From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Friday, June sixth, twenty twenty five. Australia's guidelines on transgender kids have been slated by a family court judge who has removed a child from a mother who wanted doctors to prescribe puberty blockers. Australia's warplanes and navy ships are vulnerable to the same kind of drone attack that Ukraine successfully used to destroy Russian fighter jets. That's the
warning from defense experts. Those exclusives are live now at the Australian dot com. Dot Au warnings this week that a war over Taiwarn is getting closer. America wants Australia to spend much more on defense, but Anthony Albanezi says that won't be happening today. What's really going on beneath the talk of war? Foreign editor Greg Sheridan joins us Donald Trump's Defense secretary. Pete Higseth is one of those colorful characters who, it seems can only exist in American politics.
A former soldier and Fox News presenter who had to fight off allegations about his past to be confirmed as a member of cabinet.
If there's one thing I've sort of been offended by, I don't get offended by much.
Is this idea that.
I don't take classification or I don't take clearances seriously. Nobody takes it more seriously than me.
The job makes him one of the most significant figures in world affairs, complete with an American flag handkerchief in the breast pocket of his tailor made suits, and he's just rocked geopolitics with a blunt declaration about China.
Beijing is credibly preparing to potentially huse military force to alter the balance of power in the Indo Pacific.
It's public that she has ordered.
His military to be capable of invading Taiwan by twenty twenty seven.
Hexseth is making a frank request of Australia and the rest of America's allies pony up with more cash to defend yourselves and Taiwan. Hegseth wants allies like Australia to spend three point five percent of their GDP on defense. For US, that would be a seventy five percent uplift on our current spend. Greg Sheridan is the Australian's Foreign editor. Now, Greg, one of the things we like to do on the front is dig through what these colorful characters like Pete
Heigseth say. What's your interpretation of what he really wanted allies like Australia to hear from that speech that he made.
One of the things he said was that there is potentially an Chinese military action against Taiwan. Shijinping himself has told the Chinese military that they need to be ready to be able to take Taiwan by force if they so decide by twenty twenty seven. Nothing is inevitable. And one of the reasons Hegseth would have said it was to make it less likely. The more you convinced the Chinese that the Americans might respond that there'd be a very big cost if the Chinese did this, the less
likely they are to do it. So Hegseth is a colorful character, but he is actually in accordance with what previous senior American officials under the Biden administration were also saying about China and Taiwan.
Donald Trump's political brand for a very long time has really been isolationist that America would look after itself first and couldn't be relied on any more to be the world's policeman solving problems everywhere else. That had been interpreted, probably before or the US presidential election, as a signal that Taiwan might be on its own and that the US might look the other way if China invaded. What do you think we can say now about what Trump and hexth really think.
America has always said that China should not use force to change the status quo. The Australian government says that too, But there always was a little bit of strategic ambiguity about whether America would actually automatically military come to Taiwan's aid because America also wanted to constrain Taiwan about what it did. It didn't want Taiwan to declare de jura independence, even though Taiwan has only been ruled by Beijing for four years since eighteen ninety five. But then some presidents
defy the principle of ambiguity. Joe Biden. The one clear thing he used to say in his very confused presidency was that he would come to the military aid of Taiwan, and his spokespeople would then rush out and say no, the President didn't mean to say that, and he wasn't changing our policy of strategic ambiguity. But in fact, I give Biden more credit than that. I think Biden was using his dodderiness as a cover to send a clear warning to Beijing. If you move on Taiwan, we'll move
on you. And going to war with the United States is a very dawting prospect. Now, Trump has always been reluctant to take any military action, But now everybody accuses Trump of being a bit of a hypocrite. The so called taco trade. Trump always chickens out. If one thing could ensure that Trump one day won't chicken out, it's
being accused that he always will chicken out. And I think in the first administration he took military action against ISIS and against Iranian military commanders to show that he could, and in the second administration he's taken military action against the Hooties to show that he can. He obviously would hate a war with China, so would any civilized human being. In the past that he probably wouldn't do military intervention,
He'd do economic intervention. He'd crush China economically. So Trump, I think we can say is sending out ambiguous messages. We don't know how he would react to Chinese military action against Taiwan, but it's not the worst thing that the Chinese don't know either. They could take military action against Taiwan confident that Trump won't react, or they know there's a chance they'll get that calculation wrong, and then they would be in a military conflict with the United States.
