By Paul Keating, Pearls and Irritations, August 9, 2024
The Albanese government with their policy is likely to turn Australia into the 51st state of the United States, writes former Prime Minister of Australia, Paul Keating.
Introduction: Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong have been in the US for talks with the Secretaries of Defense and State this week. Australia has pledged to increase the frequency of American troops rotating through the country.
Former prime minister Paul Keating is a critic of the Labor Party’s all-in support for the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal, and our growing military relationship with the US.
“In defence and foreign policy, this is not a Labor government,” Mr Keating said. “This is a party which has adopted the defence and foreign policies of the Morrison Liberal government. “This is a sellout.”
Mr Marles is in the US and has agreed to allow the transfer of US and UK naval nuclear material to Australia. The partnership also provides for more rotations of US troops to the region, which Mr Keating criticised.
“What he said made me cringe … it will make any Labor person cringe,” Mr Keating said.
“There’ll be American force posture now in Australia, involving every domain.
“This government has sold out to the United States.
“They’ve fallen for the dinner on the White House lawn.
“The prime minister gets the dinners on the White House lawn … [and] these turkeys all fall for it.”
In the interview below, he spoke to ABC 7.30 Report’s Sarah Ferguson. (VIDEO HERE.)
Sarah Ferguson: Paul Keating welcome to 7:30.
Paul Keating: Thank you Sarah.
Sarah Ferguson: Richard Marles has been in Washington this week. He said American military involvement with Australia is in every domain. Land, sea, air, cyber and space. What’s wrong with cooperating with an ally deemed indispensable for Australia’s security?
Paul Keating: What’s wrong is that we completely lose our strategic autonomy: the right of Australia, Australian governments, and the Australian people to determine where and how they respond in the world is taken away, if we let the United States and that military displace our military and our foreign policy prerogatives.
Sarah Ferguson: Is it your argument also that increasing American troop presence and broader military presence here makes Australia more of a target?
Paul Keating: Yes. I think we’re now defending the fact that we’re in AUKUS. If we weren’t in AUKUS we wouldn’t need to defend.
Let me amplify the point.
That is, 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
Sarah Ferguson: Why is America aggressive?
Paul Keating: Because it’s going to… it’s aggressive because it’s trying to superintend, from the Atlantic, the largest Asian power – which is China with four times its population, an economy 20% larger, a Navy of the same size – they’re going to try and superintend it as the primary – get this – the primary strategic power in Asia.
That is, 9,000 km from the California coast, facing a country of 1.4 billion, four times their population. They’re going to superintend them.
They’re going to knock them into line…
Sarah Ferguson: Well, the rationale for this has been, since the publication of the defence strategic review, has been clear: that is the rapid escalation, the rapid and undeniable escalation of the Chinese military. Why shouldn’t Australia embrace an alliance that counterbalances that power?
Paul Keating: Because that power has no strategic – no strategic designs upon Australia. What this is all about is the Chinese laying claim to Taiwan. And the Americans are going to say “no, no, we’re going to keep these Taiwanese people protected” even though they’ve got, they’re sitting on Chinese real estate.
Sarah Ferguson: Although it’s, well let me, let me just stop there on the Chinese real estate. What about Taiwanese real estate and the wishes of the Taiwanese people?
Paul Keating: Yeah, well the Chinese real estate is part of China.
Let me make the analogy. It would be like the Chinese saying, say to us:
“Look we think Tasmania has been forgotten and poorly treated for many years. We want to keep the sea route down the East Coast of Australia through Bass Straight across to Perth and the Indian Ocean open. So we’re going to put some frigates there, and we will economically support the Tasmanian people should they wish to secede from Australia…”
Look, we’d say that’s shocking. That’s shocking.
Sarah Ferguson: Let’s just stay with Taiwan for the moment. The Chinese have said that they will, by taking back Taiwan, to use their phrase, they would dismantle all of Taiwanese civil society. Are you prepared to just see all of that gone?
Paul Keating: Taiwan is not a vital Australian interest.
Tasmania would be if it was us. We would fight anybody touching Tasmania. Like the Chinese will fight anyone touching Taiwan.
See the thing is this Sarah. Get this: 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. So we end up being – we get the carry on rights and all of a sudden the Americans take off and leave us and we’re the ones that have done all the offense, you know what I mean?
Sarah Ferguson: Let me just come back to the question I asked though because, as was said, in the defence strategic review this is about responding to – not the only – but one of the primary reasons for the reshaping of the Australian military in concert with the United States and allies in the region is because of the rapid escalation of the Chinese military. So the question is why shouldn’t Australia embrace an alliance that seeks to balance that power?
