Latest news with #AustralianStrategicPolicyInstitute
ABC News
2 days ago
- Business
- ABC News
Tanker believed to be carrying fuel processed in India from Russian oil docks in Western Australia
A tanker believed to be carrying fuel derived from Russian oil has docked in Western Australia, with question marks surrounding the cargo exposing glaring loopholes in government sanctions against Moscow. Seferis sails under a Greek flag and berthed in Kwinana, 40 kilometres south of Perth, about 3am on Wednesday after departing India on July 11. Australia sanctioned Russian oil soon after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022. But India did not and refines Russian crude oil into liquid fuels like diesel and petroleum. When Australia purchases those products from India, it could be inadvertently funding the war in Ukraine. The issue is, there is no real way to confirm the origins of the fuel on Seferis, let alone what is being pumped at the bowser. Russia's income from exporting oil is the backbone of its economy and has effectively bankrolled the nation's war machine in Ukraine for three-and-a--half years. While Australia has committed to starving that revenue, the involvement of third parties like India has muddied the waters. Director of national security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, John Coyne, said the majority of the country's imported liquid fuel does not come from India, but that does not clear up the issue at hand. "If Australia is to meet its full commitment of applying those sanctions, then it must also ensure that we don't contribute to a system that washes Russian oil through India," he said. Mr Coyne said Australia could follow the lead of the European Union, which applied sanctions to refineries that use Russian crude oil. "The first step here is making that very clear declaration that Australia will not take liquid fuels that find their origin in Russian oil and result in the transfer of money back into Russia that inevitably is used to prosecute and fund the campaign in Ukraine," he said. Ukrainian and Australian campaigners say Seferis is delivering fuel from the Jamnagar refinery in India. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) found in the first half of this year, almost half of Jamnagar's crude oil feedstock came from Russia. "This crude is refined into a variety of oil products — gasoline, diesel, jet fuel etc. Any country importing these products from this specific refinery can expect Russian molecules in them," CREA's EU-Russia analyst Vaibhav Raghunandan said. CREA estimated in the first four months of 2025 Australia bought more than $1 billion of oil from India that was derived from Russian crude. Earlier this month, two vessels carrying 175,000 tonnes of oil from the Jamnagar refinery berthed at Botany Bay in Sydney. The federal government said it had imposed more than 1,500 sanctions on Russia, including measures to restrict the import of oil that originated in Russia. In June, Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced Australia's first sanctions against Russia's shadow fleet, which employs a variety of murky tactics to conceal the origins of its cargo. "Regrettably, the mechanisms we would need to track and monitor all energy products via third countries are not in place in those countries," a spokesperson for Ms Wong said. "We are evaluating options to place further pressure on Russia's oil revenues." Speaking on Tuesday, WA's Defence Industries Minister Paul Papalia said the western world needed to be alert to the prospect of "Russia getting around sanctions and getting its oil to market … by sneaky means". "I think that is a real threat, anywhere in the world," Mr Papalia said. "Russia is still selling its oil around the world and they do it by third parties, things like refining in [third party] countries and then exporting." An international law expert said without mechanisms to oversee third party imports, the option to cut off India from Australia's supply is theoretically on the table. Australia introduced its autonomous sanctions laws, allowing it to impose sanctions independently of the United Nations, in 2011 and it has given flexibility to the government to target restrictions. "They can issue sanctions on a particular product and how we import that, which could include banning importing through a third-party state if it can be connected back to Russian oil," said Melanie O'Brien, an associate professor of international law at the University of Western Australia. Mr Coyne said the government would have to weigh up the implications of a drastic move like cutting ties with India. "At the pump, Australians want to pay the cheapest possible price for liquid fuel," he said. "There's [also] the pressure of our diplomatic relationship at a bilateral level with India. "All of these things play out."
