Australia has joined the US and UK in an
"enhanced trilateral security partnership" called AUKUS with
the unspoken-yet-obvious goal of coordinating escalations
against China. Antiwar reports:
President
Biden and the leaders of Australia and the UK announced
a new military agreement on Wednesday aimed at
countering China. The pact, known as AUKUS, will focus on
the sharing of sensitive military technologies, and the
first initiative will focus on getting Australia
nuclear-powered submarines.
US
officials speaking
to CNN described the effort to share nuclear
propulsion with another country as an “exceedingly rare
step” due to the sensitivity of the technology. “This
technology is extremely sensitive. This is, frankly, an
exception to our policy in many respects,” one unnamed
official said.
This deal will replace
a planned $90
billion program to obtain twelve submarines designed by
France, an obnoxious expenditure either way when a
quarter of Australians are struggling to make ends meet
during a pandemic that is four
times more likely to kill Australians who are struggling
financially. This is just the latest in Canberra's continually
expanding policy of feeding vast fortunes into
Washington's standoff with Beijing at the expense of its own
people.
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If readers are curious why Australia would
simultaneously subvert its own economic interests by turning
against its primary trading partner and its own security
interests by feeding into dangerous and unnecessary
provocations, I will refer them once again to the jarringly honest
explanation by American political analyst John
Mearsheimer at a debate hosted by the Australian think tank
Center for Independent Studies in 2019. Mearsheimer told
his audience that the US is going to do everything it can to
halt China's rise and prevent it from becoming the regional
hegemon in the East, and that Australia should align with
the US in that battle or else it would face the wrath of
Washington.
I really like the nervous
laughter
from Australian audience when John
Mearsheimer told them if they choose to b friendly w China,
US will show them how nasty it can be...pic.twitter.com/NFZSCIucAZ
"The question that's on
the table is what should Australia's foreign policy be in
light of the rise of China," Mearsheimer said.
"I'll tell you what I would suggest if I were an
Australian."
Mearsheimer claimed that China is going
to continue to grow economically and will convert this
economic power into military power to dominate Asia "the way
the US dominates the Western Hemisphere", and explained why
he thinks the US and its allies have every ability to
prevent that from happening.
"Now the question
is what does this all mean for Australia?" Mearsheimer
said. "Well, you're in a quandary for sure. Everybody knows
what the quandary is. And by the way you're not the only
country in East Asia that's in this quandary. You trade a
lot with China, and that trade is very important for your
prosperity, no question about that. Security-wise you really
want to go with us. It makes just a lot more sense, right?
And you understand that security is more important than
prosperity, because if you don't survive, you're not gonna
prosper."
"Now some people say there's an alternative:
you can go with China," said Mearsheimer. "Right you have a
choice here: you can go with China rather the United States.
There's two things I'll say about that. Number one, if you
go with China you want to understand you are our enemy. You
are then deciding to become an enemy of the United States.
Because again, we're talking about an intense security
competition."
"You're either with us or against us,"
he continued. "And if you're trading extensively with China,
and you're friendly with China, you're undermining the
United States in this security competition. You're feeding
the beast, from our perspective. And that is not going to
make us happy. And when we are not happy you do not want to
underestimate how nasty we can be. Just ask Fidel
Castro."
Nervous laughter from the Australian think
tank audience punctuated Mearsheimer's more incendiary
observations. The CIA is known to have made
numerous attempts to assassinate Castro.
So there
you have it. Australia is not aligned with the US to
protect itself from China. Australia is aligned with the US
to protect itself from the US.
This new move happens
as Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunner announces
his government's policy for Covid-19 restrictions once the
territory's population is 80 percent vaccinated which will
include "lockouts" during outbreaks wherein people will only
be allowed to work and move freely in society if they verify
that they are vaccinated using check-in measures which
Gunner literally calls a "freedom pass".
"I'll say it
again and again. If you want your life to continue close to
normal, get your jab," Gunner said.
"For vaccinated people, the check-in app will basically be
your freedom pass. For people who make the choice to not get
vaccinated, no vax means no freedom pass. We're working with
other governments now to get this technology
ready."
And we
continue to see other authoritarian escalations in Australia
which have nothing to do with Covid as well. Authorities
have been proposing
new legal provisions which will allow Australian visas
to be cancelled and citizenship revoked in entirely secret
proceedings based on information provided by secretive
government agencies. The horrifying Identify
and Disrupt bill which allows Australian police to hack
people's devices, collect, delete and alter their
information and log onto their social media was passed
through Parliament at jaw-dropping
speed last month. Neither of these escalations are
Covid-related.
Australia Has No Bill Of
Rights, And It Shows
"While the pandemic has
certainly been a major factor in exacerbating civil rights
erosion, Australia's Covid response has simply added to a
problem that had already existed and was already getting
worse."https://t.co/LLhPhEpTJG
People who just started
paying attention to Australian authoritarianism during Covid
often get the impression that it's entirely about the virus,
but as we discussed
previously the actual fundamental problem is that
Australia is the only so-called democracy without any kind
of statute or bill of rights to protect the citizenry from
these kinds of abuses. This is why Australia is looked upon
so freakishly by the rest of the western world right now:
because, in this sense, it is. People call it a "free
country", but there has never been any reason to do
so.
This slide into military
brinkmanship and authoritarian dystopia shows no signs of
stopping. The abuses of the powerful will continue to grow
more egregious until the people open their eyes to what's
going on and begin taking action to steer us away from the
existential dangers we are hurtling toward on multiple
fronts. If there is any good news to be had here, it's that
if such a miracle ever occurs it will then be possible to
immediately course correct and start building a healthy
society together.
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Caitlin Johnstone is a 100 percent crowdfunded rogue journalist, bogan socialist, anarcho-psychonaut, guerilla poet and utopia prepper living in Australia with her American husband and two kids. She writes about politics, economics, media, feminism and the nature of consciousness. She is the author of the illustrated poetry book "Woke: A Field Guide For Utopia Preppers."