Paul Keating: We’re not threatened by the Chinese military.
Look, China’s got an economy now, according to the IMF, 20% larger than America. What are they expecting, for them to move around in rowboats? Canoes maybe? You know? So they developed their own submarines, their own frigates, their own aircraft carriers. They are the other major state in the world. And now what do the Americans say?: “tsk tsk, now keep your place, you know, go back to your canoes.”
You know? I mean really…
Sarah Ferguson: But if you were Prime Minister, and you had the responsibility, as you have had in the past, to defend Australia wouldn’t you seek to counter an unprecedented military expansion? Something we haven’t, the size of which we haven’t seen since the second world war by the most powerful possible adversary?
Paul Keating: Australia is capable of defending itself.
Let’s say, what is a threat? And that is an invasion. An invasion comes in an armada. With satellites today you see the armada formed, you would see it leave its harbor. You see it for 10 or 15 days come to Australia, and you would sink every one of them on the way.
You don’t need the United States to defend Australia.
Australia is quite capable of defending itself.
Sarah Ferguson: I just want to come back to what you said about Taiwan, because it sounds from what you’re saying that you would be perfectly happy to give up any support of Taiwan, for the Chinese to resume control of Taiwan. You have no objection to that.
Paul Keating: Any military support? Absolutely.
Sarah Ferguson: What about any support for the Taiwanese people who say they don’t want that?
Paul Keating: It’ll get resolved socially and politically over time. That’s what will happen there. But the thing is it’s not our matter. I mean does anyone want their kids to be shot to death on a sandy beach in Taiwan? Australian kids shot to death on a sandy beach in Taiwan? This is the outcome of such a policy.
Sarah Ferguson: Let’s just go to AUKUS for a moment because there are analysts who say that developments in our, in AI, will make it easier to track large manned submarines and that we should be focusing more on building swarms of unmanned underwater drones. Is that what you’re concerned about, defence betting on the wrong technology?
Paul Keating: No. What I’m concerned about is us… you see we’re going to get AUKUS, but not the submarines. What we’re going to get is what Kurt Campbell, the Deputy Secretary of State has said: “We’re going to tie these guys up for 40 years.”
What AUKUS is about in the American mind is turning the suckers in Australia, locking us up for 40 years with American bases all around.
I mean what this report today tells you, they can have American bases all around Australia. American bases not Australian. But all around Australia.
So AUKUS is really about, in American terms, the military control of Australia.
I mean what’s happened.. I say this. I say this. The Albanese government with their policy is likely to turn Australia into the 51st state of the United States.
Sarah Ferguson: Let’s talk about what the Chinese, what China has done. The way you put it it’s as if China is simply on the defensive from an aggressive America. You use the, you used the term aggressive earlier on. But China has territorial disputes of its own with Vietnam, with India, with Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei. Don’t you welcome a countervailing force?
Paul Keating: The Americans are not a countervailing force. They… look, just imagine this Sarah. Just imagine if the Chinese Blue Water Navy was sailing on the coast of California, stopping off or nearby Los Angeles and San Diego. Could you imagine the uproar? Right? But this is what they do every day of the week to the Chinese.
Sarah Ferguson: At the same time there’s a series of countries in Asia, democracies, who could change their countries profoundly, want to, who choose to have. and allow to remain, American bases in Asia.
Paul Keating: Yeah good on them. But not us. We’ve got a continent of our own and a border with nobody and we’re not likely to be threatened by a soul.
The only threat likely to come from us is because we have an aggressive ally. Because of AUKUS.
I mean all of this defensive talk now – defending us against AUKUS. If we didn’t have AUKUS, you wouldn’t need the defence. You follow me?
Sarah Ferguson: Just to finish, is it your contention as someone who was once responsible for the defence of Australia, that faced with the rapid escalation of the Chinese military, Australia should do nothing?
Paul Keating: No.
Australia should have submarines which protect the littoral waters of Australia. It should have attacking and bomber aircraft to sink ships. It should have self propelled mines. It should have all the things, the modern things that you can keep. Look there’s no way another state can invade a country like Australia with an armada of ships without it all failing. I mean Australia is quite capable of defending itself.
We don’t need to be basically a pair of shoes hanging out of the American backside.
Sarah Ferguson: Paul Keating, thank you very much indeed for joining us.
First published by ABC, 7.30 report, August 8, 2024. Transcript by Pearls and Irritations.
