By John Blaxland

There’s an understandable inclination at first blush to see the U.S. presidential election outcome as auguring difficult times ahead on the global stage.

President elect Donald Trump’s iconoclastic rhetoric on Ukraine, Gaza, Taiwan, tariffs and more in the lead-up to the election, coupled with his transactional approach to business, alliances and international institutions, and of making America great again appear to be zero-sum propositions for which the world is bracing for impact.

Australia is a bit of an outlier on this, though, on a range of fronts. Public statements have invariably emphasized shared values, but it is enduring overlapping interests that will feature more prominently now.

Economically, Australian stocks are high. The biggest direct foreign investor in Australia is the United States – by a country mile. The U.S. retains a considerable trade surplus with Australia, which can be expected to act as a buffer for Trump’s tariff instincts. Thanks in part to the multi-trillion dollar super funds portfolio, the U.S. is a significant beneficiary of Australian funds investments. What’s more, Australian firms employ about 150,000 Americans and U.S. firms employ about 300,000 Australians.

Security-wise, the trusted collaboration is far more profound than most would appreciate.

Dating back multiple generations, to the dark days of the Second World War, if not to the shared crucible of war in 1918 in France, deep, trusted and trusting collaboration has seen the relationship go far beyond the ANZUS pact of 1951. That 800-plus word essay did not include a mutual defence clause, a headquarters, a commander or assigned forces. Today, though, the bilateral Australian-U.S. defence ties are surprisingly broad and deep, across the land, air, sea, logistics, intelligence, space, cyber and intelligence domains.

They are most tangibly evident in the Joint Defence Facility at Pine Gap, which is a unique top secret facility operated and crewed 50 percent by Australians. Successive governments, when briefed on what it offers to Australia, have become its ardent defenders, largely because of the insights on the world it offers Australian government decision-makers. That’s not going away anytime soon.

Indeed, the intelligence ties are a super-enabler for Australia, not just in hard military sense, but in terms of access to advanced technology that enables the work of policing intelligence, financial intelligence and more.

Critics of AUKUS are easy to find, and already the sense is that this scheme may have left Australia unduly exposed. Yet indicators to date suggest that, while delays and costs may blow out, the U.S. remains committed to ensuring nuclear propulsion submarines are available and operate from and around Australian waters. Initially with U.S. Navy boats and eventually with Australian-owned ones as well. Viable alternatives are not easy to find. Indeed, the submarine base at Fremantle is becoming a more consequential “suitable piece of real estate”, equivalent in significance to not only the defence of Australia and its interests (as well as those of the United States) as that of Pine Gap.

Pursuing alternative options to AUKUS Pillar I (nuclear propulsion submarines) are effectively no longer viable as they likely would cost a great deal in terms of opportunity cost and more. We can realistically expect the current and future federal governments, of either persuasion, to follow through on this scheme, capitalizing on the considerable investment made in legislative and administrative reform designed to allow greater technology sharing with Australia.

Trump insiders have consistently indicated that, in terms of the art of the deal, AUKUS remains mutually beneficial. What Trump himself thinks, admittedly, has yet to be discerned and, no doubt will be a critical determinant for the future bilateral trajectory. If he changes course, then Australia’s predicament will be considerably more acute.

The prospect of Australia’s defence being dependent on a presidential whim points to the need for Australia to muscle up on its own, including with as much American-sourced technology as can be accessed, without waiting for another white knight, or great white fleet to come to the rescue.

AUKUS Pillar II is already starting to deliver benefits to Australia and the United States, with licensed hi-tech production and manufacture options in the pipeline. The momentum is growing and has been broadly and enthusiastically welcomed by Trump insiders.

Critics may decry the turn in U.S. domestic politics arising from the Trump administration. There are a number of aspects which the Australian government likely will wrestle with, particularly concerning initiatives linked to climate change, as well as diversity, equity and inclusion. Australians offended by such moves should keep things in perspective. Australia has sought closer relations with a number of neighbours with domestic and international policies which are not particularly well received in Australia.

But that has not stopped such initiatives from being progressed.

