Australia and Japan are both being goaded into being adjuncts of the U.S. encirclement of China. The Sydney Morning Herald on April 30 reported remarks by Australian retired Maj. Gen. Adam Findlay in which he claimed that China is already engaged in “gray zone warfare” against Australia. Over the last few days, that daily reported that the Australian government’s language on China has hardened. Defense Minister Peter Dutton has said a war over Taiwan could not be discounted, that Australia was “already under attack” in the cyber domain and that he wants to have a “more frank discussion with the public” about China’s intentions.
Meanwhile, U.S. think tanks, with tacit support from the Pentagon, are pushing Japan to play a role supporting the U.S. Navy in a conflict with China over Taiwan. An article in the Nikkei Asia Journal takes note of the geographical reality that the waters off China’s coast are shallow, meaning that Chinese submarines are vulnerable to tracking before they can disappear into deeper waters outside the first island chain. “For them to move from China’s near seas to the open ocean, they’re going to have to transit through different chokepoints and straits in the island chains,” said Tom Shugart, a former U.S. Navy submariner and an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank. “That will provide opportunities for an adversary — the U.S. and our allies’ submarine forces — to monitor more closely and try to intercept them if we were involved in a conflict, or in the run-up to a conflict.”
