[Epoch Times September 30, 2021]In September this year, Australia signed the AUKUS agreement with the United States and the United Kingdom, which strengthened its military alliance with the United States and the United Kingdom, and introduced US nuclear-powered submarines to enhance Australia’s national defense. This is a major change that the CCP did not expect, and it is also a necessary measure taken by Australia to strengthen its national defense after it clearly sees the CCP’s military threat to its country. Australia’s strategic decision was actually forced by the CCP.
1. The Chinese Communist Party’s strategic intention of “advancing eastward and southward” in the Indo-Pacific region is exposed
The CCP ignited the Sino-U.S. Cold War through a series of military threats. It was the first half of 2020. Before that, the CCP had already launched a series of military deployment attempts in the South Pacific. Australia’s high vigilance. It can be said that Australia has seen the possible threat of another Pacific War, and this time it is the CCP imitating the role of the Great Japanese Empire. The “Eastward Movement” of the CCP’s “Eastward Advance Southward” military strategic intent is to be packaged under the “unification of Taiwan” and the targets are the U.S. military bases in Guam and Japan. The military deployment of the Imperial Japanese Army in the Pacific War.
Australia’s Fairfax Media reported on April 10, 2018 that the CCP is trying to build a permanent military base in the South Pacific in Vanuatu, northeast of Australia and southeast of the Solomon Islands. On October 18, 2019, the BBC reported that the Central Province of Solomon Islands signed an agreement with a Chinese company. The Chinese side obtained the 75-year development right of Tulagi Island. Later, the agreement caused controversy in the country. During the Pacific War, the port of Tulagi Island was the best naval base in the Solomon Islands and became a battleground between the Japanese Imperial Army and the Allied Forces. At that time, the Australian Navy suffered heavy losses in the Solomon Islands naval battle. The CCP’s interest in Tulagi Island seems to be quite similar to that of the Japanese Imperial Army.
On May 27 this year, the BBC reported that the CCP has signed an agreement with Samoa in eastern Australia to invest 100 million US dollars in the country to build a large terminal in Vaiusu Bay. This will happen after the country’s government changes. The agreement was temporarily shelved. The CCP also covets the airport in Kiribati, an island nation in the northwest of Samoa, and plans to upgrade the airstrips and bridges left by the US military after World War II on Kanton Island in the country. The island is located about 3,000 kilometers southwest of Hawaii and is a strategic location. The runway was used by U.S. bombers during World War II. Reuters believes that due to the island’s geographic location, any major construction on Canton Island “will provide China with a stronghold to deepen the region where the United States and its allies have stood closely together since World War II”; Advisers to the governments of Pacific countries said: “This island will become a maritime aircraft carrier.”
Many people are not familiar with the history of the Pacific War and have almost no idea about the location and military role of these Pacific island nations. Samoa, Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu are all in the southern hemisphere. In addition, Papua New Guinea, located to the north of Australia, is also a large archipelago country. The closest major country to them is Australia. These island countries have long-term geopolitical ties with Australia. . During the Pacific War, after the defeat of the Imperial Japanese Navy on Midway Island, in order to protect the Dutch East India oil field (now Indonesia) it seized, and to establish a peripheral defense circle against the US military, it enacted the Moore to capture Papua New Guinea. The battle plan for Port Zby (now the capital of Papua New Guinea) and Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in order to finally attack Australia. Therefore, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands are fierce battles between the army and navy of the Empire of Japan and the Allied forces. The officers and soldiers of Australia and New Zealand fought bloody battles in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in order to defend their homes and nations. The key battle zones in the middle of the Pacific War were in these two places.
If you compare a series of Chinese projects from Papua New Guinea to Solomon Islands to Kiribati and Vanuatu, we can find some common points. 1. These locations are strategically important for naval warfare. 2. The CCP’s investment projects do not care about the actual needs of local economic activities. The amount of investment is much higher than the scale of local economic activities, and the project itself has no return on investment. This shows that the CCP’s investment activities are neither economic assistance nor decision-making under commercial interests, but have other military intentions. 3. The CCP’s investment projects mainly focus on the construction of ports and airports, and it is trying to lease the island where the project is located for a long time, so that it can be managed independently and used for a long time. The CCP’s investment in these projects in the South Pacific is obviously not to help local development, but is likely to be a strategic layout serving military purposes. The goal seems to be to prepare the CCP’s navy for naval and air combat bases on various points in the South Pacific.
