Australian Futures: Conventional Strategic Wisdom Versus the Long Economic March?
By Denis Bright
The strategic game of Chinese checkers has replaced the warm handshakes between neoliberal leaders and the leaders of Chinese government in the late Cold War era. Like the other member states of the US Global Alliance, Australia continues to combine renewed commercial ties with China with support for the strategic rivalries associated with the AUKUS deal.
Something must give way in this charade. Secretary of State Antony Blinken outlined his demands to Chinese leaders on a recent visit. For the present, token levels of co-operation to paper over differences associated with technological support offered by China to assist Russia and US defence and technological support to Taiwan.
Like the Biden administration, the Albanese Government inherited a new era in strategic policy from another age which was taken up with relish by the military brass and the intelligence establishment.
Just three years ago Australia’s Scott Morrison was invited by the G7 Chair, Boris Johnston, to the summit in Cornwall between 11-13 June 2021. This time Australia is not currently on the invitation list from Italian Prime Minister Meloni to the 50th G7 Summit near Bari between 13-15 June 2024.
Even prior to the forthcoming G7 Summit, member states have all telegraphed their support for Ukraine with moral support, more armaments and use of Russia’s frozen assets to support in the continued war effort.
With US public opinion divided on the value of more support to Ukraine, the Biden administration is attempting to some progressive accord with voters. Readers can check on the transition in US global economic policies in this FT video:
Polling in the US presidential election race is still tight. Anything could happen in the next six months including the withdrawal of Joe Biden on health grounds as his 82nd birthday approaches just after the election date in November 2024.
Leaders in both Australia and the US are their own re-election strategies. Should the Democratic Party be returned to the White House, expect some cooling off in the Chinese checkers game if the new administration gains a working majority in both houses of congress to diffuse the polarization of every major policy issue.
Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers is quite candid in admitting the implications of tensions with China on the stability of the global economy:
Dr Chalmers warned of a “fraught and fragile” global outlook, citing slower growth forecasts for China, the United Kingdom and Japan in the May federal budget. Returning from Washington on Sunday, his meetings were dominated by the dual risks of the war in Gaza spilling into a broader regional conflict with Israel’s missile strikes on Iran and China’s deteriorating property market.
“Events in the Middle East are casting a shadow over the global economy, compounding the concerns about lingering inflation and weaker growth,” Dr Chalmers said. The exception to the global outlook is the United States, where the IMF last week said the economy remained “overheated,” adding to expectations interest rates would be higher for longer.
There are some uncanny parallels between the moderating role of the Democratic Party during the Great War (1914-18) and the future situation in global politics today in the current tensions with China. Nations can sleep-walk not extended armed conflicts. Although the isolationist Woodrow Wilson’s administration gained a second term in office in 1916 with a majority in both houses of congress, the sinking of the passenger liner Lusitania off Ireland on 7 June 1915 which created a groundswell of pro-war settlement.
Incidents like these can take place on the high seas in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait as rival vessels engage in daring maneuvers at a time when China desperately wants to keep its sea lanes open to global trade. This is the lifeblood of a thriving Chinese economy which always depends on freedom of navigation and BRI investment programmes.
The warnings from Bob Carr and Gareth Evans need to be taken seriously:
“The unhappy reality is that nations can sleepwalk into war, even when rational, objective self-interest on all sides cries out against it.
Bellicose nationalist rhetoric, designed for domestic political consumption, can generate overreactions elsewhere. Small provocations can generate an escalating cycle of larger reactions. Precautionary defence spending can escalate into a full-blown arms race. With more nervous fingers on more triggers, small incidents can escalate into major crises.
And major crises can explode into all-out war – creating, in this nuclear age, existential risks not only for its participants but life on this planet as we know it.
All this means that the time is ripe for reinforcing and consolidating the gains to ensure that they are not just fleeting and transitory. What is needed is an overt commitment from both the US and China – not just rhetorically – to living cooperatively, together, both regionally and globally, in an environment where both sides respect each other as equals and neither claims to be the undisputed top dog.
Such an accommodation is not the stuff of fantasy. We have been there before. The detente between the US and the Soviet Union, negotiated by Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev, lasted through the 1970s. It delivered major arms control treaties and the Helsinki accords.”
Even major players like Britain at the G7 Summit want China’s current economic adjustments from the property market crash to become a strategic weapon to break the global profile of the Chinese economy.
Genuine apologists for China like Bob Carr and Gareth Evans point to its pragmatic commitment of its high growth economy to third world development and BRI Initiatives for our region. Such initiative will surely do more for global investment flows to assist with sustainable development than fleets of nuclear-powered submarines.