And having that degree of uncertainty in the Chinese mind is perhaps not altogether a bad thing.
How do you think the changing landscape in Ukraine, where Trump is trying and failing to negotiate a peace, influences Americas thinking about China and Taiwan.
I think at one level, you can certainly say that if the West had been completely weak on Ukraine, it would have convinced the Chinese that the West will never intervene. Taiwan is inherently a very difficult island to invade, but Taiwan is also a difficult place to resupply for its allies because you'd have to come in against Chinese sea and air blockades. The only nation that could do that
is the United States. The United States could break through any Chinese blockade, but it would be a very bloody business. The Chinese, of course, may take military action against Taiwan. Far short of invasion, they may simply blockade the island and try to sort of, so to speak, starvan into submission. I mean. The Americans in the Indo Pacific Command in Hawaii have developed battle plans for creating a healthscape for the Chinese, where through drones and missiles, the Americans could
attack a thousand Chinese targets a day. This is really an incalculable potential conflict and the consequences for all of us, including for Australia, would be utterly horrendous. And the best way to avoid it is to convince the Chinese that it's too costly, that they'd be better off not doing it than engaging in that uncertainty coming up.
So why don't we just spend more on defense? One thing that's loud and clear from Pete Hexf and Donald Trump is that they want all their allies, including Australia, to spend a lot more on defense. Anthony o Aneasy scene very quick to shut that down.
Now, what we'll do is well determine our defense policy, and we've invested just across the fall it's an additional ten billion dollars in defense.
Do we need to get to three point five percent of GDP as a defense spend to keep ourselves safe? Gregan also to participate in a US let alliance.
Clear the amount of money we spend on defense is a joke. We have some symbolic capabilities, we have no capability to defend ourselves. We are one hundred percent reliant on the Americans. We won't take responsibility for ourselves, we won't take responsibility for anybody else, and we just believe the Americans will always win. They'll always be there, they'll always be committed to our security, and they'll always take care of us. Next year, the federal government'll spend seven
hundred and seventy seven billion dollars. We currently spend fifty five billion on defense. If we went up from two to two and a half percent of GDP, you'd have to add another thirteen billion, and that would be very vital money. Because we have no ammunition, we have no missiles, we have no drones, we have no counter drones. The Ukrainians have just shown us what you can do with drones.
They've destroyed billions of dollars of Russian warplanes with smart drones, instead of which we spend one hundred years purchasing three exquisite ships, each worth twenty billion dollars or something, so you can't possibly send them into battle, because if you lose one, you've lost a third of your navy. And the design of that is so that we can make exquisite, tiny niche deployments with the Americans in expeditionary operations in
the Middle East or somewhere else. It's not to defend ourselves, it's not to be a credible alliance partner. But one day the Americans will say to themselves, you know what, if the Australians aren't interested in defending themselves, we aren't interested in defending them either, and they'll go home. And then we have no capacity at all. Where the thirteenth
or fourteenth biggest economy in the world. If we put our minds to it, we could certainly produce an asymmetric defense which would make it very difficult for any power, even a superpower, to come and do us harm. We haven't done any of that. It's just an act of gross national irresponsibility.
Greg. You always managed to make me laugh even when we're talking about military sustainment or nuclear armourged and so thank you very much. We really appreciate your time. Greg Sheridan is The Australian's Foreign editor. You can read his analysis and all the latest on world affairs anytime at the Australian dot com dot au