2. The CCP’s foreign military ambitions are aimed at Australia
If the CCP has built bases in island countries in the southern hemisphere, such as Samoa, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, which are still far from Australia, then when the CCP reached the north gate of Australia, Australia clearly saw the CCP’s True intentions.
In December last year, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported that China and “Papua New Guinea signed a memorandum of understanding for the construction of a 200 million yuan “comprehensive multi-functional fishery industrial park” on Dalu Island. There is actually nothing, not even fish. No.” This small island is 5 kilometers long and 3.7 kilometers wide. It has only more than 10,000 residents. They use canoe fishing for their livelihoods and suffer from health and social problems. It has no investment value economically, and its only use is that it is very close to Australia in the south. The investment this time is Fujian Zhonghong Fishery Company, which was established in 2011 with a registered capital of 100 million yuan (about 20 million Australian dollars). How can this company be able to invest in a worthless project ten times the registered capital on the small desert island of Daru? The doubt is very obvious.
Soon, a larger plan to invest in this small island came to light. In late January this year, Australian media reported that WYW Holding, a Chinese-funded company, wrote to Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape, proposing a more ambitious plan. The plan is to spend 39 billion Australian dollars (28.5 billion US dollars), which is more than the national GDP of Papua New Guinea, to build the island into a new city including ports, industrial areas, commercial areas, leisure areas and residential areas. The local primitive collection activities do not need such a city, and if a new city is built on this island, there will be no economic radiation effect on the nearby desolate areas. The CCP is actually planning to lease a small island for a long time to build a naval base city.
The Chinese company named WYW is “Wuyuanwan Co., Ltd.”. It was its Hong Kong shell company that wrote to the PNG government, and the parent company is also a shell company. Wuyuanwan is located in Xiamen. This privately-funded company was registered in 2014 and only rented a small office in an office building near Xiamen Gaoqi Airport; the company’s financing history, investment events, and corporate business are all blank and cannot be checked. The company website does not describe its business activities in a single word, and the page has not been updated in 4 years. Such a leather bag company had a big mouth, and wanted to spend nearly $30 billion on this small desert island. Its motives and behavior were very suspicious. It seems that it is just another stand-in for the CCP authorities. Although the “Daru New City” plan has not yet been implemented, the CCP’s military ambitions in the South Pacific have been exposed. Its ambitions are at least three: to build a bridgehead to control the vast waters of the South Pacific; to isolate Australia; and to threaten the United States.
3. Why does the CCP want to “southward” military expansion?
One of the targets of the CCP’s “southward” military expansion is Australia. In the past 20 years, the Chinese Communist Party has spent a lot of manpower and translated many memoirs of the South Pacific warfare on the islands during the Pacific War, so that the Chinese military will not only be familiar with the geographical characteristics of the islands, but also understand the countries that have fought in the South Pacific. Accumulated war experience and battlefield tactics, as well as various problems in logistics, transportation, sanitation and epidemic prevention. The collection of this information is certainly not out of curiosity in historical research, it has a clear practical purpose. It can be reasonably speculated that the CCP is imitating the strategic attempt of the Great Japan Empire in the Southern Ocean Wars, that is, preparing to fight for the acquisition of necessary strategic resources.
For the CCP, the island nations of the South Pacific do not have many strategic resources worthy of war. However, the CCP will particularly need the iron ore resources necessary for military expansion and war preparations under the conditions of the Sino-US Cold War. Steel is the “food” for armaments production, and China’s steel industry has fallen into an iron ore dilemma, because domestic iron ore is seriously inadequate and the price is low.
Two of China’s existing 18 large and medium-sized iron ore mines have been exhausted and closed. The output of other iron ore mines can only meet one-fifth of the iron ore demand, and four-fifths of the iron ore depends on imports. Secondly, the iron grade (iron content of the ore) of its domestic iron ore (not processed by beneficiation) is only 26.6%, which is 21% lower than that of Australian iron ore and 18% lower than that of Brazil. The existing and reserved iron ore generally contains other metallic and non-metallic impurities, which are not suitable for smelting special steel materials required by naval ships. Third, China’s iron ore mines generally have large buried depths, high mine construction costs, and high ore transportation costs. Some of the iron ore mines still in open-pit mining have penetrated hundreds of meters below the ground, close to the limit of open-pit mining projects.
