Two of Australia’s top security and intelligence minds say they would be surprised if the West moved to impose sanctions on China because Beijing would be keeping its relationship with Moscow “murky”.
The leading experts with decades of experience in Defence say China is scrutinising in “exquisite detail” the fallout of Russia’s attack on Ukraine and was likely taken aback by the West’s co-operative response to the invasion, which could have implications for any planned attack on Taiwan.
The comments were made at the National Press Club on Wednesday, a day after Australia suggested it would seek to follow the US lead in imposing sanctions against Beijing should it amp up support for Moscow during the ongoing Ukraine war.
Former Department of Defence secretary Dennis Richardson said China would likely operate in a “grey, murky area” when it came to lending a hand, which would make it difficult to impose sanctions or punishments.
“My own personal view is that China will support Russia, but I think it will measure out that support in axjmtzyw way that probably keeps it below what might be the sanctions threshold for the US,” he said.
“So it would surprise me if we got to the point where sanctions were being imposed on China.
“I think China will operate in a grey area, in a murky area, and it will be difficult to actually catch China with its hands in the till sufficient for sanctions to be imposed.”
Paul Dibb, former director of the Defence Intelligence Organisation and emeritus professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University, said that he thought China’s President Xi Jinping would be scrutinising “in exquisite detail” how much Russian President Vladimir Putin is getting away with the use of military force against a “sovereign country across sovereign boundaries”.
“And what does that mean for Xi Jinping in regards to – shall he warm it up with regard to Taiwan?” he posed.
“It’s one thing to cross land borders and the Russians have clearly found that a bit of a challenge. The Taiwan Strait is … serious stuff.
“I would have thought that Xi Jinping is having a close look at the reaction of the Western world and thinking I never thought that the West would get its act together like that, I would have thought.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Defence Minister Peter Dutton took aim at China, saying the superpower may seek to use the conflict in Ukraine as a “useful distraction and an opportunity to pursue their own acts of aggression and coercion”.
“This threat emanates chiefly from Beijing, which has its own openly stated territorial ambitions and which recently entered a ‘no-limits’ co-operative partnership with the Kremlin,” Mr Dutton said in an address to the United States Studies Centre.
But Professor Dibb said while China and Russia had signed a “no limits relationship” only last month, Beijing had already demonstrated there was indeed a limit.
“We’ve already seen that China had a limit in not voting for Russia in the United Nations. China has already articulated, silently, that there are limits,” he said.
“I think China will give what support it can to Russia that it can get away with.”
