Principly focused on the type of assets that would allow Australia to credibly make sea denial costly for China. China is much less inclined to do so, absent benefit to itself.Ĭue AUKUS opportunity. Historically, the US has been supportive of this. What would upset Australia's power is a breakdown of freedom of navigation by commercial shipping in the Pacific. Which means if Australia avoids overtly antagonizing China, they'll most likely look the other way to avoid disrupting supply. Which means China needs Australia / Russia / Brazil.

And China with half Russia and Brazil's size.Ĭhina needs steel. Russia and Brazil are the other options, but each with about half Australia's size. I'd assume even higher for the bulk materials.Īustralia has a lot of the world's iron ore deposits. Out of all Australian exports, about 1/3 go to China. Just ask Fidel Castro.”Īustralia exports a huge amount of iron ore and coal. And when we are not happy you do not want to underestimate how nasty we can be. You’re feeding the beast, from our perspective. “And if you’re trading extensively with China, and you’re friendly with China, you’re undermining the United States in this security competition. > “You’re either with us or against us,” he continued. Because again, we’re talking about an intense security competition.” You are then deciding to become an enemy of the United States.

Number one, if you go with China, you want to understand you are our enemy. “You have a choice here: you can go with China rather the United States. > “Now some people say there’s an alternative: you can go with China,” said Mearsheimer. Australia is paying the US to build their own shipyards in the hopes that they get the right to share OLD submarines with the UK. I guess the general consensus is to not risk that. They don't really know what will happen if they go against China, but there are a lot of precedents on what happens to countries that go against the US.

I think John Mearsheimer summed it up quite well.

Hacked big battle tanks