Speaker 1: Australia and New Zealand ships and pad aircraft have been
Speaker 1: monitoring the Chinese fleet while they have been traveling down
Speaker 1: the coast of Australia. Off the coast.
Speaker 2: So we saw a float tiller of three ships, a
Speaker 2: large destroyer, very new vessel of the type fifty five,
Speaker 2: the ren High class. We also saw a frigate and
Speaker 2: then a supply ship alongside to keep the destroyers and
Speaker 2: the frigate fueled and armed and fed.
Speaker 3: Sam Rogavin is director of the Lower Institute's International Security Program.
Speaker 4: Over the past.
Speaker 3: Month, he's been watching as a floatiller of Chinese Navy
Speaker 3: ships sailed around Australia. They fired live shots and disrupted
Speaker 3: flights out of Sydney Airport.
Speaker 1: It is the case that the notice was given. When
Speaker 1: that occurs, airlines are notified and stay out of the
Speaker 1: area air.
Speaker 2: It was international waters and the Chinese were doing nothing illegal,
Speaker 2: but nevertheless it was pretty provocative in my view and
Speaker 2: could easily have been avoided if the Chinese had wanted to.
Speaker 2: It did excite a lot of reaction in the Australian media.
Speaker 5: Why is the Chinese Navy here and should we be worried?
Speaker 2: Minister Anthony Aberanezi has assured the nation a flotilla of
Speaker 2: Chinese warships has been closely watched. China's ambassador to Australia
Speaker 2: says there is no need for his country to apologize
Speaker 2: that they did give.
Speaker 3: The voyage came at a time when Australia's ability to
Speaker 3: rely on the United States is questionable and raises concerns
Speaker 3: about whether we're prepared to handle our own security in
Speaker 3: the event of an attack. From Schwartz Media, I'm Daniel James.
Speaker 3: This is seven AM today Sam Rogavin on why the
Speaker 3: Chinese military circled Australia and what we should do about it.
Speaker 3: It's Friday, March twenty one. So China set one of
Speaker 3: the largest warships in the world, equipped with guided missiles,
Speaker 3: to perform drills of Australia's coast. So should we be scared.
Speaker 4: No, we shouldn't. We don't need to be scared.
Speaker 2: But nevertheless, because I think this is so novel, we'd
Speaker 2: never seen anything like this before.
Speaker 4: It excited a lot of reaction in Australia.
Speaker 2: But I mean, if you're Taiwan or if you're Japan,
Speaker 2: for instance, this stuff is commonplace and it barely creates
Speaker 2: a headline, and Australia does it all the time. We
Speaker 2: often sail far to the north, and our navy sometimes
Speaker 2: sails through the Taiwan straight for instance, So we shouldn't
Speaker 2: be too put off by that, you know. The Opposition
Speaker 2: defense spokesman Andrew Hasty referred to this as gunboat diplomacy,
Speaker 2: and that's true. This is a signal from the Chinese
Speaker 2: military that they have a bluewater navy and they're prepared
Speaker 2: to flex their muscles in our region.
Speaker 4: This is gunboat diplomacy.
Speaker 2: But gunboat diplomacy really only works if the nation that's
Speaker 2: being coerced is so worried about the force that can
Speaker 2: be used against it that it actually kind of gives in,
Speaker 2: that caves in. But the Chinese destroyer and the flotilla
Speaker 2: can't actually project overwhelming force against Australia. It carries a
Speaker 2: few dozen missiles that could destroy a few buildings on
Speaker 2: Australian soil in wartime, but that's about it, and that's
Speaker 2: not a huge return given the expense and the risk
Speaker 2: that China would be taking if it ever used a
Speaker 2: fleet like this in wartime. And by risk, of course,
Speaker 2: I mean the fact that Australia is actually quite capable
Speaker 2: of sinking a flotilla like this. We have fairly advanced capabilities.
Speaker 2: I'd argue we need more and we need a better
Speaker 2: focus on anti ship capabilities, but we do have a
Speaker 2: very modern air force that's capable of presenting a serious
Speaker 2: threat to a flotilla of this kind.
Speaker 3: So what's the message China is actually trying to send?
Speaker 3: I mean, are these acts of provocation or the acts
Speaker 3: of defense? What is the message they're actually trying to
Speaker 3: send some of these countries, including Australia.
Speaker 2: Well, again, we do this sort of thing ourselves, so
Speaker 2: it's worth starting an answer to that question by asking, well,
Speaker 2: what is it that we are trying to do when
Speaker 2: we do this? Now, the situations are not quite analogous.
Speaker 2: One of the things that Australia is trying to do
Speaker 2: when we send warships into the South China Sea, for instance,
Speaker 2: is to make a legal point that China's claims to
Speaker 2: those waters has been Chinese territorial waters are wrong and
Speaker 2: that we don't accept them.
Speaker 4: Now in case of.
