Responding to the new “AUKUS” security agreement, China says it will target the Australian mainland in the event of war.
In an editorial on Wednesday, the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda newspaper the Global Times didn’t hold back. “Once the Australian army fights the People’s Liberation Army in the Taiwan Straits or the South China Sea,” it warned, “military targets in Australia will inevitably become targets of Chinese missiles. Since Australia has become an anti-China spearhead, the country should prepare for the worst.” The Global Times clarified that “China will certainly punish [Australia] with no mercy.”
The Global Times operates under the direction of the Communist Party’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission, so its words carry weight. In turn, should any senior Chinese official make similar comments, the United States should respond in a plain manner. More is at stake than how to deal with incendiary rhetoric.
China is attempting to unilaterally alter the escalatory dynamic that would apply to any South China Sea conflict. Beijing wants U.S. allies to fear that if they decide to support the U.S. in any conflict, their homelands, not the U.S. or Chinese homelands, will come under attack. That is to say, our allies would bear the ultimate cost of American action.
The U.S. should make clear that this threat won’t stand up to the facts. Washington should state that any PLA attack on the Australian mainland will result in a commensurate American counter-strike against the Chinese mainland.
It’s a warning that would carry weight.
Xi Jinping’s regime is deeply sensitive about its borders. Some suggest that U.S. strikes on the Chinese mainland might even lead Beijing to employ its nuclear weapons. Regardless, Australia is one of America’s very closest allies. Its people and government deserve surety that Washington regards this alliance as sacrosanct — that the U.S. government would do anything and everything to deter and defend against an attack on Australian territory. To allow China to make unilateral threats against Australia without American riposte would be to undercut the most critical ingredient of any alliance: trust. China would take advantage in the ensuing vacuum of American credibility, using its uncontested threats to Australia to discourage other U.S. allies from challenging it. This concern bears added weight in the context of former President Donald Trump’s failure to stand with Australia in the face of Chinese economic coercion.
No one wants a Chinese attack on Australia. But the best way to avoid such an attack is to establish a clear, deter-defense guardrail. China must understand that an attack on Australia would be met in kind.
