Australia's increase in defense spending
Australia will boost its annual defence spending by80 per cent within a decade as it upgrades its armedforces partly to counteract Chinese assertiveness in the Asia-Pacific region.
A defence white paper published on Thursday lays out plans to increase expenditure toA$59bn (US$42bn) by 2026, compared with A$32bn this year. Almost half of a total budget ofA$447bn forecast for 2016-2026 will be spent on military hardware and infrastructure overthe period.
“This is a massive investment in securing the peace and prosperity of our region,” said PrimeMinister Malcolm Turnbull.
The paper also commits Canberra to raise defence spending to 2 per cent of gross domesticproduct by 2020-21. The proposal marks a significant expansion of earlier plans to boostdefence spending and comes despite budget pressures after the end of a decade-long mininginvestment boom.
The big spending increase, will be welcomed by the US, which wants its allies to shoulder moreof the burden of dealing with international problems and provide for their own defence.
It marks the latest stage of a developing arms race in Asia, where many countries arestrengthening their militaries on concerns about the actions of China, which has begun tomilitarise a series of contested reefs and islands in the South China Sea.
“Australia is particularly concerned by the unprecedented pace and scale of China’s landreclamation activities,” says the white paper, which warns that territorial disputes in the Eastand South China Seas have “created uncertainty and tension” across the region.
The paper commits the government to buying a fleet of 12 submarines, rather than the 8vessels envisaged by some analysts. This would double the fleet and comes on top ofcommitments to build 9 frigates, 3 destroyers and 12 offshore patrol vessels.
The shift in strategy “reflects significant concern in government about developments in regionalsecurity, including China’s aggressive actions in the South China Sea,” said Peter Jennings,director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.