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Sky News AU
an hour ago
- Business
- Sky News AU
Two international relations experts weigh threat of China against Australia's 'confusing' ally as tensions rise in the Indo-Pacific
Two experts in the fields of defence, strategy and China have weighed the growing tensions in the Indo-Pacific and Australia's ties with a 'confusing antagonist' in the United States which could lead to 'significant harm' if a conflict with Taiwan eventuated. It came after Sky News' Sunday Agenda reported Prime Minister Anthony Albanese would not accept the US request to increase defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP and would stand by Labor's existing policy. Under the government's projections, defence spending is forecast to reach 2.33 per cent of GDP by 2033–34, up from about 2.05 per cent in 2025-26. Strategy and defence expert at the Australian National University Associate Professor, Andrew Carr, told the Trump Administration was good at 'talking tough' on China, but on several economic and security issues it did not show the 'discipline or resolve' to follow through. 'China will know that US administrations pleaded with and insisted that allies do more to help Washington. Thus far, it has almost entirely fallen on deaf ears,'he said. 'The Trump Administration is right to be outraged that rich nations in Europe and Asia cheap-ride on the back of US taxpayers and soldiers. The Trump Administration is trying a very different approach to changing that dynamic, but it's not clear it will be anymore successful.' Professor Carr said China's view of Taiwan was 'purely internal' and any Australian participation or support of American defence efforts, if China invaded, would lead to 'significant harm' to the Australia-China relationship. Some experts consider 2027 as the year China's President Xi Jinping expects his military to be ready for war with Taiwan. 'That said, in such a conflict it's likely Canberra would be the one rushing to impose penalties and sanctions as a way to diplomatically and economically punish China for its attack,' Professor Carr said. The strategy and defence expert said there was a 'clear escalation of tension' in the Indo-Pacific which had been steadily rising for more than a decade as China has poured money into its military. '(China) has aggressively challenged the legal claims of most of its neighbours, has spied on and tried to corruptly buy influence around the entire region, and used economic and diplomatic means to punish any who speak out,' Professor Carr said. The ANU professor said the Trump administration had been a 'somewhat confusing antagonist' as it has been very strident in rhetoric, such as US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth's speech, while being harmful in policy, such as the high tariffs and barriers to Chinese students in the US. 'So though the surface is choppy, some of the underlying currents are potentially much smoother,' he said. 'Trump talks a big game, but there's a reason the TACO nickname (Trump Always Chickens Out) is starting to catch on. Not just economically but strategically too.' Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last week, Mr Hegseth warned the threat of China was real and potentially imminent as he pushed allies in the Indo-Pacific to spend more on their own defence needs. Mr Hegseth echoed the Trump administration's motto of maintaining 'peace through strength' and stressed the importance of restoring the 'warrior ethos'. China expert Dr Edward Chan, a postdoctoral fellow in China Studies at the Australian National University, told that while China had not 'explicitly' addressed the potential of Australia's participation in a US-led response to a cross-Strait conflict, it has expressed 'firm opposition' to broader trends in Australia's defence policy. 'Particularly in relation to its alignment with the US and its growing role in regional security arrangements,' Dr Chan said. 'For example, China has repeatedly criticised Australia's participation in the Quad and its commitment to AUKUS, arguing that such initiatives reflect a Cold War mentality and contribute to regional instability.' Dr Chan said such moves are claimed by Chinese officials to 'intensify the arms race'. The expert on China said among Chinese scholars there was a commonly used phrase that 'The United States has tied Australia to its chariot', which reflected the belief Canberra is being drawn into Washington's strategic agenda at the expense of regional stability. In terms of the next few years, and whether tensions in the Indo-Pacific would escalate, Dr Chan said a level of 'strategic unease has already become the new normal' as many governments have reassessed their security postures as they appear to prepare for contingencies, even in the hope of avoiding them. 'That said, putting on my academic hat, I would argue that a direct military conflict in the region—particularly over flashpoints like Taiwan or the South China Sea—remains highly unlikely in the near term. The risks and costs of war would be enormous for all sides involved,' Dr Chan said. 