Australian think tank report reflects a Cold War worldview

Occasionally a familiar political creature hops across Australia’s strategic landscape: the “China threat” report.

The latest specimen, released by the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, and amplified by some Australian media outlets, arrives with all the expected ingredients. It is a geopolitical thriller assembled from worst-case scenarios, speculative extrapolations and enough military jargon to make a defense contractor blush.

Yet what is striking is not what the report contains, but what it carefully omits. The report openly acknowledges that it focuses on China’s capabilities rather than intentions. In other words, Australians should worry about certain military capabilities that China possesses. By that logic, nearly every major country with a certain level of military power constitutes an imminent threat to the country.

Capabilities, however, do not exist in a political vacuum. Intentions matter. History matters. Policy matters. China pursues a defensive national defense policy. Its military modernization is aimed at safeguarding sovereignty, territorial integrity and core national interests. The relevant question is: where is the evidence that China intends to attack Australia?

The report offers none. Instead, it relies heavily on a familiar Western strategic reflex: if China grows stronger, danger automatically grows with it. That assumption says more about the Cold War worldview of some Western strategists than about China itself.

Many Western powers spent centuries projecting military force across oceans, overthrowing governments, launching wars and imposing political systems on distant societies. Some of them still do — or try to. It is perhaps understandable that some analysts assume every country with similar capabilities will follow the same script.

But assumptions are just that, assumptions.

While some ideologically blinkered Australian analysts obsess over hypothetical Chinese military bases, they remain curiously silent about the risks of one of the region’s most dramatic military expansion projects: AUKUS.

Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarine technology under the AUKUS framework has generated serious concerns throughout the Asia-Pacific. The arrangement risks undermining the international nuclear weapons nonproliferation regime, stimulating an arms race and injecting new strategic tensions into an already fragile region.

Yet somehow the country doing so is portrayed as the nervous seeker of “security”, while the country warning of the risks is the “aggressor”.

That requires a remarkable gymnastic performance of logic.

The timing of the report is particularly notable because China and Australia have spent the past several years painstakingly rebuilding relations.

When Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong in Beijing less than two months ago, both sides emphasized cooperation, free trade, stable supply chains and support for multilateralism. Both governments recognized the highly complementary nature of their economies and their shared interest in regional stability.

Those are not the talking points of two countries preparing for confrontation. It is, instead, the language of two countries trying to be partners attempting to manage differences while expanding cooperation. It seems some in Australia want to undermine that.

The larger reality is that China is not seeking to become another version of yesterday’s hegemonic powers. Beijing’s diplomacy is centered on building a community with a shared future for humanity, promoting its Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, Global Civilization Initiative and Global Governance Initiative. Proposals that are fundamentally about cooperation and exchanges, not conquering, bullying or coercing.

A more inclusive and equitable international order would benefit developing and developed countries alike — including Australia.

The latest Lowy Institute report may succeed in generating headlines and raising the anxiety of some. But as strategic analysis, it often resembles a mirror more than a window. And what it reflects is not China.