The trouble with Albanese calling China a hegemon

Over time Australia may have to do the hard thinking – the hardest, indeed of its modern history – about what it can accept in terms of China’s role in Asia. As a first step, Canberra should intensify existing talks with the region about what the contours of future regional stability look like.

It would be unwise to call it “hegemony” but rather something akin to joint leadership of the region. Australia has certain, even if unsteady, form in this already: its support for the creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank was in its own way a tacit acknowledgement that growing Chinese power was bringing with it new institutional structures in Asia.

Talking with Washington will be just as hard, for much of this depends on whether the US goes willingly from its current position of regional hegemon. Some analysts like Hugh White suggest (Opens in new window) that China can already project force against the US from inside the First Island Chain.

And even if the United States leaves disgruntled this would not necessarily be disastrous for Australia.

But if Washington goes unwillingly and Australia’s acceptance of Chinese hegemony enrages the US, then Canberra will have to face the consequences and possibly US reprisals.

There is no question but that Australia is now caught between the two major powers in a way that makes the Howard era of emphasising not having to choose look like a quiet Sunday picnic. Those policies turned what was a “normal” relationship with the US up to the mid-1990s into a hoped-for “forever partner (Opens in new window)”, in the words of former prime minister Scott Morrison.

Perhaps by using the word “hegemon” Albanese is stating that he sees China fundamentally as a challenger to the US, and who, by challenging it, is a threat to Australia.

That demands Australia support a US blocking of that ambition. If that is the case, and it looks like it, then Australia is virtually proposing to deny China’s ambitions. The irony, of course, is that Canberra could at present offer only a niche military contribution to do so. It is not clear by what other means Australia could contribute.

This is a dangerous policy because China is edging closer to being the regional hegemon. The leaps and bounds it is making in technology competition, alongside its rising military power and industrial strength, mean that it may not be long until Beijing does threaten seriously Washington’s leading position in Asia. This is what Australia should be thinking about.