Opinion | Why is Australia focusing on defence and a vague China ‘threat’ when relations are warming?

The China “threat” has long been trumpeted in Australia, yet there have been few details about what the threat actually consists of. The government’s latest defence strategic review now calls for an overhaul to arm its forces with long-range capabilities, hyping up an undefined China “threat” to justify the expenditure.

The concepts used to garner public support look similar to American tactics deployed during the “war on terror” in Afghanistan – where the strategy was unclear, the goals never defined, but the “threat” was always active and elusive. As Australia’s defence review states, there is “at present only a remote possibility of any power contemplating an invasion of our continent”.

Despite this, Canberra points to China’s military build-up as contesting the global order, failing to mention it is doing so within its own territory. In contrast, Australia’s shift in defence policy is aimed at defending jurisdictions beyond its immediate borders by increasing the range of its missiles to hit targets 500km away or further, from the current 40km.

This defence review is not Australia’s first attempt to shift its military posturing. A similar report in 2020 outlined a plan that included a A$270 billion (US$180 billion) shake-up of the defence forces. For China, Australia is not a point of contention. Still, policymakers in Canberra are trying very hard to make it so, despite seeking a thaw to return relations to how they were before 2020.

Australia’s economic growth is expected to slow this year, and provisions for the project will come from either by halting or limiting other defence projects in order to procure new off-the-shelf solutions.

The latest defence review acknowledges that two years after the government established its Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) Enterprise, to build its own guided missiles, the initiative still “lacks available financial resources over this decade and lacks the required workforce. It is yet to produce a strategy.” There is also a “lack of clarity around roles and responsibilities”.