Now, perhaps, the U.S. will be less seen as a political city on a hill, as much as it ever was. The rhetoric of shared values likely will be toned down and the rhetoric on enduring overlapping interests will now come to the fore. If American soft power wanes as a result, the implications will be widely and deeply felt.

In 2017, shortly after the last time Trump came to office, the Australian Government issued a Foreign Policy White Paper – what I call Australia’s Foreign Policy Plan B. It’s time to re-read that and think further about how we deepen and strengthen the assortment of other regional security and economic ties, to offset the prospects of an unpredictable U.S. government adding to security and stability difficulties in Australia’s neighbourhood.

This article was first published by The Guardian on 7 November 2024 and this version is published with the approval of the author.

Professor John Blaxland, Colonel (Ret’d), BA (Hons), MA, PhD, psc (RT), SFHEA, FRSN, FAIIA, MSM (USA) is Director ANU North America Liaison Office, Washington DC and Professor of International Security & Intelligence Studies in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs of Australian National University.

Featured graphic: ID 155062319 | Australia Us © Ruletkka | Dreamstime.com

 

 

By Robbin Laird

In 2015, I wrote an article asking the question of what era in American politics did the 2016 election remind me of?

I answered in part that perhaps the 1890s and the collapse of the main stream parties and their re-alignment was the best analogy. The force for change were the various progressive movements, although what passes today for progressivism has little to do with the movements in the 1890s.

The Republicans have realigned. The party of Bush is now a coalition created by Trump. Trump has in effect been a political magnet that attracted the “iron filings” of a broad group of Americans, racially diverse, college educated and non-college educated workers (by which one means having degrees rather than confusing degrees with actually being educated in a life sense).

The Democrats now face the challenge of realignment. The modern Democratic Party has been shaped by identity politics. What will replace this focus? Who lead the effort? When and how successfully?

The Wall Street Journal produces very good videos explaining complex subjects.

In that tradition, they produced a video explaining Trump’s path to victory in the election by providing the data behind the victory. This data underscores the nature of the coalition built by the Trump revamped Republican Party.

The “Never Trumpers” of the Bush legacy Republican Party have been left in the dust heap of history. This is certainly why neo-cons and the classic globalist Republicans have been and will continue to criticize Trump. But now they have to face the Republican Party shift which leaves them behind.

And unlike 2016, Trump comes to office as the head of a coalition that includes prominent Democrats. How this coalition will reshape government policy remains to be determined, but how it evolves will decisively affect the future of American politics and government policy at home and abroad.

But now to The Wall Street Journal video.

By Pierre Tran

Paris – The title of a new book – The Idea of China: Chinese Thinkers on Power, Progress, and People (European Council on Foreign Relations) – carries a sense of what drives Beijing when its leaders look at the world and consider how it works.

It may be a bit of a stretch but there is something of opening the Western doors of perception on China, as the West and emerging nations in the global south draw up their policy in international relations.

The authors, Alicia Bachulska, Mark Leonard, and Janka Oertel, contacted some 100 Chinese sources over the last couple of years, seeking to examine and explain what drives China in the aftermath of the Cold War conflict.

There is a thoughtful account of key concepts underpinning a drive by President Xi Jinping, allied with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, to seize a leading position in the world order, seen by the Chinese leader as caught in a state of chaos.

The ECFR book considers key Chinese analysts and officials looking to deliver an interpretation of what happens at home and abroad, guided by policy statements by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and public remarks by closely watched Xi.

The authors set out Beijing’s approach to issues such as climate change, artificial intelligence with a Marxist approach, importance of the Chinese yuan in global finance, women’s role in social change, and determination to spread Chinese views and values around the world.

The Chinese thinkers cited argued that in Cold War days, China was seen in the West as a revisionist power seeking to upset a status quo led by the U.S., a Western power emerging newly invigorated after the second world war.

“China under Xi is not the country many Western leaders grew up with,” the authors say in the executive summary.

“It is determinedly carving out its own place in the world. The ideas generated by China could be its next major export – serious consequences for Europe, prospects for prosperity, and universally agreed upon norms.”

The highly accessible book seeks to bring the reader up to speed on the Chinese way of thinking, leaning on three concepts, namely Beijing’s pursuit of power in response to a perceived breakdown of international order; search for social and economic progress; and winning support of the Chinese People.

