Wake-up call for Australia's defence relationship with US - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14771218
Australia didn't really benefit from it's trade deal with the US. And following the cancellation of TPP, Turnbull proposed getting China to replace the US in TPP. Now Turnbull and Trump quarreled by phone over the refugee deal.

The US relations with China can only get worse and the two could even come to blows over the South China Sea.

That'll be a challenge for Australia whose most important trading partner is China. Would Australia ally with Trump against China in the case of a conflict?

Donald Trump's telephone tirade a wake-up call for Australia's defence relationship with US

Over a year ago, when Donald Trump was still battling to win the Republican Party's nomination, defence chiefs in Canberra were nervously watching his increasingly radical public pronouncements.

"This circus sideshow is really dragging on longer than I would've expected," one senior military leader noted at the time.

The comment was telling; no-one in the Australian Defence establishment or broader diplomatic community really believed Mr Trump had any chance of winning his party's nomination — let alone the White House.

Fast forward to the beginning of 2017 and the reality of Mr Trump is still yet to be fully appreciated by one of America's closest allies.

3:55 AM - 2 Feb 2017

Mr Trump's declaration via Twitter that the proposed Australian refugee settlement arrangement struck with former president Barack Obama was a "dumb deal" has startled long-term observers of the ANZUS alliance.

"I've been watching the alliance relationship for more than 30 years now and I think this is as difficult a period as we've seen since the so-called MX missile crisis of the early 1980s," said Peter Jennings, the director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

"I think it's sensible for us to be working through all manner of contingencies, which includes a temporary freezing of the alliance, a sort of lull in alliance cooperation," Mr Jennings warned.

"Ordinarily you'd say that was very unexpected, but I just think we've got to be prepared for any contingency under the new presidency".

Earlier this week, Australian officials seemed relieved that the new President had "agreed" to honour the deal struck by his predecessor, and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was describing his weekend phone call with Mr Trump as "constructive".

"If Donald Trump had decided to rip up the refugee deal with Australia, it would have caused significant domestic embarrassment for the Federal Government, and close allies don't do that," one senior official remarked shortly after the leaders' conversation.

The burning question: What does the US get in return?

With the refugee deal appearing to have won Mr Trump's begrudging support, defence officials in Canberra are already anticipating what the US may ask of Australia in return.

The Trump/Turnbull phone call

The Washington Post journalist who broke the story takes us inside the "robust", "contentious" and "hostile" phone call between Malcolm Turnbull and Donald Trump.
"Trump's team has demonstrated that it is willing to show good will to Australia and down the track you'd expect Australia would be expected to also show good will to America," a senior official predicted.

Now as the future of the US resettlement arrangement hangs by a thread, Federal Government officials are scrambling to salvage it.

If by chance the contentious arrangement to send 1,250 refugees from Manus Island and Nauru is not scuttled by Mr Trump, what could the unpredictable leader ask of Australia in return?

Would Australia be pressured to join any future US-led military action against China in the South China Sea or do more in the Middle East?

Already the New York Times has speculated the recent rift between the leaders of the United States and Australia could play into Beijing's hands.

Australia is learning the hard way that Donald Trump is in office every bit the rule-breaker he promised to be on the way to the White House, writes Greg Jennett.
"The flare-up — and conflicting characterisations of the call from Mr Trump and Mr Turnbull — threatened to do lasting damage to relations between the two countries and could drive Canberra closer to China, which has a robust trading relationship with Australia and is competing with Washington to become the dominant force in the Asia-Pacific region," the newspaper warned on Thursday.

That scenario for now seems unlikely, but some in the diplomatic and defence community believe Mr Turnbull must quickly follow the leaders of Japan and Britain by trying to secure a face-to-face meeting with Mr Trump in Washington.

Just over fifty years ago, another Australian prime minister, Harold Holt, travelled to the White House to meet former president Lyndon Johnson, where he famously declared Australia was "all the way with L-B-J".
#14771223
If Australians are dumb enough to believe they are better off being allied with China, let them. The liberal view of we are all equals may not be reciprocated once China is entrenched in Australia.
#14771231
One Degree wrote:If Australians are dumb enough to believe they are better off being allied with China, let them. The liberal view of we are all equals may not be reciprocated once China is entrenched in Australia.

Ask the Mexicans if they think Trump treats them as equals.

China has a long-standing policy of non-interference in other countries' affairs. Most countries view this as preferable over to the militaristic meddling of the US.

The point is, however, that Australia depends on China for trade while only an insignificant part of its exports go to the US. That isn't likely to improve with a protectionist Trump.
#14771245
Australia has been trying to shove its refugees into other countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia by making sordid deals and most refugees in detention centres have no chance to be settled in Australia as they had arrived illegally by boat. Probably Obama was conned into signing the deal with Abbott to transfer 1,200 refugees from Australia or it was part of legacy-making efforts along with the historic visit to Hiroshima as a Nobel Peace Prize winner. There's a small American naval base in Darwin but China can be contained even without it.
#14772489
Geographically, Australia is pretty isolated and it makes a direct invasion pretty difficult. But our weakness is in the trade routes which need to be protected and we simply don't have the navy to protect. So we typically side to a dominant maritime power (British and now US). As long as the US navy covers Australia's ass there, Australia isn't likely going to jump ship to China. Unless of course US loses its power or is unwilling to exert it on Australia, we could then simply advocate that China and other nations work with us or what ever maritime power dominates to secure our most significant trades.
It is the case that some Australian politicians have cited that Australia's needs to seek security within Asia, not from it. And beyond just economic ties to China in trade, they clearly have an interest in capitalist investment in our own country and have a great deal of money lobbying both parties. If they continue to rise as a world power, it could be quite likely that we'd simply end up in their sphere of influence out of economic necessity, because if they grab those trade routes, we'll jump ship unless severely threatened by the US military. But if China's military keeps expanding and can pose a significant enough of a threat to US hegemony in South East Asia, it may be that we don't need to worry about US military and have to consolidate deals with Asian countries on securing trade routes.
But I think it's a long way off before this happens, if it does at all, the US military is still the strongest and unless Trump really pulls back on the military I imagine they'll send troops our way.

Australia really needs to diversify its economy though, soon as the raw minerals and all that dry up, its gonna get wrecked. I'm not sure what is being done for the long term economic development of Australia.
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