The tragedy of all these restrictions is even more alarming when they are being imposed on the world’s emergent largest economy. The proactive stance of countries like Italy in calling for more strategic controls is made even more outrageous when it comes from a stagnant economy with an unemployment rate of 7.3 percent that tolerates the presence of nuclear missiles on land and on visiting naval vessels.
Even development assistance from China to PNG or the Solomon Islands is perceived to be a threat to our own security. According to feedback from reliable media monitoring conducted by Google Bard, China has been offering health assistance to PNG since 2002 to assist with vaccinations and the training of medical personnel and controlling infectious diseases. One in twenty-four PNG infants do not survive their first year of life. Preventable diseases like pneumonia and diarrhoea are embedded in the routine hazards of life, particularly in remote areas.
Once again, regional countries are encouraged to take sides in the current strategic and trading disputes across the Indo Pacific Basin.
Further north in Laos, new freight and passenger routes from China to South East Asian countries must surely compare favourably with the saturation bombing of Laos in the previous Cold War era.
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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Denis Hay
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Return to home pageThis is worth watching: https://youtu.be/XpYcZMkTYdw?si=O7vJcxMYm1aHkytE
Thanks Dennis.
Anyone who is not worried sick by the infantile reaction by the US and Australia to China’s cooperative approach to global development is not paying attention.
Dennis, I just watched the WSJ video, and it became apparent that those interviewed, while impressed by the project, felt compelled to toss in some criticism, but were unable to come up with anything substantial.
They referred to the “debt trap” which is always mentioned in regard to Chinese development, but the debt trap is largely a fabrication. The real debt traps are those organised by the IMF and World Bank, who put onerous conditions on loans involving restructuring of the debtor nations economy, thereby giving control of those economies to Western corporations. One of those interviewed did make the point that loans from the Chinese have few conditions.
I saw today that in regard to a Chinese loan to Zimbabwe, a significant portion of the debt has been “forgiven” by the Chinese as Zimbabwe was struggling with repayments. The Chinese are giving the West a lesson in how to win friends and influence people, hence the outrage.
Dennis, I just watched the 2nd video you linked.
How did you stumble across Jerry?
He’s a cracker, a ripper, a gem.
Keep ’em comin’ !
I rarely recommend video clips on political issues, preferring the written word, but if you love Australia you must watch this one.
Thanks again Denis Hay.
Did a search on John Lander — text version of the video available here;
Pingback: Australian Futures: Conventional Strategic Wisdom Versus the Long Economic March? – Asset Market News
Any country who offers mercy to struggling people is a champion. I agree with Denis’ interpretation of our nearby regional development problems.
When will commitment to peace and development reach the mainstream media .
Thanks Denis for the discussions offered .
Here’s some details about “the debt trap” that are never mentioned by critics of China.
“Africa is typically portrayed as a continent dependent on foreign aid and private investment, with money flowing from advanced economies into poor African economies. However, new research paints a very different picture. A June 2018 report by the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst examined capital flight from 30 African countries between 1970 and 2015 and documented losses of approximately $1.4 trillion over the 46-year period ($1.8 trillion if lost interest is taken into account). This amount far outweighs both the stock of debt owed by these countries as of 2015 ($496.9 billion), as well as the combined amount of foreign aid all of the countries received over this period ($991.8 billion).”
This sheds some light on why there are no industrial powerhouses in Africa.
The west is still looting Africa, we’ve merely found more civilised ways of doing it.
Why is everyone ganging up on China when it has brought more than a billion people out of poverty and war during the Japanese occupation?
Denis, thanks for interesting discussion/analysis on the Asian political geopolitical status.
For Anthony Albanese
Dear Prime Minister,
Over a year ago, I provided you with a report of 2 illegal debt schemes administered by Services Australia. Your office forwarded the report to Amanda Rishworth and refused to follow up.
I paid thousands of dollars as a result of the abuse. The impact on the most vulnerable people can be much worse and even tragic.
The illegal schemes are as follows. Scheme #1. Services Australia did not provide me with a formal review decision, when I applied for a review. Their objection decision by an anonymous “delegate or authorised officer” is a void document which they used to rob me. No government official, agency or ACOSS ever made a singular comment on this scheme.
Scheme #2. Administered by Family Assistance Office. Their computer -generated debts automatically include all of the Rent Assistance for a relevant period, if a parent was deemed ineligible for FTB. Over $4000 debts made under scheme #2 were waived but they never had a right to issue them in the first place.
