James O’Neill
https://journal-neo.org/2020/07/31/what-we-are-told-and-not-told-about-the-south-china-sea/
Recently the Australian ministers for Foreign Affairs (Payne) and Defence (Reynolds) returned from an audience with U.S. Secretary of State and the former CIA director Pompeo at the AUSMIN Australia-U.S. ministerial talks. During that time they signed a 10 year agreement on defence co-operation.This will mean more U.S. hardware, like aircraft based in Darwin and more American boots on Australian ground. The Washington visit was on display for a number of contending powers and audiences.
One aspect was to support the U.S. campaign in the South China Sea to support so called “Freedom of Navigation”. The area is subject to claims by various nations but it is mainly the U.S. and faithful deputy Australia that sends miltary vessels to test and provoke the claims of China and Vietnam. Last month there were five Australian vessels and one Japanese vessel joining the U.S. contingent there.
However there are operational differences. U.S. vessels deliberately travel through the twelve nautical mile radius of Chinese territories in the South China Sea while Australian ships and planes stay outside.
Minister Payne made great play about friendships and the differences citing our national interest “But most importantly from our perspective, we make our own decisions, our own judgments in the Australian national interest and about upholding our security, our prosperity, and our values.
Despite crafty words seeking to confect some notion of independence of action or thought, there is but a bee’s dick of difference between the U.S. and Australia.
James O’Neill in his NEO article outlines the hypocrisy of U.S. policy and actions in the South China Sea and the Australian governments eagerness to play deputy sheriff yet again.
Bob Carr in the Sydney Morning Herald August 3 2020 quotes Pompeo
“Don’t sell your soul for a pile of soybeans,” warned US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a year ago, when Australian foreign affairs and defence ministers met their United States counterparts. This Kansas front porch advice deserved to be imbibed with caution. Within five months, the US was pumping six times more soybeans into the Chinese market than in the same period last year.
