Experts warn of deepening military ties, rising security risks for Australia, Indo-Pacific
Australia is exposed to a deepening military alliance between Russia, China and North Korea as the three partners work together in the war on Ukraine, prompting experts to warn of the risks to security in Asia.
Former CIA director David Petraeus warned that China was proving its capacity to design new weaponry and manufacture it in large volumes for Russia, heightening concerns for all Western nations.
Political leaders and experts also pointed to the Kremlin’s reliance on North Korea as a rising threat to Asia, given that the rogue state is supplying Russia with scores of missiles in an expanding weapons trade.
General Petraeus, who served 37 years in the US Army, told this masthead that China was innovating rapidly to supply Russia and apply lessons from the war in Ukraine.
“We should be very concerned that China is learning assiduously from what Russia and Ukraine are doing,” he said on the sidelines of a security conference in Kyiv.
“It’s providing the bulk of the components for the Russian military-industrial complex, and it is a leader in the world in robotic systems and drones and so forth.
“And it has an ability to do something that is hugely important in this war, which is not just to innovate but to scale the production of those weapons.”
Petraeus, an influential voice in defence investment as chairman of the KKR Global Institute, forecast a total shift in military doctrine due to the changing nature of war in Ukraine and argued that China was a key force in the conflict.
As the “manufacturing capital” of the world, he said, China was gaining expertise in the mass production of drones and other weapons.
“We should obviously be very keenly aware of that,” he said. “We should be very keenly aware of what is being developed here on this battlefield because it is the future of war, and it’s changing quite rapidly.
“And that should lead us, all Western countries, to develop a new concept of war that can drive, urgently, revolutionary institutional change.”
One of the most influential investors in new drones, former Google chairman Eric Schmidt, said he saw the impact of Russia’s partnership with North Korea during a previous visit to the Ukrainian capital.
“The North Koreans are giving the Russians the KN-25, which is a major ballistic missile – it’s an enormous size and does enormous damage,” he told this masthead.
“I was here when it was shot at Kyiv. I know it to be true. That’s very, very worrisome. So the connection between China and North Korea and Russia is a great concern.”
One of Schmidt’s companies, Perennial Autonomy, develops the Merops interceptor drones used by regiments across Ukraine and sold at low cost, in a sign of his support for the country.
The defence and investment chiefs were at the Yalta European Strategies Conference in Kyiv in recent days, where most discussions focused on the threat to Europe posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Rising risks to Asia region
The risks for the Indo-Pacific, however, are rising as Russia relies on China and North Korea.
Petraeus estimated that Russia would build 10 million drones this year, while Ukraine was seeking to increase its production from 8 to 10 million.
North Korea has supplied an estimated 10,000 troops to Russia, as well as large volumes of artillery ammunition and more than 100 missiles.
Former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt said the concern should not only be about what Russia received, particularly in Asia.
‘It may seem like Ukraine’s a long way away from Australia, but the North Koreans don’t think so’
Emily Thornberry, chair of UK Foreign Affairs Committee
“The worrying thing is, of course, that the Russians are delivering things back,” he told this masthead.
Bildt noted speculation that North Korea wanted to build a nuclear submarine and needed Russian help to develop the propulsion systems.
Dame Emily Thornberry, the chair of the foreign affairs committee in the UK parliament, said Asia would see the impact of the ties between Russia and its partners.
“It may seem like Ukraine’s a long way away from Australia, but the North Koreans don’t think so, right? They’re sending troops in to fight for the Russians,” the Labour MP said on the sidelines of the conference.
“I mean, it’s extraordinary, what’s going on – the idea that there’s an Asian country that’s just sending their troops through. China doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it.
“China’s closeness to Russia is really interesting, and I think that Russia is essentially, in order to get the help, becoming a vassal state of China.
“And that, I think, does have an impact on geopolitics and will have an impact on Australia.
“So you can’t close your eyes and look the other way and think that’s a long way away because everything is connected with everything else these days.”
Concerns about the Kremlin’s partners in East Asia are yet to result in any consensus on the best international response, despite attempts to impose sanctions on Russia to stymie vital supplies.
A draft US law proposed by Republican senator Lindsey Graham, who died in early July, would toughen sanctions on Russia and give the American president the power to impose sanctions on nations that trade with it – including China.
Some Democrat and Republican politicians are seeking to force the bill through Congress in a debate that could begin later this month.
Even if the bill passes, it would be up to the president to decide whether to apply 100 per cent tariffs on major buyers of Russian oil and gas, such as China and India.
President Donald Trump aired his frustration with Ukraine on Sunday (early on Monday AEST) in a complaint about its attacks on Russian oil refineries.
“Mr Zelensky has to do one thing: he has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia,” Trump said during a visit to Ireland. “We spoke to Mr Zelensky about it. There are plenty of other targets. Don’t hit diesel fuel. That’s hurting the world.”
American journalist and author Anne Applebaum responded on X: “How about calling on Putin to stop killing Ukrainian civilians.”
While Western nations could try to impose sanctions on China, Professor Carlo Masala of the Bundeswehr University Munich said the cost might be too high.
“The minute we do it, they will retaliate, which will harm our economies,” he said. “So that’s the reason why they’re shying away, and that’s the point why, at the end of the day, you know, the Russians will be supplied with whatever they need in order to assemble their weapons.”
Masala, the author of a recent book, If Russia Wins, said the pressure was on Europe to increase defence production to support Ukraine and prevent a Russian victory.
“The only thing is to basically outproduce China, to create the industrial base for a much stronger support for Ukraine,” he told this masthead.
China, however, appears to feel little competition from other nations in its production of military drones and other weapons.
“I think this war suits China just fine,” Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski told the YES conference.
“China is getting a vassal not just on the cheap, [but] making money in the process – taking over the Russian market for everything.
“If I were a Russian nationalist I would be horrified that Russia will become a very, very junior partner to China.”
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