The “China Iron Ore Resources Survey Report” published by the China Geological Survey shows that in the past half a century, the geological department has only discovered two large iron ore deposits that can be used as strategic reserves. The Nihe iron ore deposit in Lujiang County, Anhui Province is buried 800 meters deep. It is relatively shallow; another new reserve iron ore with a slightly lower grade than the Nihe iron ore is the Dataigou iron ore deposit in Benxi, Liaoning Province. The deposit is more than 1,000 meters deep, making it more difficult to mine. To mine iron ore at this depth, only mines can be excavated. When the ore deposit is buried at a depth of 900 meters or less, the natural underground temperature exceeds 40 degrees, and the ventilation problem of the mine is not easy to solve.
The only sources of China’s current large-scale imports of high-quality iron ore are Australia and Brazil. Iron ore, like oil, is a strategic material necessary for the arms race of major powers. As long as the CCP continues to implement its policy of arms expansion and war preparations, it will have to face the situation where the source of iron ore will be interrupted and the output of military steel will plummet once the war breaks out. The Great Japanese Empire launched the Pacific War in the past to seize oil from the Dutch East Indies and to support the war. In the future, whether the CCP will follow in the footsteps of the Japanese empire. It is no longer a guess, but a fact that is almost visible because of its high dependence on imported iron ore as a strategic material to conquer relevant countries. The CCP cannot reach Brazil, but it is clearly coveting Australia’s iron ore resources and preparing for the capture of Australia in the future.
4. The CCP has imposed trade sanctions on Australia, forcing Australia to “choose sides”
When the CCP took military confrontation with the United States as a strategic policy, it never took Australia in its eyes, thinking that Australia is economically dependent on exports to China, and it is easy to “succumb to others without fighting.” When Australia did not succumb to the CCP, the CCP immediately launched comprehensive economic sanctions against Australia in an attempt to subdue Australia.
35% of Australia’s exports go to China, and imports from China account for 24% of total imports. Australia’s main commodities exported to China in recent years are iron ore, coal, gold, wool, beef, copper ore, aluminum ore, mutton, wine, cotton, lobster, logs, barley, etc., with a value of more than 80 billion US dollars. Since the second half of 2000, the CCP has imposed unilateral economic sanctions on Australia. With the exception of iron ore, gold, and aluminum ore, Australia’s other agricultural and mineral products exported to China have been banned by the CCP or blocked in disguised form. This is for Australia. The economy of course has had a certain degree of shock.
Why did the CCP impose comprehensive economic sanctions on Australia? The publicity official media “Multidimensional News” gave a clear answer. The official media published an article on December 14 last year, “Beijing can win the occupation of territory without a fight, and the new projects of Chinese enterprises make a sensation in Australia.” The content of this article reveals the true intentions of the CCP towards Australia. Another article by this media is a stark threat to Australia. In an article titled “China beats Australia, it is better to stand on the sidelines than to choose a sideline”. The media mentioned that if Australia changes its high profile in time Following the diplomatic line of the United States and containing China, it is believed that the economic and trade relations between the two countries will soon return to normal. This sentence clearly illustrates the true purpose of the CCP’s disguised economic sanctions against Australia, that is, to use economic sanctions to force Australia to bow to the CCP, and to make Australia break away from the alliance with the United States for economic benefits and turn to the CCP instead.
However, the CCP miscalculated. It did not expect Australia to withstand the pressure of the CCP’s economic sanctions and not yield to the CCP. Matt Pottinger, the former deputy national security adviser of the United States, published an article in the September/October issue of the US Foreign Affairs magazine, “Beijing’s American Hustle, How Chinese Grand Strategy Exploits US Power)”. Bo Ming mentioned in the article, “Beijing’s recent failure to coerce Australia into complying with China’s policies illustrates this point well. The Chinese Communist Party’s leaders are betting that Australian companies will lobby their government to lobbied for targeted trade embargoes. The Chinese government made political concessions. But the Australian people, including business leaders and exporters, understand that accepting China’s ultimatum means succumbing to a dangerous new order. Australian companies have absorbed losses, withstood the embargo, and found New markets.”
V. Australia’s nuclear submarine strategy
The long-distance military confrontation of modern countries is mainly confrontation between navy ships. Australia has long been preparing to strengthen its submarine fleet based on the CCP’s maritime threat.
The current submarine fleet in the world includes three types of submarines. The more traditional one is conventionally powered attack submarines (ie diesel-powered submarines), and the other two technically complex ones are nuclear-powered attack submarines and nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines. For military purposes, nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines are underwater launch platforms used by nuclear powers to launch intercontinental missiles with nuclear warheads. They belong to nuclear warfare strategic forces and do not participate in conventional sea battles; while traditional conventionally powered attack submarines and nuclear-powered attacks The submarine is the main underwater attack platform for naval battles, and its weapons are submarine-launched non-nuclear warhead missiles and traditional torpedoes.
