Expert in aggressive China defense, US-UK-Australia security pact

An increasingly aggressive and assertive China contributed to the formation of a new trilateral security partnership between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, a defense expert told CNBC.

The new partnership, announced Wednesday, seeks to bolster stability in the Indo-Pacific. The United States and the United Kingdom will help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines, which will allow the Australian Navy to help counter Chinese ships in the region.

All three countries downplayed the idea that the partnership is specifically aimed at China.

“I can assure you that none of this would have gone ahead if it weren’t for the more aggressive and assertive policies that Xi Jinping has pursued over the last half of the decade or so,” said Peter Jennings, executive director of the think tank Australian Strategic Policy Institute “Street Signs Asia” on CNBC on Thursday.

Under Xi, China has militarized the South China Sea, tightened controls on Hong Kong, threatened Taiwan and Japan, and economically punished Australia, Jennings added.

“China is the strategic problem of the region,” he said.

“I’m sure Beijing won’t like this development, but what do they expect? Obviously, it will be the case for the consequent countries in the region to try to strengthen themselves to deal with a more aggressive China, and frankly that’s what has happened. with this ad “.

In response to the new security pact, Washington Chinese embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu told Reuters that countries “should not build targeted exclusion blocs or harm the interests of third parties. In particular, they should to eliminate their Cold War mentality and ideological prejudices. “

Derek Grossman, senior defense analyst at RAND Corporation, said China could use unilateral economic sanctions in response to the new security group.

“China has used this … as a lever in the past to punish Australia when it sees fit. But there are also many other things China can do. They can increase its capacity for military assertiveness in the China Sea. South, East China Sea against Taiwan, “Grossman told CNBC’s” Capital Connection. “

Geopolitics experts have said that Taiwan is one of the most dangerous flash points of strategic competition between the US and China.

Jennings said it is important to build “a strong deterrent effect” on the Indo-Pacific region so that China can conclude that “it is not worth pursuing a military game against Taiwan.”

Taiwan and mainland China are separated by the Taiwan Strait, which is only 160 km wide at its narrowest point. The ruling Chinese Communist Party in Beijing has never controlled Taiwan, but says the island is a runaway province that will one day have to reunite with the mainland, by force if necessary.

China has more aggressively asserted its claims about Taiwan and this year there have been numerous violations of Taiwan’s air defense zone by Chinese warplanes.

“Frankly, if we have the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia working together in a more forceful kind of alliance … this is starting to paint a picture that says to China, ‘You’re not going to get away with an attack in Taiwan in the way you managed to militarize the South China Sea, ”Jennings said.

The South China Sea is a resource-rich waterway and a vital trade shipping route through which billions of dollars of world trade were reportedly passed each year.

Beijing claims almost the entire sea and has built military outposts on artificial islands that it built in those waters. Several Asian countries, including Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia, also claim parts of the South China Sea as territories.

In 2016, a court in the Permanent Arbitration Court dismissed China’s lawsuit as legally unfounded, a ruling Beijing ignored.

– CNBC’s Abigail Ng contributed to this report.