THE TREATY AND THE MISSILE

Today’s events.

In Suva, Australia signed two treaties with Fiji: the Ocean of Peace Alliance, a mutual defence pact committing each country to come to the other’s aid, and the Vuvale Union, an economic agreement carrying more than a billion Australian dollars over a decade. It is Fiji’s first alliance and Australia’s fourth, and it is open for other Pacific nations to join.

And on the same day, a Chinese submarine test-launched a long-range ballistic missile into the South Pacific. Beijing notified Canberra in advance. Our foreign minister declined to say whether it was a message, and called the test destabilising.

Read those two events together. This is not a peace agreement. It is a taking-sides agreement — and taking sides in this contest is a path towards war, not away from it.

We cannot win a war with China, and the Asia-Pacific would be a wasteland if one happened. We are too dependent on each other now, for energy and for commerce, for it to be anything else.

And here is the part nobody in Canberra wants to discuss: the first thing that happens in a regional war is the sea lanes close. Australia needs a continuous stream of fuel tankers arriving every month simply to keep moving and keep eating. Japan and Taiwan are in a worse position again. Hormuz is the example we should be learning from — one chokepoint, and the price of everything moves.

Pushing this country further towards confrontation, while that vulnerability sits unaddressed, is a serious failure of duty by the people we elected to protect us.

Warmongering is not the answer. Australia has the opportunity to help unite this region rather than help lead the world into a war it cannot survive.

There is another method: A United AsiaPac →