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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones - this is 7am

The relationship between Australia and China has already reached an all time low, but now senior political figures are starting to talk publicly about war. In the past week both the new defence minister, Peter Dutton, and senior public servant Mike Pezzulo, have discussed the possibility of an armed conflict with China. Today, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University Hugh White on how likely a hot war with China really is, and why our government seems to be talking up the possibility.

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RUBY:

Hugh, tensions between Australia and China are at a record high. You were a senior defence official in the Australian Government throughout the 1990s. Have things ever been this bad before?

HUGH:

Well it's completely unique in my experience, I've been in this business now for 40 years. Throughout that time Australia has never seriously contemplated going to war with a great power. We've been to war a few times, but only with little powers usually far away. And the idea that we might find ourselves even as an ally of the United States, engaging in a great power war with a country as big as China is completely unique in the experience of my generation and really takes us back to the kind of experience of the generation of the Second World War. You know, in some ways it's the worst state of relationship we've had with a country as important as China in our whole history.

RUBY:

Mmm. So if we are - as you’re saying - at the worst point then in our relationship with China. Is it possible to pinpoint where the blame lies, for this decline?

HUGH:

Well, in the first instance, China is to blame in the sense that it's China that wants to change the way the region and the world works. Back in 1972, it had an economy that was smaller than Australia's. And around about a decade ago, its economy ended up being bigger on one measure than America's. And as wealth grows, power grows, and as power grows, ambitions grow. So China is simply seeking to retake the position it traditionally had as the leading power in East Asia. And that's upset all the arrangements, all the assumptions that we made. On the other hand, we also we America, we Australia also bear some of the blame because of the way we've responded to that. We have responded to that by hoping and expecting, assuming really, that we could just persuade the Chinese to back off. And so, you know, it is usually the case with an escalating confrontation, whether it be between individuals or countries, both sides bear some of the blame.

RUBY:

Right so there’s this push and pull between the US and China, and we’ve been drawn into that. But how did we get to the point where someone like yourself is discussing the possibility of war? That seems like a pretty dramatic shift.

HUGH:

Well, I think, as the rivalry between America and China has escalated since, particularly 2017 and America has been pushing back harder and China has pushed back harder in response, the usual sort of action and reaction thing in any escalating dispute. Australia has gone along with that. And I think that the Morrison government about this time last year, for some reason, which I don't really understand, wound it up a couple of notches.

Archival Tape -- Newsreader 1

“China has stepped up its diplomatic assault on Australia over demands for an investigation into how Covid-19 started.”

HUGH:

Started being even more critical of China, started doing things that were even more expected and I think one might even say intended to provoke China.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison

“This virus has inflicted a calamity on our world and its peoples – we must do all we can to understand what happened”

HUGH:

Things like the way in which Morrison chose to advocate for an independent international enquiry into the pandemic, which itself, of course, was a perfectly sensible idea. But he chose to do it in terms which made it very clear that he expected that the enquiry would discover that China was at fault.

Archival Tape -- Newsreader 2

“China has bowed to international pressure, agreeing to an independent probe into the coronavirus outbreak, but hours after this announcement, came another, Beijing imposing an 80 percent tariff on Australian barley”

HUGH:

And a whole series of other things, the most recent of which is the decision to cancel the Victorian Government's agreement on the belt and road initiative,

Archival Tape -- Newsreader 3

“Australia has cancelled two deals struck by the state of Victoria to cooperate on China’s belt and road initiative.”

HUGH:

It looked deliberately and unnecessarily provocative.

Archival Tape -- Newsreader 4

“It's another blow to what's already intensified relations with China. The nation has halted economic talks with Australia indefinitely due to rising diplomatic and economic tensions.”

HUGH:

As the trade tensions have mounted, the risk of war has also mounted because both had the same ultimate source, that is their reflections of the underlying strategic rivalry between America and China and Australia and China as a supporter of the United States. The question is why? Why did Dutton suddenly start talking about it?

RUBY:

Mmhm. Why did he start talking about it and what has he been saying about China? He’s the new Defence Minister so what has struck you about the tone of his commentary?

Archival Tape -- Peter Dutton

“Our problem is with the values or the virtues or the outlook of the Chinese Communist Party and the Communist Party has militarised ports in our part of the world”

HUGH:

He gave one interview in particular, in which he talked about the fact that he didn't want war, and I'm sure that's true, but he also said that the war was a distinct possibility.

Archival Tape -- Peter Dutton

“As a proud country, we’re not going to allow our policy, our principles, our values to be undermined, and if you are involved in that activity, there is going to be push back by the Australian government. We aren’t going to be bullied by anyone, we are going to stand up for what we believe in.”

HUGH:

It is true that the risk of conflict between America and China is increasing. We've seen that in the South China Sea over the last decade or so, but now we're seeing it primarily over Taiwan.

