‘High Likelihood’ of Australia-China War?
Sydney Morning Herald says there is a high likelihood of a war between Australia and China citing a leaked briefing of a top Aussie general.
The paper says the ‘alarming briefing of the top Australian general to his troops that since last year China was engaged in “grey zone’ warfare.
The confidential briefing obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday quotes Australian Defense Force (ADF) adviser Major-General Adam Findlay.
“Who do you reckon the main (regional) threat is?” General Findlay reportedly asked his troops and officers before answering: “China.”
“OK, so if China is a threat, how many special forces brigades in China? You should know there is 26,000 Chinese SOF (Special Operations Forces) personnel,” he continues.
“They know that western democracies have peace, and then, when they cross a line, we get really angry. Then we start bombing people,” said General Findlay, according to the sources.
“China said, ‘let’s be smarter. Let’s just play below the threshold, before it goes to war. Let’s achieve things strategically without having war. So, now we have a new dimension.’”
The paper says Findlay went on to explain that China has “game planned” strategies to circumvent traditional military red lines to avoid direct conflict.
“They are utilizing more subtle and unconventional forms of attack.”
“China had focused on ‘political warfare’ enabling it to be ‘achieving strategic effects without going kinetic,’ he said. Political warfare involves a country realizing its interests by using a range of covert and overt means short of actual war, including trade levers, intelligence operations, foreign interference, diplomacy, and cyber operations. ‘Kinetic’ warfare is a military term for when the conflict involves lethal force,” The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
“We have got a cultural and professional transformation that is more significant than anything else that is going to occur in the ADF,” General Findlay said.
“At the same time, we have got to tool up for a new adversary. So this is the end point of the valley of hell that we are going into.”
He warns that Australia’s military needs to compete against China’s “coercive constraints” to “stop war from breaking out.”