By Yin Zhuo and Song Pengchao
Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong held the Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Washington on December 6. This is the first time that the new Australian government has held a "2+2" ministerial meeting with the US since it came to power in May 2022. The two countries announced to increase rotations of US troops and military equipment in Australia and expand logistics cooperation to strengthen their alliance.
Military observer Yin Zhuo analyzed that China-Australian relations have improved since the new Australian government took office. The US-Australia "2+2" meeting this time demonstrates the US's desire to win over the current Australian government to maintain a confrontational posture against China, make Australia's national interests subordinate to the US's "Indo-Pacific region security interests", and promote US's "major power competition" strategy.
The US wants to make Australia a strategic support point like Japan, but Australia's strength does not allow it. Therefore, the US is very eager to strengthen its garrison and armaments in Australia.
It is worth noting that during the AUSMIN talks, the two countries agreed to invite Japan to integrate into our force posture initiatives in Australia in Australia and plan to include Japan in the US-Australia joint military operations in Australia. The reason is that Australia alone is not enough for the US to implement the strategy of "major power competition" in the Asia-Pacific. The US also needs Japan to make up for the shortcomings of its circle of allies.
Therefore, Australia has just changed its government, and the US also needs to win over Japan to consolidate the US-Japan-Australia alliance, further consolidate the small circle of US allies in the Indo-Pacific region, and jointly contain China in the Asia-Pacific region. In this regard, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning indicated a few days ago that the US keeps creating small circles with some of its allies. Such actions would only undermine regional peace and stability.
Yin believes that the AUSMIN meeting between the US and Australia shows that the US has not slowed down its major power competition strategy in the Asia-Pacific region because of the conflicts and disorder in Europe, and countries in the Asia-Pacific region must maintain a high degree of vigilance. The AUSMIN talks focused on military issues, which brought a chill to the regional security situation against the backdrop of the strengthening of cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region. In addition, Australia, Japan, and the ROK continue to strengthen their relationship with NATO, which is also harmful to the security of the Asia-Pacific region.
Editor's note: Originally published on military.cnr.cn, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
