China's envoy urges Australia to resist US pressure on military spending
FILE PHOTO: This handout photograph taken on March 30, 2022, and released by the Australian Defence Force shows Australian Army soldiers in Bushmaster protected mobility vehicles are on standby to conduct evacuation tasks with the local State Emergency Services due to rising flood waters in the New South Wales town of Lismore. Australia spends a little over two per cent of its gross domestic product on defence and is under pressure from the US to raise that to 3.5 per cent. - Australia Defence Force/AFP
CANBERRA: China's envoy to Canberra urged Australia not to be "incited' by NATO's support for US demands to sharply raise defence spending and instead cooperate with Beijing to resolve regional disputes.
Ambassador Xiao Qian, in an opinion article published in The Australian newspaper Monday, wrote that both Australia and China rely on the same trade routes and have a major stake in safeguarding maritime security. He emphasised their roles as key trade partners with "highly complementary' economies.
"Dramatically increasing military spending places a heavy fiscal burden on the countries involved, undermining their efforts to boost economies and improve livelihoods, and further straining a global economy already struggling with weak recovery,' Xiao said.
He added some countries at events such as the Group of Seven summit and the recent North Atlantic Treaty Organisation meeting have "hyped up the so-called China threat narrative,' to increase defence spending "and even incited Australia to follow suit.'
Australia spends a little over two per cent of its gross domestic product on defence and is under pressure from the US to raise that to 3.5 per cent. The centre-left government has pushed back, pointing out it has already increased outlays.
At a higher level, Canberra is trying to balance the increasingly confrontational relationship between the US and China, which are respectively Australia's historic security ally and its biggest trading partner. Australia likely wants to avoid raising defence spending excessively and antagonising Beijing.
"As I often hear from Australian friends, 'we have hundreds of reasons to be friends, and none to be enemies',' Xiao said.
NATO leaders last week agreed to increase defence spending to five per cent of GDP and renewed their "ironclad commitment' to mutual security as they aim to push back against an increasingly belligerent Russia. The US wants allies to take up more of the fiscal burden for their own defense so it can focus more heavily on China.
Australia's Labor government has managed to rebuild ties with Beijing after they plunged into a deep freeze, which included punitive trade actions against some Australian goods in 2020. The fallout was triggered by the then centre-right government calling for a probe into the origins of Covid-19.
"China and Australia are friends, not foes. This should never have been in question,' Xiao said. "China has been always developing bilateral friendship and co-operation with the utmost sincerity and patience, and we hope Australia will work with us in the same direction.' - Bloomberg
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