Speaker 2: The Chinese flow tiller sailing off the coast of Australia,
Speaker 2: nobody has any legal dispute with those waters. So China's
Speaker 2: not trying to make a legal point. It's more a
Speaker 2: point about one is capabilities. We can do this, and
Speaker 2: so we choose to do it. And secondly, I think
Speaker 2: to send a message that the Pacific Ocean is no
Speaker 2: longer an American lake. That ever since the Cold War,
Speaker 2: America has been a dominant maritime power in East Asia,
Speaker 2: and China is telling us that actually that time is over.
Speaker 3: Now. If that's the case, that America is no longer
Speaker 3: dominant in Asia, that's obviously significant for Australia. That's happening
Speaker 3: at a time when Donald Trump is walking away from
Speaker 3: some of America's traditional allies. We've seen it most recently
Speaker 3: with how Trump is handling Ukraine and Zelenski. So what
Speaker 3: do you think this means for Australia and how much
Speaker 3: we can rely on the United States now?
Speaker 2: Well, actually I prefer to start in a slightly different place,
Speaker 2: which is to separate this from Donald Trump and what
Speaker 2: we can see, actually if we take a slightly longer
Speaker 2: historical view, is now thirty plus years of evidence that
Speaker 2: the United States is not fully committed to its allies
Speaker 2: in Asia. Certainly rhetorically it remains committed. Every US president
Speaker 2: since the end of the Cold War has talked about
Speaker 2: the importance of Asia for American prosperity, and since the
Speaker 2: George W. Bush administration, they've talked increasingly about China as
Speaker 2: an adversary. But one thing that hasn't happened is that
Speaker 2: the United States has backed up that rhetoric with, for instance,
Speaker 2: actual military forces. So the military forces that America has
Speaker 2: committed to Asia are now roughly the same in number
Speaker 2: as they were in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 4: Trump, I think is important.
Speaker 2: Of course, I don't mean to dismiss this presidency, but
Speaker 2: really Trump is not so much changing that picture. It's
Speaker 2: just accelerating the relative decline of American power in Asia.
Speaker 4: But I do think that.
Speaker 2: The direction of American policy, whether it's more aggressive or
Speaker 2: actually quite accommodationist, that has really serious.
Speaker 4: Implications for Australia.
Speaker 2: In both cases, I think it means Australia has a
Speaker 2: good argument for behaving more independently.
Speaker 3: Coming up after the break, what Australia needs to defend ourselves?
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Speaker 3: Say've outlined this long term trend when it comes to
Speaker 3: America's diminishing commitment to maintaining a strong presence in the Pacific,
Speaker 3: long before Donald Trump arrived in the White House. But
Speaker 3: what have we seen from this administration when it comes
Speaker 3: to a stance on China.
Speaker 2: Well, it's not clear how this administration views the contest
Speaker 2: with China, because there are a group within the Trump
Speaker 2: administration known as the prioritizers. These are people like Pete Hegseth,
Speaker 2: the Defense Secretary, Getty Vance, the Vice President, and Marco Rubio,
Speaker 2: Secretary of State, who say, look, America is over committed
Speaker 2: in Europe and the Middle East. We simply can't afford
Speaker 2: to do all that anymore. We have to focus on China,
Speaker 2: which is the main adversary.
Speaker 6: The Communist Party of China, is leads to PRC, is
Speaker 6: the most potent and dangerous neuropure adversary this nation has
Speaker 6: ever confronted. They have elements that the Soviet Union never possessed.
Speaker 6: They are a technological adversary and competitor, an industrial competitor,
Speaker 6: and economic competitor, geopolitical competitor, a scientific competitor now and
Speaker 6: every realm is an extraordiny.
Speaker 2: And yet there's also another group that simply not that
Speaker 2: committed to competition against China. They certainly feel there needs
Speaker 2: to be a competition with China on an economic level,
Speaker 2: but whether they have any commitment to the strategic contest
Speaker 2: with China for military and diplomatic supremacy, that's an opening question.
Speaker 2: And that group, I would argue, is headed by President
Speaker 2: Trump himself. I just don't think there's any evidence that
Speaker 2: he sees value in staging some kind of Cold War
Speaker 2: style military strategic contests against China. Either way, I think
Speaker 2: Australia needs to posture for a future in which we
Speaker 2: have to behave more independently.
Speaker 4: We have to be capable of strong independent action.
Speaker 3: Okay, so what does that look like?
Speaker 2: Well, I read a book in twenty twenty three that
Speaker 2: recommended what I called an Ekidney strategy, and basically what
Speaker 2: it calls for is, in a way, I kind of
Speaker 2: return to an earlier view that dates from the late
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies of Australian defense, where we basically we consecrated
Speaker 2: this idea of defending Australia by defending the air and maritime.
Speaker 4: Approaches to Australia. That's an idea that.
