Australia is right to protest China’s missile testing, but moral indignation and selective outrage are no substitute for a serious strategy on China’s growing power.
As the old cliché goes, the definition of madness is when one keeps doing the same thing over again that does not work. This week it is particularly apposite as we hear from both sides of politics, apoplectic with protests, indignation, and victimhood over China’s single missile test launch that landed somewhere in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.
This is the same storm of protest unleashed last year when three People’s Liberation Army Navy vessels were spotted by a commercial aircraft pilot bobbing around in the wide expanse of the Tasman Sea and on another occasion a purported Mathew Flinders like circumnavigation. And has been repeated over again, whether because of close encounters between aircraft or naval vessels in the South China Sea, or elsewhere.
Contrast the near hysteria in Australia with Japan which must deal with regular Chinese and Russian sea and air incursions, and the occasional DPRK missile tests.
The Australian Government, along with others, is correct to make formal diplomatic protests over the most recent test – better in the company of like-minded states with a coordinated approach – but can we be spared the moral indignation.
For Australia’s protests to have credibility, it would help if we had made similar protests over weapons testing by the US. Hypocrisy hollows out our howls of protest.
China is just behaving like any other great power. As foreshadowed in my book, Great Game On (2024), having achieved pre-eminence in Eurasia, China is now free to project power globally. That is exactly what it is doing. Australia can expect more of this to come.
Defence Minister, Richard Marles, intones about the need for greater transparency from China over its rapidly expanding nuclear program, of which the most recent testing is evidently part.
A look at the numbers of warheads would give him his answer: China is playing catch up. Russia and US have rough parity of just over 5,000 war heads each, China is just over 600 so it is reasonable to expect China will want to close the gap.
This is not something that should bring anyone comfort, but it is something that is going to happen whether we like it not. The questions then are what we can do about it and is it time for a rethink of how Australia has dealt with China’s inexorable ascendency.
Australia’s strategy since the mid 2010s, when the US shifted its stance towards China from strategic engagement to competition and containment, has been to push back against China. Australia hardened its military alliance with the US, pursuing interoperability and even interdependence between our respective militaries and expanding US basing in Australia, even at some cost to sovereignty.
This seemed a good idea at the time while the Trump 1.0 and Biden Administrations pursued a policy of maintaining US primacy over China. It looks markedly different today under Trump 2.0. And now with Iran added to the list of failed overseas interventions, US will and even capacity to confront China are seriously in doubt.
While Canberra insists that the US is not turning away from the Indo-Pacific, substantial military assets have been re-deployed to the Middle East. And on issues involving tensions between China and US allies Japan, Taiwan and Philippines, Washington’s interventions have been more nuanced, even muffled, than in the past.
President Trump continues to talk of the G2 with China, and their respective trade disputes, though still alive, have been managed without boiling over into a deeper rift in bilateral relations. India and China’s bilateral relationship, never comfortable, is probably better than it has been for a long time. It also seems as if another QUAD Summit is like waiting for Godot.
Meanwhile, China continues to test long range missiles into the Pacific (the first was in 2024) and build up its conventional and nuclear arsenals. It now dominates global manufacturing and is the single biggest market for over 120 countries, few more so than Australia. It plays a significant role in the transition to a low carbon economy globally. Even Australian consumers have gone wild for Chinese EVs, thereby reducing Australia’s vulnerability to Middle East oil shocks.
Although Australian political figures never tire of dark warnings about living in the ‘most dangerous of times’, without ever saying what the threat is, its nature and consequences, or how imminent it might be, it would be more constructive to simply acknowledge the complexity of the global situation. Policy-making in this environment is tough. Certainly, it goes beyond the simplistic Manichaean choice that frames policy thinking in Canberra today.
Critical acknowledgement of what has worked and what hasn’t would be a good starting point. While much of Australia’s efforts have achieved little, commendably, once Canberra became serious about the Pacific, some potentially valuable results, such as this week’s agreement with Fiji, have been scored. China has noticed. But much more will need to be done to deal with China as it becomes the pre-eminent power in our region. It is time for a wider and better informed public discussion.
Geoff Raby: Ambassador to China, 2007-11; 2nd edn. of China’s Grand Strategy and Australia’s Future in the New Global Order was published in May 2025 and Great Game On, November 2024, both by Melbourne UP.