Albo keeps mum on big China question
Anthony Albanese says Australia will 'continue to play an important role in the Pacific' but has stopped short of committing to Taiwan's defence.
The US earlier this month warned China was looking to move on the democratically self-governed island by 2027.
Aside from torching the decades-long status quo, such a move would deal a major blow to global supply of semiconductors – crucial components in modern tech – and massively disrupt vital trade routes.
The Prime Minister was on Monday (AEST) quizzed on how Australia would respond to an escalation in the Indo-Pacific ahead of his meeting with Donald Trump at the G7 summit in Canada this week.
Mr Albanese said Australia was committed to 'peace and security in the region'. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Australia will 'play an important role in the Pacific' but has stopped short of committing to Taiwan's defence. NewsWire / Martin Ollman Credit: News Corp Australia
'That's what we want and Australia is a trusted partner to promote peace and security in our region,' he told reporters in Calgary.
'We have been so forever. If you look at the role that Australia has played, we'll continue to play an important role in the Pacific.'
Mr Albanese pointed to his stop in Fiji as 'a reminder of the fact that Australia is a trusted partner in the Pacific'.
'What that does is to add to security in our region,' he said.
'That is our job. That is what we do and we all want to see that advanced.'
The Trump administration has been calling on Canberra to hike defence spending in response to China – a call the Albanese government has firmly pushed back on.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this month warned Beijing posed an 'imminent' threat.
'Let me be clear, any attempt by Communist China to conquer Taiwan by force would result in devastating consequences for the Indo-Pacific and the world,' Mr Hegseth told the Shangri La Dialogue.
'There's no reason to sugar-coat it. The threat China poses is real and it could be imminent.
'We hope not but certainly could be.'
He raised Australia's defence spending in a one-on-one with Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles on the sidelines of the conference, saying it 'should' be 3.5 per cent of GDP.
In a read out, the US Embassy said the two senior officials 'discussed aligning investment to the security environment in the Indo-Pacific, accelerating US force posture initiatives in Australia, advancing defence industrial base co-operation, and creating supply chain resilience'.
'On defence spending, Secretary Hegseth conveyed that Australia should increase its defence spending to 3.5 per cent of its GDP as soon as possible,' the embassy said.
Australia's closest allies, including the UK, have committed to dramatically ramping up defence to at least 3 per cent, making the Albanese government a clear outlier.
Mr Marles, who also serves as defence minister, again pushed back against Washington's request on Monday.
He insisted Australia has been 'spending more on defence' under Labor.
'We have engaged in the last couple of years in the biggest peacetime increase in defence spending in Australia's history,' Mr Marles told the ABC.
'And that has been a function of the very complex strategic landscape that we face.
'In many ways, the threatening strategic landscape that we face.'
He repeated Mr Albanese's lines that Labor would 'assess our strategic landscape, what are our needs, what's our national interest and then resource it'.
'I mean what we inherited obviously was a defence establishment which wasn't in great shape from the Coalition,' Mr Marles said.
'What we've given to it is strategic clarity.
'We have reprioritised tens of billions of dollars of expenditure but what we've also done is increased spending on defence in order to resource our needs, and we'll continue the process of assessing that and where there is a need resourcing it.'
Labor has committed tens of billions more to defence since coming to power, but much of the funds are tied up in long-term projects, such as AUKUS.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) report warned late last month Australia must boost its immediate readiness to go to war or risk having a 'paper ADF'.
ASPI said that while Labor was spending on longer-term projects it was not pumping nearly enough cash into keeping Australia combat-ready in the near term.
The report, authored by former Home Affairs deputy secretary Marc Ablong, called for 'defence funding to be increased to reflect the reality of the threats facing Australia'.
It said that while the Albanese government 'claims to have made a 'generational investment in Australia's defence', that investment has been put off for another generation', pointing out that the bulk of the billions pledged by Labor would not kick in until after 2029.
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