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Australia at centre of Indo-Pacific alliances to counter China
Canberra's 70-year-old defence alliance with Washington already commits Australia to act in response to an attack on US forces in the Pacific, analysts said.
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US President Joe Biden watches as Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks virtually on national security in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on September 15, 2021. (AFP/Brendan Smialowski)
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ustralia finds itself as the common link in a new mesh of global alliances centred on the Indo-Pacific that are all but in name aimed at countering China's rising military power and economic clout.
Canberra's 70-year-old defence alliance with Washington already commits Australia to act in response to an attack on US forces in the Pacific, analysts said.
A new defence partnership, AUKUS, with the United States and Britain to share nuclear-powered submarines is significant not only for increasing Australia's deterrence capabilities, but also focussing Britain on the region, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday.
The European Union's strategy to boost its Indo-Pacific presence, outlined on Thursday, will seek trade deals with Australia and Taiwan and closer maritime ties with Australia, Indonesia and Japan to keep open sea routes.
Morrison will travel to Washington on Monday for the first face-to-face meeting of leaders of the Quad, a grouping of India, Japan, Australia and the United States.
The scope of the talks, spanning freedom of navigation, critical technology and COVID-19 recovery, has grown swiftly since it was revived.
The Quad was put on ice a decade ago by Canberra because of the objections of China, its largest trading partner, to the group's naval exercises.
