Keating Attacks Albanese AUKUS Policy Aimed at China: US 51st State
Kanako Mita, Sawako Utsumi, and Lee Jay Walker
Modern Tokyo Times
Paul Keating, the former prime minister of Australia, condemned the foreign policy of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. He attacked the anti-China foreign policy of Albanese concerning AUKUS.
Keating is dismayed by the anti-China approach of Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, and Defence Minister Richard Marles. He claims the AUKUS approach will endanger Australia and entail the nation being the 51st state of America by stealth.
Keating implied that the foreign policy of Albanese is not in keeping with a Labor government.
He said, “This is a party which has adopted the defense and foreign policies of the Morrison Liberal government.”
The Jamestown Foundation (William Yuen Yee) in 2021 reported on the new development of AUKUS. This important think tank reports, “The AUKUS trilateral security pact between Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, which was announced in September, further roiled Sino-Australian relations. Under the agreement, the US and UK will share advanced nuclear submarine technology with Australia. The three countries will also share information about long-range strike capabilities, artificial intelligence, and underwater systems (The Sydney Morning Herald, September 16).”
In the past, Australia sought a more nuanced approach to America and China. Accordingly, the leaders of Australia avoided taking sides between the ambitions of Washington and Beijing.
The BBC reports (2023), “The details, unveiled on Monday in San Diego, bind together Australia, the UK and the US in a far-reaching defense and security alliance aimed at confronting Chinese military expansion in the Indo-Pacific region.”
Keating – speaking strongly on ABC News – said, “What AUKUS is about in the American mind is turning [Australia into suckers], locking us up for 40 years with American bases all around … not Australian bases.”
He continued, “So AUKUS is really about, in American terms, the military control of Australia. I mean, what’s happened … is likely to turn Australia into the 51st state of the United States.”
Keating believes that AUKUS is tying Australia to defend parts of the Asia Pacific that are outside the geopolitical interests of Australia.
He said, “If we weren’t in AUKUS, we wouldn’t need to defend it. If we didn’t have an aggressive ally like the United States – aggressive to others in the region – there’d be nobody attacking Australia. We are better left alone than we are being ‘protected’ by an aggressive power like the United States.”
Keating is adamant that “Australia is capable of defending itself.”
The Guardian reports, “Keating, a longstanding opponent of Labor’s support for the pact, said Australia had not been threatened by China, whose expanding military presence, he said, was in line with its position as the world’s second superpower.”
Keating said Taiwan was Chinese “real estate.”
ABC News reports, “Should conflict arise between the US and China over Taiwan, Mr Keating said Australia would be the nation that would ultimately lose out.”
Keating also hinted at America’s history of pulling out (Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, and others) of military situations.
He said, “The Chinese will fight to the last teenage soldier to defend Taiwan and the Chinese state, and the Americans will not take on such a fight – and more than that, will not win it… [Then] all of a sudden the Americans take off…”
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan is also tying Japan to anti-China and anti-Russian Federation postures to appease America.
Albanese and Kishida are following the anti-China containment policies of America – concerning the administration of President Joe Biden.
https://jamestown.org/program/australia-china-tensions-simmer-amid-trade-war-and-aukus
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-08/paul-keating-aukus-china-albanese-foreign-policy/104201388
PHOTO – U.S. Secretary of Defense
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