Bachulska and Leonard presented the book Oct. 9 at the ECFR office, here. Copies of the book were made freely available.

The vast majority of the Chinese contacts contacted by the authors were “desperate to talk,” Leonard said, and were “surprisingly open.” That was in the aftermath of an extended and tight Covid lockdown.

The government’s pursuit of identity of the Chinese nation, to resolve a falling population, was a “big issue” for governance, Bachulska said. The role of women is a big issue, with a new generation of women resisting the authorities’ pursuit of traditional values, namely the proper place for women is in the home.

The government has “clear ideas about the role Chinese people should play in the strengthening and promotion of China,” she said in the People chapter. “Whether or not the people agree with these wishes is another question…China is not an ideas desert; Chinese people are not bereft of ideas of their own.”

The authors set out how key Chinese nationals in think tanks, universities, and institutions interpret and discuss policy lines set by the CCP and the head of state, Xi. A notable feature are brief summaries, with thumbnail sketches, of the Chinese academics and officials. Many of them have studied abroad, including Cambridge, Chicago, Columbia, Delft, George Washington, Harvard, London School of Economics, Oxford, Rutgers, Sheffield, and University College, London.

China sees a shake up of the international order, with a decline of the leading role of the U.S.

That could be seen in Xi’s remarks to Putin, Leonard said. The start of the book refers to an NBC News clip broadcast March 23, 2023:

“We are now witnessing changes the like of which we have not seen for 100 years,” Xi said. “And we are the ones driving these changes together.”

“I agree,” said Putin, as he wished the Chinese leader a good trip home after their six-hour meeting in the Kremlin.

Stiftung Mercator, a German non-profit organization, and the Department of Foreign Affairs of Ireland supported the book, published in Poland.

China as Military and Trade Power

There is close interest in what happens in China, the second-largest economy, whose health has repercussions around the world. That extends to its military capability.

A new Chinese nuclear-powered attack submarine sank in a harbour around May or June, a senior U.S. defense official said, Reuters reported Sept. 27, following a news report in the financial daily Wall Street Journal.

The reason for the sinking was unclear and it was not known whether the boat, first of class, carried nuclear fuel at the time, the news agency reported, with a satellite picture from Planet Labs of Wuchang shipyard, where the submarine would have been docked.

Still on the military front, China’s People’s Liberation Army staged Oct. 14 an extensive military exercise, dubbed Joint Sword-2024B, around Taiwan. Those military drills included a naval operation on the Taiwan Strait, a strategic approach to the breakaway state.

Taiwan reported 34 PLA ships and 125 aircraft deployed around the island in that exercise, seen by the Chinese regime as Beijing’s show of force in response to the Taiwan president, William Lai, who had said he would “resist annexation,” the BBC reported.

Concerns over China’s perceived security threat led the then Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, to strike a deal with the U.K. and U.S. to build a nuclear-powered attack submarine  in the AUKUS pact in 2021. That opting for an atomic boat scuppered a project for a French conventional submarine, Shortfin Barracuda, pitched by Naval Group.

China’s long reach includes severe impact on an ailing German car industry.

A drop in demand in China for Mercedes-Benz and Porsche cars is forcing the upmarket German manufacturers to cut costs, with the latter looking to slash billions of euros by 2030.

The competition from Chinese builders of electric vehicles could be seen at the high-profile Paris car show in mid-October, with nine Chinese EV brands on display.

Chinese car companies such as BYD and Leapmotor are looking to expand in Europe, prompting the European Union to impose import tariffs of up to 45 pct on Chinese EVs, seen as benefiting from state subsidies.

Beijing has responded to the EU by slapping temporary security deposits on imports of European brandy, hitting the French brands Hennessy and Remy Martin.

The Chinese economy is expected to grow 4.8 pct this year, a Reuters poll showed Oct. 15, which would be weaker than the government’s growth target of around 5 pct. The forecast rise in 2025 gross domestic product is expected to weaken further to 4.5 pct.

There seems to be a variation to the old adage, when the U.S. sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold, with global concern over China reaching for a handkerchief.