Opinion | Why Australia must steer clear of America’s moral crusade against China
- America’s global standing is in decline, on the back of its single-minded pursuit of military might and consistent flouting of the rules-based order it helped create
- Anti-China enthusiasts in Australia also need to view China’s record in a historical context
There is excessive anti-China rhetoric currently in Australia and possibly insufficient realism about the mixed legacy of the United States or the dangerous situation in which current US anti-China policy places Australia. As Peter Hartcher, international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald, wrote recently: “The American ‘beacon on the hill’ is growing dim. Australia needs to light its own way.”
In 1945, Franklin Roosevelt’s America led the world in establishing the institutions that constitute what we know as the “rules-based order”. The first principle of the new order was respect for the sovereignty of individual nations.
The post-war period was supposed to be the dawn of a new age, led by a generous and prosperous America. The global leadership of the United States was unrivalled and paramount. The UN Charter was clear. Unilateral resort to war and armed intervention in sovereign countries were replaced by collective decision-making in the Security Council on behalf of all member states.
But within a few years of those heady days, the US took a different turn. It made a fateful choice to pursue global military supremacy – regardless of the limitations imposed by the rules-based order – and to sustain it long into the future.
Whether justified or not by the Cold War, the policy has now outlived its usefulness. America now deploys troops in more than 170 countries; its budget for defence and national security exceeds US$1 trillion; it spends more on defence than the next nine countries combined; it has approximately 800 overseas military bases and installations.