Speaker 2: Went slightly out of fashion during the Global War on Terrorism,
Speaker 2: and now in the era of Orcus, it's actually been
Speaker 2: effectively abandoned as well, because August the Nuclear Submarine project
Speaker 2: is an attempt to not defend Australia's air and sea approaches,
Speaker 2: but to defend Australia by essentially supporting America's efforts to
Speaker 2: uphold its preferred order in the Asian region by operating
Speaker 2: submarines that can sail thousands of kilometers away and even
Speaker 2: fire missiles onto the Chinese land mass. So I want
Speaker 2: to return to that earlier doctrine where we focus on
Speaker 2: the air and sea approaches to Australia and where we
Speaker 2: basically make it impossible for any adversary to operate its
Speaker 2: ships and its aircraft safely in those areas. And that's
Speaker 2: an achievable task even in an era where we can
Speaker 2: have far less confidence in America as an ally, Australia
Speaker 2: can independently defend itself if it adopts any kidney strategy.
Speaker 3: And so what kind of escalation in our capability we
Speaker 3: need just to defend Australia as a land mass alone.
Speaker 2: Well, a lot more capability to shoot down aircraft and
Speaker 2: sink ships. That's basically it. Now, there are a lot
Speaker 2: of ways to do that. Talking point in Australian defense policy.
Speaker 2: The perennial debate is submarines, and submarines are very useful
Speaker 2: for sinking ships, but they're not the only way to
Speaker 2: do it. There are much cheaper ways to achieve the
Speaker 2: same effect, and we do that by purchasing a lot
Speaker 2: of highly advanced and stealthy missiles that can be mounted
Speaker 2: on aircraft and can be mounted on diesel submarines. We
Speaker 2: should also be focusing on mine warfare, and we need
Speaker 2: capabilities to defend ourselves against incoming missiles, not just slow
Speaker 2: cruise missiles, but fast hypersonic missiles or ballistic missiles. Our
Speaker 2: northern bases are not well protected in that regard. But again,
Speaker 2: with those kind of improvements and with that refocus, I
Speaker 2: think it's perfectly possible for Australia to mount a plausible
Speaker 2: defense even without American help.
Speaker 3: So with that in mind, how would you categorize our
Speaker 3: approach at this point? What are your thoughts in orcus
Speaker 3: since specifically our plan to have nuclear submarines as part
Speaker 3: of our capability.
Speaker 2: I tend to think that from middle power such as Australia,
Speaker 2: when we pursue a strategy like that, we are escalating,
Speaker 2: and when you escalate against the great power, you lose.
Speaker 2: We're far better off pursuing capabilities that keep any dispute
Speaker 2: or any conflict at a much lower level, and we
Speaker 2: leave it up to the adversary to escalate if they
Speaker 2: choose to. So what we should be focusing on is
Speaker 2: an ability to absorb punishment if we have to, and
Speaker 2: to protect the continent from military attack. But we I
Speaker 2: think it's counterproductive to pursue capabilities that actually threaten China's
Speaker 2: territory and its key interests. I think Australia has learned
Speaker 2: some appropriate lessons here from the economic pressure campaign that
Speaker 2: we suffered from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty two. And
Speaker 2: in that campaign, despite all the pressure that China app
Speaker 2: by imposing tariffs and other sanctions against our exports.
Speaker 4: Australia never retaliated.
Speaker 2: Our exports were able to find new markets for their
Speaker 2: products and so effectively the Chinese pressure campaign failed, and
Speaker 2: at a certain point when our government changed in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two, the Chinese recognized this and their policy changed.
Speaker 2: So I think the appropriate lesson from that is you
Speaker 2: don't need to escalate, You don't need to make a
Speaker 2: lot of fuss. You just need to build a strong
Speaker 2: defense with an ability to absorb pressure.
Speaker 3: Sam, thanks so much for your time and for your analysis.
Speaker 4: Thanks Daniel, appreciating.
Speaker 3: Also in the news, Peter Dutton and Anthony Alberonizi have
Speaker 3: both vowed to protect the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme, saying medicines
Speaker 3: on the scheme will never become a bargaining chip in
Speaker 3: trade negotiations with the US President Donald Trump. The assurance
Speaker 3: has come after a powerful drugs lobby in the US
Speaker 3: asked President Trunk to put tariffs on Australian pharmaceutical imports
Speaker 3: to the US, arguing the PBS is discriminatory and threatens
Speaker 3: billions of dollars and lost sales for American drug makers.
Speaker 3: At least six Australian universities have had American research funding
Speaker 3: paused or counseled since Donald Trump took office. The ABC
Speaker 3: has reported Australian University has received about four hundred million
Speaker 3: dollars in US government funding last year, making it Australia's
Speaker 3: largest research partner. According to the ABC, American government staff
Speaker 3: are now flagging all research grants with a foreign partner,
Speaker 3: meaning they will be reviewed and could be canceled. I'm
Speaker 3: Daniel James. This is seven AM, and tomorrow I'm bringing
Speaker 3: you a fascinating conversation with polster and political strategist Cos Samaris.
Speaker 3: He lays out exactly how polling works and which group
Speaker 3: of Australians is ultimately going to decide the outcome of
Speaker 3: the upcoming election. See it then
Speaker 2: No One