Prime Minister, you have to stop this.
Maybe the two most significant matters:
World population since 1950 gone from 2 billion to 8 billion – it is utterly critical to stem the resultant depredations
It is utterly critical to stem anthropomorphic climate change urgently
Suffice to say the world is struggling to address these issues via its old worn M.Os
And further, it might be recognized those old M.Os have brought about those two significant matters, and the plethora of associated exigencies to be addressed to make the requisite changes.
It’s all very well to whinge about departure from ‘free market’ capitalism (or unfettered mercantilism). It’s obvious it has failed and been the root cause of the devastation of the ‘west’, whose states are now dysfunctional and febrile. I call it ‘suicide capitalism’, not that capitalism is bad, just the model adopted. It’s not just the ‘west’, China adopted it too, and it did good initially, until, like a runaway train, it has put them in stuk.
To suggest that it’s something new and horrific that states and their rulers and politicians form alliances and beguile their citizens is nonsense. Rightly or wrongly, they always seek the most expedient path to supremacy. Because, in the main, to citizens, supremacy equates to safety, security and wellbeing. And like it or not, alliances and their accompanying plans, have a long history of going down the gurgler.
Given that history of going down the gurgler, its affects, and the geography and cultural expectations (and range of moral norms) of the citizens of disparate states, ways and means of obtaining a license to change may not be straightforward.
But change, globally, we must. And in doing so, given almost universal apprehensions and skittishness, we cannot afford to either sit on our hands or go down the gurgler again, so devices must be found to give affect to the change, whilst at the same time, dragging the faith of citizens along too.
Given it’s unwise and potentially catastrophic to let any state go down, it seems to me nonsense to say globalization is finished – we have never been more interdependent. For example, both America and China have enormous impending liquidity problems, but are seeking to attend to them in different ways, because of their different strengths (actual and / or perceived). The whole world relies upon both their liquidity problems being resolved – fast.
Having reviewed all the videos above, amongst some understandable antipathies, they seem to contain largely the same old if so, hap sos, narrow binaries and catastrophizing of the commentariat sans solutions. Whilst the actual urgently needed changes are being put in place.
Towards any end, plans and changes can never be seen as permanent, as we can’t know the future, just respond to the current situations having regard to history.
Thanks to the lively initial comments from Steve Davis, this article promoted a reasonable amount of feedback. In accordance with MEAA ethics, I do not write propaganda and always question conventional wisdom particularly when it offers a critical assessment of efforts from the corporate military industrial complexes and their allies in our intel networks in favour of rearmament when resources are needed for affordable housing and essential infrastructure at home. Readers should not be afraid to make comments online even if they might disagree with aspects of any of my articles. Even a critical comment will add traction to an article.
Burleigh Waters asks why is everyone ganging up on China? It’s a classic example of ‘Look over there!’ instead of paying attention to what’s happening here, whether the ‘here’ is here in this country, or more pointedly, in America, which, as we’ve become all too accustomed to, is functionally unable to operate as a nation unless it’s got a war to prosecute, an enemy to pound down on, a threat to agitate its people and governments, an evil to eliminate in the just cause of fighting the good fight, and with China’s ascension economically, socially & militarily, it’s the perfect target… they don’t speak English, they don’t look like us, they behave differently, they eat weird food, and they’re dangerous, they must be, they just damn well have to be up to no good, them goddamn commie bastards.
America’s deep paranoia and suspicion stems, of course, from the karmic consequences of behaving as the ruthlessly psychopathic & bullying kleptocratic nation of thieves and mobsters that fundamentally defines its relations with the rest of the world. A sick nation governed by sick people with a myopic incapacity to empathically intuit what it means to be a responsible global citizen, instead seeing threats and evils under every rock, nook & cranny. Spooked by their own fantasies and fabulist mythologies.
US Corporations are double dealing with China. They promote the export of hostile military equipment for use against China if an accident occurs in Freedom of Navigation maneuvers. At the same time, other corporations are engaging with China. Australia is missing out on the growth of the Chinese economy and it Belt and Road Initiatives as the global economy slows.
The Victorian Budget for 2024-25 is model for future cutbacks imposed on Labor’s progressive agenda when ties with China were contained for security reasons by the Morrison Government.
High interest rates in both Britain and the US are disguised forms of economic nationalism to protect the pound and US dollar.
A state of confusion is emerging for Australian decision-makers like Jim Chalmers in the preparation of next week’s budget which is probably now at the printers.
Basically Britain and the US are no friends of Australia’s national sovereignty and would now prepared the LNP back in office.