Bangkok Post
5 days ago
- Politics
- Bangkok Post
Analysis reveals Cambodia as primary escalator in Thai border conflict
An analysis has revealed Cambodia initiated the majority of escalatory actions leading to deadly border clashes with Thailand, according to detailed evidence compiled by Australian defence expert Nathan Ruser. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute analyst examined data from February to July, identifying 33 Cambodian escalatory events versus 14 Thai actions. His timeline, based on observable military developments, shows Cambodia systematically fortified border positions months before clashes that killed 12 people on Thursday. Mr Ruser clarified that the identification of military equipment and units moving towards the Cambodian border came from official situation reports, not from satellite imagery. Early fortification evidence Satellite imagery detected the first Cambodian tactical improvements between Feb 23 and 28, when troops cleared and upgraded a frontline road at Sam Yaek Lao junction in Chong Bok. This marked the beginning of sustained military preparations visible from space. By mid-March, imagery showed Cambodian forces constructing access roads to the strategic Phnom Prasitthi hilltop, directly opposite Thai positions. Between March 18 and 23, satellite data revealed heavy fortification of this strategic base. Further fortified positions appeared on satellite imagery throughout March, including a substantial outpost at Hill-641 within 300 metres of the border by March 25. Aerial photography later confirmed the extensive nature of these fortifications. Escalating military deployment Following a May 28 firefight that killed a Cambodian warrant officer, satellite tracking detected massive troop movements. Within 24 hours, imagery showed Cambodia deploying about 800 to 1,000 troops, including elite forces, rocket artillery and armoured units, to border areas. By May 30, satellite data confirmed deployment of approximately 12 SH-1 155mm self-propelled artillery vehicles from Preah Vihear command to frontline positions – nine to Ta Muen Thom sector, three to Chong Bok. Satellite imagery from June 5 revealed around 30 T-55 tanks positioned near Preah Vihear temple, stationed at the intersection between the temple and Phnom Prasitthi outpost. Landmine deployment detected Satellite analysis identified systematic explosive device placement beginning July 1. Imagery showed Cambodian Engineering Battalion 392 planting over 120 PMN-2 landmines on Hill 570's eastern slopes, expanding to over 300 mines by July 3. Additional satellite data detected another 100 landmines planted in the Emerald Triangle area by July 10. These weapons later caused casualties among Thai forces, with two separate incidents resulting in soldier amputations. Weapons positioning evidence June satellite imagery confirmed deployment of short-range air defence vehicles to Chong Bok sector on July 4. Earlier imagery from June 14 supported Thai military claims that Cambodia had positioned long-range artillery targeting the Thai town of Kantharalak. The final escalation occurred on Thursday when widespread artillery attacks in the Ta Muen Thom temple area killed 11 Thai civilians and one soldier, with Ruser's heatmap showing concentrated Cambodian military activity throughout the day. Timeline verification Ruser's satellite-based analysis covers the complete escalation period, beginning with the Feb 13 temple incident through the July 24 clashes. The imagery evidence supports his assessment that Cambodia conducted systematic military preparations whilst diplomatic efforts proceeded. Key satellite-verified developments include road construction, hilltop fortifications, artillery positioning, tank deployments, and explosive device placement – all observable through overhead imagery analysis. The satellite expert, whose work on conflict zones including Ukraine and Myanmar has gained international media recognition, concluded that observable military evidence clearly shows Cambodia as the primary escalator in the border dispute.
The Age
6 days ago
- Business
- The Age
A China shock 2.0 is emerging to rock America
Yet instead of pursuing the policies needed to meet this threat head-on, the MAGA agenda is heavily focused on fighting the last war – on bringing manufacturing jobs lost to China and elsewhere back to the US. The challenge, Autor and Hanson argue, is not that of attempting to resuscitate the industrial might of a bygone age, but ensuring that the US is front and centre of the new technologies and able to convincingly harness them to its own ends. This endeavour is not obviously helped by Trump's scattergun approach to tariffs, punishing friend and foe alike, his propensity to alienate rather than co-operate with allies, the stupefying attacks on scientific research and the repudiation of foreign talent – once the very lifeblood of American advancement. Nor is it helped by the administration's casual disregard for the great asset of dollar hegemony which, bizarrely, Stephen Miran, Trump's chief economic adviser, seems to regard as in some way partly responsible for America's de-industrialisation. An administration seemingly hell-bent on fiscal ruin, and on weakening the dollar for the purposes of making US goods more competitive, doesn't exactly inspire international confidence in the dollar as a reserve currency asset. Loading China, by contrast, is investing heavily in the digital yuan as a way of internationalising its own currency, of offering an alternative to the fool's gold of cryptocurrency and of usurping the dollar for cross-border payments. Already, it is making steady progress. Why any longer should Brazil use the dollar for selling soybeans to China when Trump threatens the country with punitive tariffs for the sin of prosecuting his friend, Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president? Why indeed should