The Sydney Morning Herald reports on a speech by Australian Maj. Gen. Adam Findlay to dozens of military officials, in which he asserted that China has game-planned a way of avoiding Western red lines to wage a more subtle form of warfare, but that this could spillover into warfare. Findlay said that for the first time since World War II, Australia was facing a “peer enemy”: China.
“China said, let’s be smarter. Let’s play just below the threshold, before it goes to war,” Findlay explained, stating that China was focusing on “political warfare” to “achiev[e] strategic effects without going kinetic.” Examples given by the newspaper are the $20 billion in tariffs that China imposed on Australian goods, and a wave of cyberattacks on government and infrastructure networks in Australia.