Australia originally planned to purchase conventionally powered attack submarines from France, but recently decided to switch to US nuclear-powered attack submarines. A few years ago, the United States had not formulated its own Indo-Pacific strategy and would not provide Australia with nuclear-powered attack submarines. Since President Trump announced the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy at the end of last year, Biden has now agreed to strengthen the Australian Navy’s submarine fleet. American nuclear-powered attack submarines have great advantages over French conventionally-powered attack submarines. Not only are they large in tonnage, but American nuclear submarine technology and equipment have 60 years of foundation and are mature and reliable.
The longer a submarine spends underwater, the longer its secret voyage will be, and the less likely it is to be discovered by the opponent. Diesel-powered submarines are powered by batteries when submerging underwater, and the distance of each submarine can only reach nearly 100 nautical miles. Therefore, conventionally powered attack submarines in France cannot submerge long distances. The nuclear-powered attack submarine can be used for long-distance submarine underwater for a long time. As long as there is enough food in the boat, it does not need to surface regularly for survival. Australia can gradually increase its nuclear-powered attack submarine fleet by introducing nuclear submarine technology and equipment from the US military and training Australian naval crews by the US military, effectively preventing the Chinese Communist Navy’s planned southward invasion.
6. Australia’s new defense strategy has changed the strategic landscape of the Indo-Pacific region
The reason why the CCP has forcibly built artificial islands in the open waters of the South China Sea is to finally blockade the international waters of the South China Sea as a “deep sea fortress” for its strategic nuclear submarines. The CCP has publicly and specifically introduced this strategic intention. Its strategic nuclear submarine set off from this “deep sea fortress”, submerged into the vast Central Pacific, and could pose a nuclear threat to the United States at any time. If the CCP’s strategic nuclear submarine departs from the South China Sea, the Strait of Malacca at the southwestern end of the South China Sea is shallow and nuclear submarines cannot pass. Its strategic nuclear submarine has only three submarine channels that can enter the Central Pacific Ocean and threaten the United States. The first is the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and Luzon in the Philippines; the second is the Philippine Islands in the southeast, the Sulawesi Sea between Indonesia and the Philippines in the east, and then heading north of Papua New Guinea. At present, the US military has begun to fortify near the two submersible waterways. The third is to go south and enter the Java Sea in Indonesia, then turn to the east, enter the waters between northern Australia and Papua New Guinea, and pass under the nose of Australia.
Judging from the geographical location of the CCP’s military bases in the South Pacific, these future naval and air combat bases envisioned by the CCP are located in the north, northeast, and east of Australia, and they are precisely restricting Australia’s maritime route to the northeast with the United States, its main strategic ally. ; Considering that China has repeatedly used unmanned submarine vehicles to detect nuclear submarines in the East Indian Ocean west of Australia in the past two years, such a military strategic layout is obviously not the needs of the CCP’s own national defense, but a three-sided strategic layout for Australia. . The Chinese Navy’s keen interest in Dalu Island is likely to be an overseas forward base for supplying and repairing its nuclear submarines.
Now Australia is advancing its national defense enhancement plan, strengthening its submarine fleet, and directly cooperating with the US military. In fact, it has actually implemented the deployment of the US Indo-Pacific strategy in the southern hemisphere. In the last few months of his term, President Trump had hoped to form the first fleet of the U.S. Navy in the Indo-Pacific waters of the southern hemisphere, but this strategic idea was hit by Biden’s insistence on cutting military expenditures. Fortunately, Australia itself saw the national security facing the Chinese Communist Party. Threatened, stepping up and cooperating with the United States, thus somewhat filling the gap in the absence of the U.S. First Fleet.
The three-party military cooperation of Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom has strengthened the defense deployment of the CCP from the south, and this deployment is close to the CCP’s expansion of the South China Sea man-made island military base group. To a certain extent, this broke the CCP’s three-sided encirclement of Australia and also dispersed the CCP’s naval forces. Until recently, the CCP has always believed that the Australian navy is weak, and the navies of other Southeast Asian countries are not worth mentioning. After they seized the entire international waters of the South China Sea, it became the “big rear” of the CCP’s naval security; and now this strategic pattern is beginning to change. The renewal of the Australian submarine fleet will force the Chinese Navy to strengthen the deployment of new maritime military bases in the South China Sea, which will help reduce the pressure on the Chinese Navy around Taiwan.
The Epoch Times
Editor in charge: Zhu Ying#
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