'However, we can expect persistent 'grey zone' activity to continue—what might be called the ashes of geopolitical friction. This includes freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs), increased coastguard and naval patrols, more frequent military exercises, strategic messaging, and tighter defence cooperation among like-minded countries. 'These activities are likely to become more routine.' contacted the Chinese Embassy and the Consulate on the matter, with both referring to the comments made by the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Mr Hegseth's Shangri-La speech. 'Hegseth deliberately ignored the call for peace and development by countries in the region, and instead touted the Cold War mentality for bloc confrontation, vilified China with defamatory allegations, and falsely called China a 'threat',' a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said over the weekend. 'The remarks were filled with provocations and intended to sow discord. China deplores and firmly opposes them and has protested strongly to the US. 'To perpetuate its hegemony and advance the so-called 'Indo-Pacific strategy,' the US has deployed offensive weaponry in the South China Sea and kept stoking flames and creating tensions in the Asia-Pacific, which are turning the region into a powder keg and making countries in the region deeply concerned.' As for the 'Taiwan question', the Foreign Ministry said it was entirely an 'internal affair', with no other country being in a position to 'interfere'. 'The US should never imagine it could use the Taiwan question as leverage against China. The US must never play with fire on this question,' the spokesperson said. 'China urges the US to fully respect the efforts of countries in the region to maintain peace and stability, stop deliberately destroying the peaceful and stable environment cherished by the region, and stop inciting conflict and confrontation and escalating tensions in the region.'
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Who is the public's favourite (and least favourite) cabinet member?
👉Listen to Politics at Sam and Anne's on your podcast app👈 Sky News' Sam Coates and Politico's Anne McElvoy serve up their essential guide to the day in British politics. Exclusive polling is announced by Sam and Anne, as they reveal the cabinet's popularity rating according to the public. Also, why is the Home Office today releasing a weather report for weather that's already been and gone? They say warm weather impacts the number of small boat crossings. Is this the Labour government laying the turf, readying the British public for a balmy summer, and with that, days of record Channel crossings?
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
Biden State Department Spokesman Now Says Israel Is Committing War Crimes
Former State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller says that he personally believes Israel has been committing war crimes against the Palestinian people — including during his tenure in the Biden administration, where, as a major voice of U.S. foreign policy, he daily defended Israel's flattening of Gaza to the American public. Speaking to Sky News' Mark Stone on the 'Trump 100' podcast, Miller said on Monday that it is 'without a doubt true that Israel has committed war crimes' in the territory. When Stone asked if he held this belief while serving as spokesperson, he said yes. 'Look, one of the things about being a spokesperson is you're not a spokesperson for yourself. You're a spokesperson for the president, the administration — and you espouse the positions of the administration,' Miller said. 'And when you're not in the administration, you can just give your own opinions.' The ex-State Department official said he believes Israeli soldiers committed war crimes in individual instances rather than as part of a wider policy of systematically erasing the Palestinian people, as muchof the international community has now accused the Israeli government. 'We were expecting it coming,' Hamid Bendaas, spokesperson for the pro-Palestinian nonprofit IMEU Policy Project, told HuffPost of Miller's admission. 'But I think this is the first foray of that — of Biden admin officials being like, 'Oh yeah, we were hard on Israel, we weren't super pro-Israel,' after saying for over a year that they were the most pro-Israel administration of all time, and a lot of the reporting since then obviously backing it up.' 'But [Miller] is saying that he's speaking about covering war crimes, right? It's not even covering up Biden's age or stuff like that,' Bendaas continued. 'But covering up a war crime that you know happened, and saying that doesn't happen because you're following orders? That's basically what he's saying he did. It's just a different thing.' United Nations officials,human rights groups and some world leaders have described Israel's actions as genocidal, a term Miller rejected. Still, his comments on Monday represent a huge pivot from the statements he made every day on behalf of former Secretary of State Antony Blinken while heclashed with reporters who tried to push himon the U.S. role in unconditionally supporting and arming an Israeli offensive that has now reached its nineteenth month. 'It has to be said that Miller is also guilty of, at minimum, facilitating these war crimes,' progressive strategist Rania Batrice posted on X. 