Warning from Washington: Speak out about Chinese threat or risk AUKUS subs

Washington: Australia must speak more clearly about the threats posed by China, including how it would respond to a regional conflict, or risk the AUKUS submarine agreement, Indo-Pacific experts in the United States are warning.

John Bolton, who served as Donald Trump’s national security adviser in his first term, and held senior roles in other Republican administrations, said policymakers in Washington had noted the Albanese government was “less vocal about what the problem is” compared with its predecessors.

“It is a little hard to get used to,” Bolton said in an interview. “In the Cold War days, Labour governments in Great Britain were just as anti-communist as the Conservatives. When you see a leftist government that’s not willing to talk as openly about what the real threat is, it does make some people nervous.

“I would be less than fully candid if I said it didn’t make me a little nervous. Why the hell are we worried about talking about what the threat is? The struggle is on, and we ought to be candid about it.”

Naval operations expert Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute with close links to the administration, said the AUKUS review was about putting Australia on notice that the US expected Australia to use the submarines it bought.

“The Australians have been a little reticent to explicitly call out that they might use them against China,” he told this masthead. “If you’re not willing to say it in public, then you’re not going to put the Chinese on notice. It has been privately conveyed in the past, but the US would like Australia to make it more public.”

Clark noted – as have other prominent defence experts in Washington – that AUKUS represented a significant portion of the Australian defence budget, especially at the current level of defence spending.

“That’s the concern in the US – that you’re spending 10 to 20 per cent of your procurement budget on this one system, yet you’re not talking about how you might use it,” he said.

Referring to the Pentagon, he said: “There’s definitely some questions on their part about why isn’t Australia being more straightforward about why they are buying these submarines.”

The reluctance to be more explicit made people in the administration believe that “short of a direct attack on Australia, these submarines are probably not going to be in the mix”, Clark said.

Alexander Gray, who was National Security Council chief of staff during Trump’s first term and is now at the Atlantic Council, said the American perception was that Labor had eased its rhetoric on China compared to the Morrison or Turnbull governments.

“You see what looks like a consensus among DFAT [Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade] and Department of Defence folks in Australia – bureaucrats, experts – on the China threat, but the language that comes from politicians is much more dependent on who’s in power,” Gray said.

“I think there’s a little bit of discomfort in our system with a China narrative that can so easily change based on who’s in power. That type of strategic clarity, even if it’s not spoken directly, is going to be an evolving American expectation as we go forward with AUKUS.”

The remarks add context to pronouncements from senior US defence officials pressuring Australia to signal how it would posture, command and otherwise use the three to five nuclear-powered boats it would buy from the US under AUKUS pillar one, amid an ongoing Pentagon review of the deal.

A spokesperson for Foreign Minister Penny Wong contested the points made by the American sources, saying Australia had been “clear and consistent on China’s objectives for changing the regional balance of power”.

“For many years, the foreign minister has outlined Australia’s concerns over the pace and lack of transparency of China’s nuclear and conventional military build-up,” the spokesperson said. “These concerns are also clearly outlined in the Defence Strategic Review commissioned by this government.

“As the foreign minister has said, Australia’s acquisition of conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarines will make Australia better able – in co-ordination with allies and partners – to contribute to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.

“Our enhanced defence capabilities, including through AUKUS, will make Australia a more capable security partner for the region. We know that AUKUS complicates the thinking of potential adversaries.”

Wong has spoken several times with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio since January, including a call this week in which Rubio stressed the importance of the US-Australia alliance in upholding a free and open Indo-Pacific.

All three US experts all believed the AUKUS agreement would endure despite the Pentagon review, led by defence undersecretary Elbridge Colby, an AUKUS sceptic.

Bolton said it was wrong for the US to urge Australia to commit to defending Taiwan against China while the US itself retained a policy of strategic ambiguity.

“To treat Australia as, ‘Well, you put your situation on the line first before we do’ is destructive to the relationship,” he said.

But Bolton said the Pentagon’s demands for Australia to lift defence spending to 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product were reasonable. “Everybody is going to have to go up, I just think that’s inevitable,” he said. “It’s not because of Trump’s pressure, it’s because of what’s going on in the real world.”

Clark said the AUKUS review would allow the Trump administration to “put their own gloss” on a deal agreed under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden.

AUKUS reviewers were less concerned about the capacity of the US maritime industrial base – to which Australia is contributing $US3 billion ($4.6 billion) – to produce enough submarines to enable the sales to Australia, Clark said, because production rates were starting to turn around.

“It sounds like the bigger concerns are: can Australia maintain a commitment to using them in support of an alliance interest, and not just have that be on the down-low, but make it a little bit more explicit,” he said.

He also noted that continuing with AUKUS in 2025 did not bind the US to sell the submarines in the 2030s. A clause in the agreement says the president of the day can block any sale.

“There are plenty of off-ramps for the US down the road,” Clark said. “Everybody has made clear that those plans are contingent on Australia being ready to accept those submarines [at the time].”

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