Archival Tape -- Peter Dutton

“I just think people need to be realistic about the activity, there's been militarisation of bases across the region. Obviously, there's a significant amount of activity and there's animosity between Taiwan and China.”

HUGH:

There's been a lot of activity in the last few months and even weeks of escalating Chinese military manoeuvres around Taiwan, which have led a lot of people in America and here in Australia to think that the Chinese are moving towards the idea of using force to reclaim it.

Archival Tape -- Peter Dutton

“So there is a high level of preparedness as there should be, as there always will be for our Australian Defence Force to meet the threats that we see toward our country against our allies.”

HUGH:

For him to put it in those terms without going on to say what Australia was willing to do to avoid it. To therefore leave the implication that it was entirely up to China to avoid it and to give a very clear signal, I think from the way in which he spoke, that if there was war, Australia would be prepared to take part in it and encourage America to fight it. That's a pretty significant step. A war with China would be the biggest war the world has seen since 1945. And quite possibly bigger, because what one must never forget is that these are both nuclear armed states, we have to then ask whether whatever we hope to achieve with such a war, would be worth what it would cost us.

RUBY:

We’ll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Hugh, why do you think we’re hearing this kind of hardline talk on China from people like Peter Dutton right now? Is this a response to internal pressure, electoral pressure? Or is our government seriously considering war?

HUGH:

I think there's probably three factors at work. The first is and to do the most credit, they may believe that by talking tough like this, they're helping to deter China. And I think the nature of the military balance is such that I don't think that's a credible threat and making non credible threats - bluffing, in other words - often has the opposite effect. I also think they are responding to political pressures or perhaps I should say, trying to exploit political opportunities. It sounds good, sounds sort of Churchillian, standing up to a bullying tyrant, uh, as a plucky little country. And someone can understand that temptation. But I think there's also some domestic-internal party politics going on there. There are obviously factions in the Coalition who want us to be tougher on China and others that want us to be a little bit more cautious. And I think Dutton is a leader of the former faction. And it may also just be that, you know, the defence portfolio has got a special tone to it. It's quite an exciting job in its way. It may have gone to his head a little bit. You look back through history to see how leaders respond to these kinds of challenges, often it seems to end up that personal factors weigh as heavily as the more objective political or strategic factors. So I think there's probably a bit of all of those things going on.

RUBY:

So do you think our political leaders are serious about this? Are they appreciating the gravity of what they’re saying?

HUGH:

No, I don't. I think I've seen no evidence at all that Morrison or Dutton really understand the nature of the strategic competition we're in. And the- and the risk that that strategic competition will escalate into conflict and the scale and nature of the conflict involved, if they did, they wouldn't talk about it as glibly as I seem to be doing.

RUBY:

But Hugh, surely Australia does need to push back on China, when it comes to things like human rights violations in Xinjiang and political intervention in Hong Kong, as well as allegations of interference in Australian politics. So how do you suggest we do that then?

HUGH:

Well, I think we do it carefully and cleverly. Working on what the issues that are most important to us are recognising we're not going to win on every issue. Middle powers don't win on every issue against great powers. That's just the way the world works. So we have to choose our fights and we have to choose the way we conduct them. And I think we have to be very realistic about the limits to our power and influence on this. Now, that's not a comforting thing to say. People like the idea that Australia can dictate the terms of our relationship with other countries, even very powerful ones like China. So I think we're going to have to be much more realistic about what kind of influence we can exercise in the region, what kind of influence we can exercise a country like China. We might want, for example, to pursue questions of human rights in China. If we do that, that will cost us very dearly in the relationship and there's a debate to be had about how hard we should push, what sacrifices were prepared to make in order to do that.

That's what dealing with great powers is like. And we can't… We've got to be careful not to try and make the choices we face look easier than they are. It looks easy to say we should support human rights. And we should. But we should be very conscious of what steps that we take that escalate the confrontation with a country as powerful as China might end up costing. We'd like to stand up for our values, values like support for democracy and human rights. But peace is a value too. Avoiding steps which raise the risk of a catastrophic war is itself a moral imperative. And we don't have the luxury of having all the moral imperatives on one side of the debate. They're on both sides of the debate, and unless we acknowledge that we won't be doing justice to the nature and complexity and significance of the moral choices we face you.

RUBY:

Thank you so much for your time today.

HUGH:

It's my pleasure.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today… restrictions across Sydney will remain in place for another week, as the State Government tries to avoid a super-spreading event. No new cases were recorded in New South Wales, but health officials believe there are more people with coronavirus in the community yet to be identified.

And Prime Minister Scott Morrison has reportedly said he doesn't see an appetite for Australia opening to the world anytime soon. The remarks were made during an wide-ranging interview with the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am - see you tomorrow.

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