What do the Upcoming Australian Elections Mean for U.S.-China Relations?

O’Connor’s clever attack on Morrison and favorable reference to a rotational force of U.S. Marines—first invited to train Australian forces in 2012 under the Labor government of Julia Gillard—represents a remarkable shift in Labor’s national security rhetoric. While Morrison’s government maintained and moderately expanded the U.S. Marine presence at Darwin, the Coalition’s decision in 2015 not to challenge a 99-year lease of the port to the Chinese-owned Landbridge Group (a firm with alleged links to the People’s Liberation Army) on national security grounds has been difficult to shake. The spotlight shone on this blunder came from what was, until very recently, an unlikely direction. Labor has traditionally attacked the Coalition on grounds that they have dangerously mismanaged Australia’s relationship with Beijing and escalated tensions. However, as this episode shows, this campaign season Labor is taking the Coalition to task for not doing enough to confront China and offering themselves to voters as a relatively tougher option. 

Electoral ammunition aside, how true are claims—from both the Coalition and Labor—that either party has objectively tougher policies towards China? A report from the Australia-China Relations Institute shows that both parties are in substantive agreement across all of the most important policy areas. In fact, the Darwin port lease is one of the few areas where a difference can be ascertained—the Coalition found after a 2021 review of the lease that there “were no national security grounds sufficient to recommend government intervention,” while Labor voiced its opposition to the lease and supported the government review; both parties, however, recognize the potential risks of the lease. 

Across all of the other reviewed policy areas — Chinese trade sanctions in 2018, defense spending, AUKUS, Taiwan, the Quad, the Belt and Road Initiative, the South China Sea, Xinjiang, China’s bid to join the CPTPP free trade agreement, the Beijing Winter Olympics, Huawei and ZTE involvement in the Australian 5G network, and foreign interference legislation — ACRI found that both parties are mostly in lockstep over what ought to be done, so much so that this election season’s foreign policy debates have been largely uneventful. Take, for instance, the two parties’ positions on the South China Sea issue. Both camps support the July 2016 Arbitration ruling and consider multilateral partnerships like AUKUS and the Quad useful vehicles for maintaining a “rules-based international order” in the region. The Royal Australian Navy has participated in joint maritime exercises with the US Navy in the South China Sea. Still, it has so far held off from U.S.-style Freedom of Navigation Operations specifically to challenge China’s maritime claims. Labor has not criticized this policy, stating that a decision on whether to join these operations is “a matter for the government of the day.” 

This campaign season has shown that the use of tough national security rhetoric to score electoral points is no longer the sole domain of the right in Australian politics. While there is little truth behind either side’s claim to a substantive advantage in confronting China, Labor’s efforts to outflank the incumbent government on national security issues are unlikely to cease after election day. Despite efforts to produce the appearance of division, a need to vigorously push back against perceived Chinese coercion or bullying is now a matter of Coalition-ALP consensus that will necessarily carry into the next government’s foreign policy. 

With this in mind, the Biden Administration can expect Canberra’s support for its regional initiatives that overtly or implicitly take aim at Beijing. However, it should also be wary of how a more assertive Australia could restrain U.S. policy options where interests diverge. Washington and Canberra’s response to the prospect of military cooperation between China and the Solomon Islands illustrates this potentially dangerous dynamic. Morrison’s initial statement that a Chinese military presence in the Solomons would be a “red line” for Australia forced the State Department’s top Indo-Pacific specialist Daniel Kritenbrink into a tough spot when he briefed the press following a U.S. delegation’s diplomatic trip to the Pacific country last month. Asked about Morrison’s previous comments and if the U.S. would consider military action in response to a permanent Chinese presence on the Solomons, Kritenbrink simply stated that the U.S. would “respond accordingly” and that he didn’t “have a lot to add” beyond that “a high-level strategic dialogue” with the Solomons was agreed to. In the following days, Morrison, on the other hand, doubled down, saying that Australia and the U.S. shared “the same red line” on the Solomons. Coincidentally, Defence Minister Dutton declared at a military commemoration that “Australia should prepare for war” as “the Chinese…are on a very deliberate course.”

The Biden Administration has staked much of its approach to the Indo-Pacific on cooperation with ideological allies and partners. Australia’s political dynamics following its decoupling with China make it a more attractive and resolute stakeholder in this regional strategy. However, Canberra’s potential to escalate sensitive areas of U.S.-China competition and quash opportunities for cooperation or détente is also increasing commensurately. Americans should not take the emergence of consensus in Canberra as proof that the next Australian government will necessarily be an uncritical agent of American foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific. Not all forms of ‘China consensus’ are cut from the same cloth as, for Australians, the China issue is far closer to home.