Australia announces it is building a base for nuclear submarines:
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is set to announce the construction of a new AU$10 billion nuclear submarine base, while warning Australians that Russia’s conflict with Ukraine will “inevitably stretch to the Indo-Pacific.”
Morrison is scheduled to unveil Australia’s nuclear submarine base plans during a speech to the neoliberal Lowy Institute in Sydney on Monday, according to his speech notes cited by local media. Morrison will warn that Russia’s conflict with Ukraine will “inevitably stretch to the Indo-Pacific” and that Australia “faces its most difficult and dangerous security environment in 80 years.”
Translation: China is going to come into this sooner or later.
Notice the rhetorical shift from sanctions to military preparations. This has nothing whatsoever to do with Russian activity in the Indo-Pacific.
Refusing to rule out Australia potentially arming Taiwan in a conflict against China, Dutton said that the country’s current priority was to “deter any acts of aggression whether it’s from China or from Russia or anybody else.”
It’s a little late to attempt to deter Chinese aggression. Australia lost the war to China 56 years ago when it abandoned its White Australia policy in 1966. Now more than 10 percent of the population is Chinese.
UPDATE: China’s refusal to join the Two Minute Hate against Russia is observably making the Australian government – as well as the rest of the neo-liberal world order – very, very nervous.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called on China to end its “chilling silence” over Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, stating that “no country in the world will have a bigger impact” on bringing the conflict to an end.
It’s fascinating to see how even just not giving lip service to the Promethean rhetoric frightens them.