China's nuclear build-up driving ‘security anxiety', Richard Marles says
China's rapidly growing nuclear arsenal is driving 'security anxiety' in Australia, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles says.
As of mid-2024, China's operational nuclear warheads exceeded 600, according to the US Department of Defence.
That was nearly triple what the country was estimated to have in 2020.
Speaking to reporters in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, Mr Marles said on Thursday evening (local time) Beijing's nuclear activity 'does shape how we think about the strategic landscape that we face'.
'I mean, we've made no secret of the fact that we have a security anxiety in relation to China that's principally driven by the very significant conventional military build-up that China is engaging in, and, for that matter, a nuclear build-up that China is engaging in,' said Mr Marles, who also holds the defence portfolio.
'We've made that clear to China itself.'
He refused to say whether Australia would lift its defence budget in line with Washington's demand to hike military spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP.
Mr Marles said Australia would 'determine its own defence spending based on our own national interest' and 'America understands that'.
'In fact, we've increased our defence spending considerably already,' Mr Marles said.
'We have, over the last couple of years, engaged in the biggest increase in peacetime spending for defence in our history, and that has significantly begun the process of enhancing the capability of the Australian Defence Force.'
He added that spending on 'procurement in the financial year 23-24 it was the largest amount that defence has ever spent, and we will spend more again in this financial year, 24-25'.
'So that spending is happening across the board. We will continue to look at the resources that we need, the capabilities that we need, and we will resource that appropriately, which is what I've said, and what the Prime Minister has also said, and we will do that in a manner which meets the strategic moment,' Mr Marles said.
ADF chief David Johnston warned on Wednesday that Australia must consider launching combat operations from its own territory, saying Canberra needed to rethink the national preparedness.
'Perhaps finally we are having to reconsider Australia as a homeland from which we will conduct combat operations,' he told a major defence conference.
'That is a very different way, almost since the Second World War, of how we think of national resilience and preparedness.'
Admiral Johnston said Australia 'might need to operate and conduct operations from this country'.
Asked on Thursday if Australians were 'fully aware' of the risks facing their country, Mr Marles said there was 'at the academic level, a lot of discussion'.
'But I would also say that at the level of main street, when you're talking to people across Australia … there is a broad sense that we live in a much more complex world,' he said.
'That world is uncertain, and that we need a government which is focused on national security.'
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