic. Labor won government on 22 May 2022 but our military brass and intelligence services were always in change of due process in offered advice about the need for rearmament.
Take a look at the slick campaigning by the Department of Defence on this issue and note the silence of the mainstream media on $10 billion in support to the combined military industrial complexes of Britain and the US to fast track the delivery of those AUKUS products (17 April 2024)
Defence strategy homes in on Australia’s greatest risks: https://www.defence.gov.au/news-events/news/2024-04-17/defence-strategy-homes-australias-greatest-risks
This is not about Homes for Aussie Battlers but support for more purchases from the global military industrial complexes.
Is Australia offering to become an independent power peace-maker for the war in Ukraine? Australian Catholics should be supporting Pope Francis on this issue and be courageous enough to ask for a truce as with Pope Benedict XV during the Great War. Too many innocent people are suffering. That $100 billion gift from the USA to Ukraine is misplaced and only benefits arms manufacturers.
The scientific evidence (if we listened) points toward a desperate need to find a solution to climate change, before humankind faces extinction.
So it seems a bit daft to focus our efforts on blowing stuff up, and killing people which is what Aukus is all about.
Washington has just send us further backwards with more bombs, and bullets spread over the globe.
Our leading trading partner does a brisk trade in solar panels, and electric vehicles, and without their co-operation my favorite hardware store would cease to function.
So I tend to view China in a favorable light, and developing that relationship would seem like a smart idea.
On the other side of the globe NATO is the one that declined Russian membership, and moved forward rapidly after watching the pipelines blown up, and therefore Europes hope of cheap energy..
Getting involved in the USA is defeating the object of a harmonious, and peaceful future in the Pacific, for us.