it employ the dollar at all when the US regularly uses its power for extraterritorial purposes? In the developing world, Western influence is waning fast; China has been quick and single-minded at moving into its place. China has many problems and challenges, from the demographic to the still-deflating credit and property bubbles. But its catch-up and overtake approach to the technologies of the future is already paying big dividends. As, too, is the aggressive expansion of China's universities sector, originally begun under Jiang Zemin's presidency in the late 1990s, and heavily focused on Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), the US-led China in 60 of 64 frontier technologies as recently as 2007, judged by share of the world's most-cited research, while China led the US in three. However, by 2023, these rankings were reversed, with China leading in 57 of 64 key technologies, and the US in seven. 'China has built the foundations to position itself as the world's leading science and technology superpower, by establishing a sometimes stunning lead in high-impact research across the majority of critical and emerging technology domains,' the ASPI says. All of the world's top 10 research institutions in some technologies are based in China, and are already collectively generating nine times more high-impact research papers than the second-ranked country (most often the US). The potential threat from Chinese AI is too great to ignore. Now, globally recognised companies at the forefront of their industries – such as Huawei in telecommunications, BYD in electric vehicles and Longi in solar wafers – have come from nowhere in less than 30 years to achieve world-leading positions. Industrial policy in China has, moreover, deliberately targeted key choke points in the supply chain, such that the US was this week forced to abandon its ban on the export of H20 Nvidia chips to China in return for China lifting similar export restrictions on the rare earth minerals vital to many hi-tech industries. The Nvidia ban was completely pointless in any case, serving only to turbocharge Chinese attempts to develop alternatives. Autor and Hanson suggest that the correct response to the China 2.0 shock is for the US to act in unison with commercial allies such as the EU, Japan, Canada, the UK, Australia and South Korea. Loading Counter-intuitively, Chinese companies should also be encouraged to set up production facilities in the US and elsewhere, rather similarly to the way that China once enticed Western companies to do the same in China as a way of speeding up technology transfer. Replicating Chinese industrial policy by aggressively promoting innovation in new fields, as happened in America and Europe during the Second World War, could also help narrow China's lead. It scarcely needs saying that Trump's America is at present doing the opposite of all these things. But just because Trump has got his head buried in the sand doesn't mean other nations should do the same. The potential threat from Chinese AI is too great to ignore. If China gets there first, it will reshape the world in its own image, and 'the end of history' will look very different from the one outlined by Francis Fukuyama back in 1992, when he declared the final triumph of liberal democracy.
Sydney Morning Herald
6 days ago
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
A China shock 2.0 is emerging to rock America
Yet instead of pursuing the policies needed to meet this threat head-on, the MAGA agenda is heavily focused on fighting the last war – on bringing manufacturing jobs lost to China and elsewhere back to the US. The challenge, Autor and Hanson argue, is not that of attempting to resuscitate the industrial might of a bygone age, but ensuring that the US is front and centre of the new technologies and able to convincingly harness them to its own ends. This endeavour is not obviously helped by Trump's scattergun approach to tariffs, punishing friend and foe alike, his propensity to alienate rather than co-operate with allies, the stupefying attacks on scientific research and the repudiation of foreign talent – once the very lifeblood of American advancement. Nor is it helped by the administration's casual disregard for the great asset of dollar hegemony which, bizarrely, Stephen Miran, Trump's chief economic adviser, seems to regard as in some way partly responsible for America's de-industrialisation. An administration seemingly hell-bent on fiscal ruin, and on weakening the dollar for the purposes of making US goods more competitive, doesn't exactly inspire international confidence in the dollar as a reserve currency asset. Loading China, by contrast, is investing heavily in the digital yuan as a way of internationalising its own currency, of offering an alternative to the fool's gold of cryptocurrency and of usurping the dollar for cross-border payments. Already, it is making steady progress. Why any longer should Brazil use the dollar for selling soybeans to China when Trump threatens the country with punitive tariffs for the sin of prosecuting his friend, Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president? Why indeed should it employ the dollar at all when the US regularly uses its power for extraterritorial purposes? In the developing world, Western influence is waning fast; China has been quick and single-minded at moving into its place. China has many problems and challenges, from the demographic to the still-deflating credit and property bubbles. But its catch-up and overtake approach to the technologies of the future is already paying big dividends. As, too, is the aggressive expansion of China's universities sector, originally begun under Jiang Zemin's presidency in the late 1990s, and heavily focused on Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), the US-led China in 60 of 64 frontier technologies as recently as 2007, judged by share of the world's most-cited research, while China led the US in three. However, by 2023, these rankings were reversed, with China leading in 57 of 64 key technologies, and the US in seven. 