'Matthew Miller, almost daily, not only lied to the public and the press, he did it in a shitty condescending way, in an attempt to mislead the public.' Though Miller insisted that he believed Israeli war crimes were individual acts, the State Department was aware that the Israeli government was committing possible war crimes. Experts within the U.S. government concluded last year that Israel was intentionally blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza — a major development that would legally require the Biden administration to stop sending weapons to Israel. Blinken rejected the findings and delivered a report to Congress without that information, leading report author Stacy Gilbert to resign in protest. Gilbert was one of many Biden appointees who, unlike Miller, resigned over the administration's unconditional support for Israel in its bombing campaign. Biden resignee and A New Policy co-founder Josh Paul told HuffPost, 'The Biden Administration's wanton lawbreaking when it came to what was happening in Gaza was no less a scandal than Watergate, and in the context of its human impact, probably a greater one.' Miller is the latest in a growing number of voices changing their tune and speaking out against Israel's military campaign, the plight of Palestinians and the humanitarian crisis plaguing Gaza. The former spokesperson said that he wished the Biden administration did more to pressure Israel to accept a ceasefire deal after May 2024, when documentation of the military's indiscriminate violence against civilians became nearly impossible to ignore. 'I'm happy to be punitive to Matt Miller, but we also want to see more people be doing what Matt Miller is doing in a way, because it's a sign that they are recognizing that public opinion has shifted pretty rapidly on this,' Bendaas said. 'And especially on the Democratic side, it's just extremely unpopular to be pro-Israel in the way that Democrats have been for the last few decades.' At Least 31 Palestinians Killed After Israeli Forces Strike Gaza Aid Hub 'Freedom Flotilla' Tries Again To Break Israel's Blockade On Gaza 'Indiscriminate, Unrestrained, Brutal': Former Israeli PM Calls Gaza Assault 'War Crimes'
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
Biden State Department Spokesman Now Says Israel Is Committing War Crimes
Former State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller says that he personally believes Israel has been committing war crimes against the Palestinian people — including during his tenure in the Biden administration, where, as a major voice of U.S. foreign policy, he daily defended Israel's flattening of Gaza to the American public. Speaking to Sky News' Mark Stone on the 'Trump 100' podcast, Miller said on Monday that it is 'without a doubt true that Israel has committed war crimes' in the territory. When Stone asked if he held this belief while serving as spokesperson, he said yes. 'Look, one of the things about being a spokesperson is you're not a spokesperson for yourself. You're a spokesperson for the president, the administration — and you espouse the positions of the administration,' Miller said. 'And when you're not in the administration, you can just give your own opinions.' The ex-State Department official said he believes Israeli soldiers committed war crimes in individual instances rather than as part of a wider policy of systematically erasing the Palestinian people, as muchof the international community has now accused the Israeli government. 'We were expecting it coming,' Hamid Bendaas, spokesperson for the pro-Palestinian nonprofit IMEU Policy Project, told HuffPost of Miller's admission. 'But I think this is the first foray of that — of Biden admin officials being like, 'Oh yeah, we were hard on Israel, we weren't super pro-Israel,' after saying for over a year that they were the most pro-Israel administration of all time, and a lot of the reporting since then obviously backing it up.' 'But [Miller] is saying that he's speaking about covering war crimes, right? It's not even covering up Biden's age or stuff like that,' Bendaas continued. 'But covering up a war crime that you know happened, and saying that doesn't happen because you're following orders? That's basically what he's saying he did. It's just a different thing.' United Nations officials,human rights groups and some world leaders have described Israel's actions as genocidal, a term Miller rejected. Still, his comments on Monday represent a huge pivot from the statements he made every day on behalf of former Secretary of State Antony Blinken while heclashed with reporters who tried to push himon the U.S. role in unconditionally supporting and arming an Israeli offensive that has now reached its nineteenth month. 'It has to be said that Miller is also guilty of, at minimum, facilitating these war crimes,' progressive strategist Rania Batrice posted on X. 