Military alignment with Japan is Madness

November 19th, 2024

By Jerry Grey for Global Times

Australia’s government must be mad! At least in the view of many people in the know. Sky News in its own inimitable fashion of crafting a narrative to suit a purpose describes the announcement of regular joint military drills between Australia and Japan, a move “likely to anger China”. What it is more likely to do is anger a great number of Australian people, people who will vote in an election next year.

Japan’s intentions are not good, since 2015 under the late PM, Shinzo Abe, Japan has steadily increased its military budget, it’s now in line with NATO requirements at 2% which is a worrying development, especially for countries in the region who have experienced Japan’s rise. Korea for example, where 58% believe Japan is a greater threat than China but even in Japan itself, 68% of people polled believe military spending is too high. The USA of course loves this, as reported in NPR back in 2022, Japan lifted restrictions on military strike capabilities because the US had, for many years, been persuading Japan to assume more responsibility for its own defence. But this isn’t about defence, this is about strike capability which is why the move is so worrying. It’s also great business for the Military Industrial Complex which makes so much money from creating fear from imaginary threats.

Just a few days ago, a reputable poll, cited by Paul Keating the former PM, demonstrated clearly that the majority of Australians do not want to get involved in a US tussle in the “Indo-Pacific Region”. The Political Resolve Poll found that 57% of Australians polled would rather stay away from the USA’s potential conflict with China. But, at the same time, the government are providing space for the US to build Marine bases, allowing the refuelling of bombers attacking East Asian “enemies of democracy”, creating naval dockyards for the US to park up to four nuclear attack submarines and as well as making room in Tindal Air Force Base for the parking of long-range nuclear bombers. All this in a country that has ratified, but claims in a recent government release does not affect, the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The government also, in an undemocratic but bi-partisan move, signed up to pay $368 billion dollars, for submarines it is unlikely to ever receive.

And now, instead of working to increase cooperation with its largest trading partner, Australia will commence regular military drills with a country that does pose a real threat, Japan. There are very good reasons why this is madness and political suicide for the government.

These drills are designed to counter an imaginary China threat. The US and paid mouthpieces such as ASPI have manufactured a threat that doesn’t exist only to put Australia into a very dangerous position because, if there is conflict in Asia, it won’t be the US getting hit, it will be bases in Australia, some of which are very close to civilian populations. 

Evidence that people are becoming more concerned about USA’s potential conflict with China comes from foreign policy experts such as John Lander, former diplomat, contributor to IPAN, the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network and outspoken critic of these warlike policies who has highlighted several times, it is unlikely the US will go to war with China, the US will insist that its proxies do; these drills are just one more example of how the US will encourage, coerce or simply force Australia into fighting their (losing) battles.

While China is not, and has never been an enemy of Australia, Japan is. It has a history of invasion, occupation and brutality. 

There are only two countries that have ever invaded Australia. The first was Great Britain, they arrived in 1788 with a fleet of convicts a few soldiers and a desire to make this wonderful country into the world’s largest open-air prison. In 1901, Australia became a federated country and, since that time (and before when as a group of colonies) has taken part in every war the US has fought. Australian lives were lost in huge numbers in the First World War, the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Australian troops also fight in wars we don’t know about.

The other country to have invaded Australia was Japan. Not only did the Japanese bomb Darwin, strafe the township of Broome and send a submarine into Sydney Harbour, the Japanese Imperial Army captured over 22,000 Prisoners of war and 8,031 of them died in captivity, that’s 36%. Most of them died in horrific conditions, starvation, disease, slave labour but some were even worse than those atrocities, some were nurses, Sister Vivian Bullwinkel will forever be remembered as being the only survivor of a hospital ship that was sunk with 65 nurses being evacuated from Singapore. The ship was sunk, 22 nurses survived and made it to the beach where 21 one them were murdered by Japanese soldiers, Sister Bullwinkel escaped and survived for 10 days before she was captured and imprisoned to become one of the lucky ones to survive the war and have a tale to tell.

Many will tell us that this is history and not the present; this is true but we would be naïve not to think about this. In order to learn from history, we must acknowledge wrong doing, make amends for it and move forward with the understanding that this behaviour was an aberration never to be repeated – to this date, the Japanese have made no atonement, quite the opposite, although there have been some informal apologies, Japan has rewritten this history, deleting the atrocities.

Neither of the populations of Australia or Japan wish to be cannon fodder for any future war that suits the USA. Another poll by Lowy, just over a year ago found that Australians might be subjected to the highest level of propaganda but they still aren’t hankering for another war, especially when the major protagonist, the USA, isn’t even in it.

China’s military expansion, as any expert will tell us, is not aggressive, it’s defensive, Japan’s expansion is moving into an aggressive phase and we all know where that took the world last time. Thinking Japan is a greater friend and aligning Australia with their military expansion will not provide more security for the Region, it creates a much less stable Region which seems to be exactly what the Military Industrial Complex would like and what their performing puppets in Washington have encouraged for years.