Are we Truly Ready for the Consequences of a War with China?

Are we Truly Ready for the Consequences of a War with China?

By Nick Xenophon

“Information Clearing House” –  We are faced today with a question that has never before arisen in our history. From January 1788, when the First Fleet sailed into Botany Bay, to 2008, during the Global Financial Crisis, we’ve had first Britain and then the USA as both trading partner and strategic ally.

But now China is our largest two-way trading partner in goods and services ($150 billion), our largest export market ($86 billion) and our largest source of imports ($64 billion). And the integrated East Asian economic zone is the world’s fastest growing.

So, how do we negotiate the tension between our major security partner and our major trading partner?

China sees as vital to its security the string of archipelagos from northern Borneo to the Kuril Islands north-east of Japan. It has piled sand onto reefs in the South China Sea, creating seven new artificial islands, and has installed missile batteries and radar facilities, giving it effective control over sea and air traffic in the region.

Earlier this year US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he wanted to “send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops, and second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed.”

Two weeks later, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in Los Angeles that “most nations wish to see more United States leadership, not less, and have no desire to see powers other than the US, calling the shots.”

Increased tension between the US and China seems inevitable, and Australia may well get dragged in.

Last year the RAND Corporation published a report called “War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable”. It makes sobering reading. Their research team concluded that “war between the two countries [the US and China] could be intense, last a year or more, have no winner, and inflict huge losses and costs on both sides.”

China’s defensive military capabilities will continue to increase, and it will be able to inflict heavy losses on its opponents.

As both sides’ technologies and doctrine create a preference for striking first, the potential for miscalculation is high. Each side may believe that by striking first it can gain and retain the initiative, and by doing so it might be able to end a conflict quickly.

Yet this kind of thinking has uncomfortable parallels with Europe of a century ago, when the belligerents initiated their own military plans to attack before being attacked, and both sides believed that in doing so they would gain operational dominance and end the war swiftly. Back then, both sides had strong economic ties, which ‘experts’ said would prevent any conflict.

Furthermore, using the line and military strategy attributed to Sun Tzu, China may decide to “kill the chicken to scare the monkey” – sink an Australian vessel to warn off the United States Navy.

 Are we truly ready for the consequences of a war? Unlike Afghanistan and Iraq, where there were relatively few casualties, this time we may see large numbers of body bags returning, or never returning at all, since they may have been sunk at sea.

Is Australia ready for a relentless parade of funerals? For calls from the extreme political fringe for Chinese Australians to be interned in camps? For India reinforcing its troops along its border with China? For Russia to be emboldened along its western border? For increased activity in the Middle East, as extremists there take advantage of US preoccupation in the South China Sea? We already know what the invasion of Iraq unleashed……more here

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