China has reacted with surprising restraint to the appointment of tough naval commander Admiral Harry Harris as the next US ambassador to Australia.
The appointment is the latest signal that Washington plans a tougher tack to regional security, including in the contested South China Sea.
In August, China’s nationalistic Global Times newspaper labelled Harris the “most prejudiced” American military leader since World War II, and accused him of seeking publicity and “sowing discord” with his hawkish comments.
Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang was more guarded after Harris’ appointment, saying only that that Beijing hoped “policies adopted by relevant countries and their relations could be conducive to safeguard and promote peace, stability, development and prosperity in the region.”
The admiral has been a constant thorn in China’s side as chief of the US Pacific Command since 2014, overseeing a force of 375,000 personnel, 200 ships and more than 1,000 aircraft. Before that he was commander of the US Pacific Fleet and assisted the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
A forceful defender of freedom of navigation rights in the South China Sea, Harris scathingly criticized China in 2005 for building a “Great Wall of Sand” in the maritime passage — a reference to defensive positions China has constructed on artificial islands.
Most of the islands are in territory that is also claimed by other Southeast Asian countries, especially the Philippines and Vietnam.
Harris is also a strong supporter of the Pentagon’s alliance with Australia. The choice of the military heavyweight as ambassador is undoubtedly intends to send a message to both Beijing and Canberra as US President Donald Trump rolls out the newly-unveiled US National Defense Strategy.
Acknowledging that “inter-state strategic competition” is now the dominant issue in US national security, the document lists China ahead of Russia and North Korea as countries of concern. China is described as “a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea.”
Australia’s role in advancing US interests in the region is also written in stone, but Trump has sent mixed messages to Canberra, not least by waiting 16 months to fill the ambassadorial post.
Trump’s introductory phone call to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2017 was excruciatingly bad, with Trump slamming a deal agreed to by his predecessor Barack Obama for the US to resettle 1,250 asylum seekers from Australia’s offshore detention centers.
“I think it is a horrible deal, a disgusting deal, that I would have never made,” Mr Trump said. “It is an embarrassment to the United States of America and you can say it just the way I said it. I have been making these calls all day and this is the most unpleasant call all day,” he added. He finally reluctantly agreed.
The relationship is much stronger at a security level, with Australia viewed by the US as the main Pacific portal in the Five Eyes intelligence network, an information-sharing arrangement that also involves the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand.
Australia’s biggest contribution to the intelligence alliance is the four listening posts it maintains as part of Keyscore, a program run by the US National Security Agency that searches and analyzes vast amounts of internet data.
Pine Gap satellite station, operated jointly by the US and the Australian Signals Directorate in the Northern Territory, is regarded as the most important American military facility outside of the US itself.
Established in the 1960s, the ground control station collects and analyzes data from signals intelligence satellites operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency. China and North Korea are known to be among the Asian nations that it monitors.
Pine Gap also provides early warning of ballistic missile launches, targets nuclear weapons, provides battlefield intelligence data for US forces fighting in countries like Afghanistan, plays a critical role in supporting US and Japanese missile defenses, aids in arms control verification, and contributes targeting data for US drone attacks, according to the Nautilus Institute, a think tank.
Australia has hosted US Marines at a Darwin base on a rotational basis since 2011 under the former Obama Administration’s “pivot to Asia” policy that would have been partly overseen by Harris. There are reports the rotation, now set at 1,250 personnel, might rise in March under an escalation that could see Marine Corps Expeditionary Units being sent to East Asia.
Some commentators in China are speculating that the selection of Harris, whose mother was Japanese and who was born in that country, might foreshadow a tripartite alliance between the US, Japan and Australia that would feed on Beijing’s traditional fears of encirclement.
“Being a hawkish Japanese-American admiral, his appointment to the ambassador’s position will possibly play a crucial role in strengthening military cooperation among the US, Australia and Japan,” Zhou Fangyin, a professor at the Guangdong Research Institute for International Strategies, wrote in the Global Times.
“It is likely that he will encourage Australia to enhance its military strength, consolidate its defense collaboration with the US and adopt a tougher policy of counterbalancing China.”
China’s state news agency Xinhua added: “Some may say an over-emphasis on the Japanese background about an American general is a bit unkind. But to understand the Americans’ sudden upgraded offensive in the South China Sea, it is simply impossible to ignore Admiral Harris’s blood, background, political inclination and values.”
India, another of China’s regional rivals, is also being courted by Washington. Last month Harris met with Indian, Japanese and Australian counterparts in New Delhi to discuss measures to counter China’s increasing military assertiveness, which he described as a “disruptive transitional force.”
For now, India is unlikely to risk antagonizing Beijing by joining a collective naval response, but it has stepped up training exercises with both the US and Australia. Japan, which has signed new defense treaties with the same two countries, will mostly capitalize on their diplomatic muscle.
Harris’ nomination as ambassador still has to be confirmed by the US Congress, but he has strong backing from both sides of the political aisle. With Australia also supportive, Harris should take up the post by mid-year.
You put a whisker above Harris’ lips, I swear you would see the image of Hitler, or of Tojo.