'China has built the foundations to position itself as the world's leading science and technology superpower, by establishing a sometimes stunning lead in high-impact research across the majority of critical and emerging technology domains,' the ASPI says. All of the world's top 10 research institutions in some technologies are based in China, and are already collectively generating nine times more high-impact research papers than the second-ranked country (most often the US). The potential threat from Chinese AI is too great to ignore. Now, globally recognised companies at the forefront of their industries – such as Huawei in telecommunications, BYD in electric vehicles and Longi in solar wafers – have come from nowhere in less than 30 years to achieve world-leading positions. Industrial policy in China has, moreover, deliberately targeted key choke points in the supply chain, such that the US was this week forced to abandon its ban on the export of H20 Nvidia chips to China in return for China lifting similar export restrictions on the rare earth minerals vital to many hi-tech industries. The Nvidia ban was completely pointless in any case, serving only to turbocharge Chinese attempts to develop alternatives. Autor and Hanson suggest that the correct response to the China 2.0 shock is for the US to act in unison with commercial allies such as the EU, Japan, Canada, the UK, Australia and South Korea. Loading Counter-intuitively, Chinese companies should also be encouraged to set up production facilities in the US and elsewhere, rather similarly to the way that China once enticed Western companies to do the same in China as a way of speeding up technology transfer. Replicating Chinese industrial policy by aggressively promoting innovation in new fields, as happened in America and Europe during the Second World War, could also help narrow China's lead. It scarcely needs saying that Trump's America is at present doing the opposite of all these things. But just because Trump has got his head buried in the sand doesn't mean other nations should do the same. The potential threat from Chinese AI is too great to ignore. If China gets there first, it will reshape the world in its own image, and 'the end of history' will look very different from the one outlined by Francis Fukuyama back in 1992, when he declared the final triumph of liberal democracy.
Miami Herald
6 days ago
- Business
- Miami Herald
Britain, Australia to sign agreement to build nuclear submarines
July 25 (UPI) -- Britain and Australia confirmed Friday that they would proceed with a $245 billion nuclear-powered submarine deal as part of a defense pact between the two countries and the United States -- despite Washington rethinking its involvement. Following a meeting, Australian Defense Secretary Richard Marles said he and British Defense Secretary John Healey would sign a 50-year cooperation treaty on Saturday to deliver an Australian fleet of submarines, powered by British nuclear reactors. Marles hailed the deal, part of a trilateral security pact signed in 2021, as the most significant U.K.-Australian treaty signed in the 124-year history of modern Australia. The AUKUS alliance, aimed at countering China's military rise in the Asia-Pacific, called for Australia to be armed with eight nuclear submarines, three repurposed from the United States' existing fleet and the remainder a new SSN-AUKUS submarine that Australia and Britain would build together. However, concerns were raised that the first U.S. submarines wouldn't be handed to Australia within the timeline of the early 2030s because U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is reviewing the Biden administration-brokered AUKUS and the U.S. submarine pipeline was behind time. Healey said they welcomed Hegseth's review as a chance for the new administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to "renew their commitment," which he said he fully expected to happen. Marles said last month that he was "very confident" the United States would remain in AUKUS because of its strategic benefit to all three countries. The pact came into force three days before Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States in January, triggering a review to ensure it is a fit with his "America First" policy. In a meeting in Singapore in June, Hegseth told Marles that Australia should increase defense spending to 3.5% of GDP. Elbridge Colby, the U.S. defense official carrying out Hegseth's review, has said AUKUS could compromise national security if the United States were to begin selling its Virginia-class submarines to Australia in the early 2030s, as per the original agreement. Neither Healey nor Marles would say whether the two countries would go it alone with building the submarines if the United States opted to withdraw. The Australia-U.K. treaty encompasses a comprehensive framework to develop the necessary infrastructure and workforce in Australia to build, operate and support the submarine program, with the deal providing a boost to British exports of more than $26 billion by 2050. "Through the treaty, we are supporting high-skilled, well-paid jobs for tens of thousands of people in both the U.K. and Australia," said Healey. Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Euan Graham said the new treaty was not sending a message to the Trump administration but was "more of a reflection that AUKUS has always been a 3-way arrangement, and that the U.K.-Australia side of the triangle is vital to its success." He said the program would also produce economies of scale, allowing Britain's Royal Navy to increase its nuclear fleet from seven to 12 submarines. Copyright 2025 UPI News Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