'Matthew Miller, almost daily, not only lied to the public and the press, he did it in a shitty condescending way, in an attempt to mislead the public.' Though Miller insisted that he believed Israeli war crimes were individual acts, the State Department was aware that the Israeli government was committing possible war crimes. Experts within the U.S. government concluded last year that Israel was intentionally blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza — a major development that would legally require the Biden administration to stop sending weapons to Israel. Blinken rejected the findings and delivered a report to Congress without that information, leading report author Stacy Gilbert to resign in protest. Gilbert was one of many Biden appointees who, unlike Miller, resigned over the administration's unconditional support for Israel in its bombing campaign. Biden resignee and A New Policy co-founder Josh Paul told HuffPost, 'The Biden Administration's wanton lawbreaking when it came to what was happening in Gaza was no less a scandal than Watergate, and in the context of its human impact, probably a greater one.' Miller is the latest in a growing number of voices changing their tune and speaking out against Israel's military campaign, the plight of Palestinians and the humanitarian crisis plaguing Gaza. The former spokesperson said that he wished the Biden administration did more to pressure Israel to accept a ceasefire deal after May 2024, when documentation of the military's indiscriminate violence against civilians became nearly impossible to ignore. 'I'm happy to be punitive to Matt Miller, but we also want to see more people be doing what Matt Miller is doing in a way, because it's a sign that they are recognizing that public opinion has shifted pretty rapidly on this,' Bendaas said. 'And especially on the Democratic side, it's just extremely unpopular to be pro-Israel in the way that Democrats have been for the last few decades.' At Least 31 Palestinians Killed After Israeli Forces Strike Gaza Aid Hub 'Freedom Flotilla' Tries Again To Break Israel's Blockade On Gaza 'Indiscriminate, Unrestrained, Brutal': Former Israeli PM Calls Gaza Assault 'War Crimes'
West Australian
2 days ago
- Business
- West Australian
Matt Thistlethwaite questioned over the number of Aussies impacted by Labor government's proposed super tax
Politicians have clashed over the number of Australians that will be caught up in Labor's proposed super tax. Labor MP and Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Matt Thistlethwaite was pressed over the Albanese government's proposal to roll back concessions on ultra-high super balances and tax unrealised gains that would penalise younger generations in the future. The plan, one of the government's key economic policies, will hit those with more than $3m in their superannuation accounts with an extra 15 per cent tax – initially forecast to be about 80,000 people by 2025-26 – on top of the 15 per cent all super fund members are taxed on their earnings. That number has now jumped to up to 1.2 million Australians, significantly more than the original figure. '1.2 million Australians in the long run – that's not the small amount you've all been saying,' Sky News' Pete Stefanovic questioned Mr Thistlethwaite on Monday morning. 'Well, this is a policy … that's aimed at ensuring that we got fairness and equity in our taxation system,' Mr Thistlewaite began, before being cut off swiftly by Stefanovic: 'How's that fair if the PM gets a pass?' The proposal has come under fire for the inclusion of 'special rules' that would exempt Anthony Albanese until after the Prime Minister retires. Mr Thistlewaite continued: 'Everyone who's on a defined benefit scheme will be treated the same. That's the basis of it. 'Regardless of your occupation, where you live, (everyone) will all pay the same … at the moment, some people can divert money from income to avoid paying income taxation into superannuation to get a concessional rate. 'Now the average teacher, the average childcare worker or emergency services worker can't do that, so we just want to make sure that the system is fair and equitable, and everyone pays their fair share of tax.' The $3m figure will not be indexed, leaving about 1.2 million people within 30 years liable for the tax, Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino revealed last month. Liberal senator Hollie Hughes accused the government of not considering the 'unintended consequences'. 'I had dinner with a small-business owner last week whose office building is part of a superannuation plan, and her message to me was incredibly clear that if this goes ahead she does not know what she can do because this is something that the business is invested in, she's invested in,' Senator Hughes said. 'It's her business, and now, because of the increase in property prices she doesn't know if she can afford to pay a tax on an unrealised gain.' She said the tax would come 'knocking on the doors' of everyday Australians, especially small business owners and farmers. Questioned again about the confirmed number of Australians to be impacted by the tax, Mr Thistlethwaite said: 'Initially, it's a very small it's a very small number of Australians, less than 0.5 per cent of the population. 'I think we got to realise we're only talking about (balances) above $3m, and we're talking about something that hasn't been legislated yet, but at the moment people have the choice. 'They can pay their income tax or they can divert it into superannuation to get a concession.' He said the Labor government would 'work' with the opposition if it were prepared to be 'fair and reasonable'. The tax is proposed to take effect from the start of the next financial year, July 1.
