Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy says he personally thanked Mark Rutte for raising China’s missile test in the South Pacific ahead of the NATO leaders’ summit underway in Ankara.
When asked about the missile test by The Nightly, Mr Rutte said that the Indo-Pacific should be reassured that NATO was “on it” and that no one should be naive about China.
Mr Conroy met the NATO Secretary-General overnight, along with the President of South Korea, and the defence ministers of Japan and New Zealand on the sidelines of the summit.
“There was uniformity in there that that was a destabilising move that was not conducive to peace and stability in the region, and you look at the public comments by Mark Rutte, and I thanked him for his public comments, which have been noticed in our region,” Mr Conroy said, in an exclusive interview with The Nightly after the session.
Mr Conroy is separately meeting counterparts from Poland, Latvia, Japan, Germany and Canada.
At a dinner for NATO and Indo-Pacific defence ministers, he warned European counterparts that a conflict in the Indo-Pacific would be “catastrophic” for everyone and that conflict could not be separated into separate Euro-Atlantic or Indo-Pacific regions.
“Today’s security challenges cannot be bound by geography. Today, all conflict is global,” he said.
“Even a limited conflict over Taiwan, or significant disruption to trade and supply chains, would damage Euro-Atlantic interests and have far-reaching global consequences.
“Any conflict in the Indo-Pacific would be catastrophic for all of us.”
The rhetoric is some of the strongest from the Labor government since it was elected in 2022 and sought a policy of stabilisation with China after the fallout from the COVID pandemic, when the CCP cut off speaking relations with Australia after the former Coalition government called for an inquiry into the pandemic.
But Mr Conroy rejected suggestions that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had toughened his tone on China following the Chinese Navy’s firing of a ballistic missile in the South Pacific this week.
Speaking alongside the Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale in Honiara, he strongly criticised China for testing the missile in the Pacific and for not giving Australia 48-hours warning.
“Part of our concern here isn’t just the lack of notice that occurred,” he said.
“It is the fact that this was a test of a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile fired from a nuclear-powered submarine.
“That is of real concern because what we need is less nuclear weapons, certainly not more. And the fact that this test took place yesterday with very little notice is of real concern.
“And so we join that as part of the concerns that we will express is the nature of the weapon that was tested that has a capacity clearly to reach at long range and to cause considerable, considerable damage were it to be weaponised.”
But Mr Conroy said these comments should not be interpreted as a toughening of the prime minister’s tone towards China.
“Well, I don’t think it’s a change of tone; he just used words that were natural,” Mr Conroy said.
China has tested missiles twice in two years and both during Labor’s term.
Mr Conroy denied that what the government is describing as a “destabilising” act was an admission that the government’s claim of having “stabilised” the China relationship had failed.
“No, it’s a statement that this test was provocative,” he said.
“And you don’t have to just take our prime minister’s words for it. Prime Minister Wale of Solomon’s said it’s not an act of a friend.
“It’s an ocean of peace — that’s the desire of the Pacific Island nations, and the test was not consistent with that.”
Asked what means Australia had available to pressure China to stop testing missiles in the region, Mr Conroy singled out diplomacy.
“You would expect us to use diplomatic means to continue to call for them not to test missiles in the South Pacific,” he said.
Asked if this was working, he said: “It’s our position, and we’ll continue to ask for it.”
He said that NATO, Australia, Japan, Korea and New Zealand had agreed to work together on growing their joint defence industrial bases.
NATO unveiled tens of billions of dollars in investments in new weapons as proof Europeans are taking on a greater role, following US President Donald Trump’s criticisms of the Europeans and Canada as national security freeriders.
At last year’s summit, NATO allies agreed to spend 3.5 per cent on defence spending by 2035. New figures released by NATO showed that allies increased their spending by US$90 billion and that five member states had already reached the 3.5 per cent spending target nine years early.
And for the first time, a British commander will take control of NATO’s Joint Force Command based at the US naval base in Norfolk, Virginia. The position has previously always been held by an American.
But President Trump, upon landing in Ankara, repeated his long-standing criticisms of the Europeans and their failure to support his war in Iran, during his bilateral meeting with host Turkish President Recep Erdogan.
“We’ve invested trillions of dollars in NATO. Why? To protect European countries and others,” he said.
“You would think that they’d be very willing to do something to help us, and they really weren’t.
“I’ve long said that we help them, but I’m not sure that they’d be there for us — and Italy turned us down, and Germany turned us down, and France turned us down.
“And that’s okay, but why are we spending hundreds of billions of dollars and they’re not there for us? We’ve always been there for them.”
He repeated his claim that the US needed to take control of Denmark-administered Greenland, something he threatened earlier this year but retreated after a backlash.
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