The writer seems to think that a formal admiral of the us navy is in charge of the Australian Armed Forces. Good luck to the Australians. Your problems just get bigger.
this appointment sends a clear message to Australia… we might give you more leeway because we are bounded by blood, culture and history but the same adds extra responsibility to the 5 eyes clan.
I suppose the Americans think it is correct to be at war with as many countries as possible like they think it is correct to bury alive 17 unfortunate sailors when their destroyers were rammed by cargo ships in order to prevent the two destroyers from sinking.
Any difference would this hawk do? When he was in command of 370000 manpower of the Pacific military region, had he done anything to stop China’s island building steps? He might have ordered a few man of wars to SCS, including aircrafts carriers. PLA just returned with same action, to order their naval ships to counter and drive away USS.
Compared with Japan, a loyal US alley with much stronger military potetial than Australia. But in the disputes over East Sea islet, China keeps dispatching more armed ships to the area, and Japanese is in a difficult situation to defend China’s outweight. Japan has to ask USA to lend hands in balance of Chinese might. So, Japan never consents to take the leading role of a joint anti China naval fleet by South China Sea countries. Australia could do no more than this, and hawkish Ambassador would have no power to command Austrialian navy.
Australia may find at the end that it is not a good bargain to confront China, and follow Abe of Japan to ease relation with the big east power. After all, it has only 22million population, far away to China, and joying huge trade benifits with China. Next election may change whole thing up.
Like · Reply · 1m
Any difference would this hawk do? When he was in command of 370000 manpower of the Pacific region’s armed forces, had he done anything to stop China’s islands building steps? He might have ordered a few man of wars to SCS, including aircrafts carriers. PLA returned with same action, to order their naval
They may find at the end that it is not a good bargain to confront China, and follow Abe of Japan to ease relation with the big east power.Sea islet, China keeps dispatching more armed ships to the area, and Japanese are in a difficult situation to defend China’s out weight. Japan asks USA to lend hands in balance Chinese might. So, Japan never consented to take a leading role to a joint anti China naval fleet by concerned South China Sea countries. Australia could do no more than this, and hawkish Ambassador would have no power to command Australian navy.
difference. Compared with Japan, a loyal US alley with much stronger military potetial than Australia. But in the desputes in East Sea islet, China keeps dispatching more armed ships to the area, and Japanese are in a difficult situation to defend China’s out weight. Japan asks USA to lend hands in balance Chinese might. So, Japan never consented to take a leading role to a joint anti China naval fleet by concerned South China Sea countries. Australia could do no more than this, and hawkish Ambassador would have no power to command Austrialian navy.
They may find at the end that it is not a good bargin to confront China, and follow Abe of Japan to ease relation with the big east power.
The US does not understand the nature of national power. It believes that it is defined by a powerful military, but fail to understand that a military establishment rests on a political base which in turn rests on an economic foundation. It believes that aircraft carriers can roll back the the tide of Chinese economic and political strength in the region. It cannot. China understands this.
Joshua Leffel. Heheh, the complete annililation of australia is every asian’s pipe dream.
It’s one thing for China to win a bloody proxy war against America in Vietnam or North Korea but the idea that China take Australian territory without immediate and complete
annihilation is a silly child’s daydream.
China’s military power outside it’s borders is currently only theoretical.
Perry Kamath: What kind of weed were you smoking before you write these juvenile stuff?
We have Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who is as calm and reassuring in appearance as Lavrov but without the intelligence and cunning. John Kerry was humiliated by Lavrov regularly.
It’s a sad fact that our politicians are so partisan and corrupt that only the stoic military can present a veneer of competence. It truly does finally show who runs America though, the military industrial complex.
I would investigate Harris loyalty whether it’s toward the US or Japan. The rationale for this is that his intention of provoking a war between China and the US was very obvious, which is the exact plot that Japan has been setting up to undermine both the US and China, the two giant countries that sandwich it.
Perry Kamath The Indian kind…
Australia is a small potato and is useless without big boys like Japan and group of littoral states of SCS. Chinese strategists believe their long range sea to sea missiles can sink US fleet in a matter of hours! Anyway, one should wait and see!
Derek Thai: What kind of weed were you smoking before you write these juvenile stuff?
A general as an ambassador? It ain’t surprising. Will give Nikki Haley a run for her money. After their unipolar moment with the fall of the USSR, the Americans have forgotten what diplomacy means. The US is now a hammer and every problem is a nail. Compared to Russian diplomacy, led by the impressive Sergei Lavrov, the Americans are embarassing rank amateurs.
Another military in a civilian position, after Kelly, Mattis and McMaster. The USA is looking every day more lika a military regime.
With a mentality like this you americans are a threat to the world peace, stability and security. The chinese don’t want a confrontacion or a war and you are constantly provoking them and force them to retaliate.
The future looks grim. You managed to create a new Cold War.
Darwin, located at the northern tip of kangaroo land, can easily be sliced off the continent with a single swipe by China, if push comes to shove. Harris or no harris, he is insignificant, will only be making more noise and yelp louder than normal. This is the real bloody nose China can inflicte on australia. Nah, forget north Korea, Usa can’t touch them.