A Greens senator who claimed Beijing posed no threat and that Australia was nothing more than an “American aircraft carrier” is completely out of touch with the realities of the Indo-Pacific region, according to one defence expert.
Western Australian Senator Jordan Steele-John’s comments were a continuation of a more assertive left-wing Greens Party that has, in recent months, pushed for increasingly radical social policy in the lead-up to the May 21 election.
In October, the Australian Greens released their “peace” and “militarisation” policy which included the scrapping of the AUKUS deal with the United States and United Kingdom, halving the defence budget to just one percent of GDP, and closing all foreign-run military bases in the country, notably those of the United States.
Senator Steele-John told The Australian newspaper that the major parties, the centre-left Labor and governing Coalition, were content with Australia being an “American aircraft carrier” while saying it was up to the government to de-escalate tensions with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Canberra and Beijing ties have been on a downward spiral since Foreign Minister Marise Payne called for an independent investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak with the CCP launching an economic trade war against Australia in retaliation.
Meanwhile in late March, Adm. John Aquilino, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, who visited Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory, said there was a genuine risk of attack from Beijing’s three militarised bases in the South China Sea.
U.S. Admiral John C. Aquilino speaks during a news conference in Bangkok, Thailand on Dec. 13, 2019. (Panu Wongcha-um/Reuters)
“They are full-fledged offensive bases,” he told reporters on March 23. “Runways, hangers, barracks, anti-aircraft missiles, anti-ship missiles, jamming capability, hangers for fighter aircraft, bomber aircraft.”
“I don’t see China as a military threat to Australia,” Steele-John said, claiming that the United States and Australia did not need to be heavily involved in the South China Sea.
“When we look at the relationship between China and Taiwan, is actually a bunch of dynamics between nations which are best resolved by those nations themselves,” he added.
The senator also said Australia needed to stay mum on the recent Beijing-Solomon Islands security pact, which could open the door for potential militarisation in the South Pacific region and extend the reach of China’s People’s Liberation Army to within 1,700 kilometres of the Australian coast.
“Solomon Islands is a sovereign country that is seeking to build relationships with its regional neighbours as best it can and it is making those decisions as a sovereign country should,” he said. “The Greens see it as a double standard that is both paternalistic and actually racist.”
Defence director at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Michael Shoebridge, said the senator appeared to have little understanding of the nature of autocratic regimes.
“He is out of step with the reality that aggression is present in our world, as we see daily with Putin’s horrific mass killings in Ukraine. In this world, Australia needs to invest in our own security and work with allies and partners we trust,” he told The Epoch Times.
“Doing so underpins our political freedoms and allows us to invest in all the things in our society we value,” he added.
Shoebridge also said countries like Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines were deeply concerned with Chinese aggression.
“Power is a real concern for them, and they see the United States and its allies and partners as an essential military balance against this,” he said.
Meanwhile, student-activist Drew Pavlou, now running for Senate, responded to the senator saying that a “totalitarian, genocidal dictatorship” which puts ethnic minorities in concentration camps and leverages economic pressure against Australia is “probably a state we should regard as an active threat to our democracy.”
“We should not put our heads in the sands about that fact by pretending we can just sing kumbaya around a camp fire with Xi Jinping?” he wrote on Twitter.
Follow
Daniel Y. Teng is based in Sydney. He focuses on national affairs including federal politics, COVID-19 response, and Australia-China relations. Got a tip? Contact him at daniel.teng@epochtimes.com.au.
