March 15, 2022
CHRIS KENNY: Let me bring in Liberal Senator James Paterson who heads up Parliament's Intelligence Committee. He's back from an overseas trip,discussing all these issues. James, good to talk to you again. How worried should we be about China overtly supporting Russia militarily during this Ukraine war?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Chris, I'm very troubled by the growing axis of convergence between Beijing and Moscow, and it flies in the face of Beijing's stated support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of individual states. In fact, they promised to uphold these principles at the UN and elsewhere. And yet, I think if we judge them by their actions, they are not living up to that. Their actions show they're providing aid and comfort to Russia and assisting Russia to evade sanctions rather than help enforce them.And if they made a terrible decision, as you indicated in your opening, to help resupply the Russian war machine, then the world would have to judge them very,very harshly for their complicity in that, because it's very difficult for Russia to resupply itself given the sanctions the rest of the world has put on them, and therefore their ability to continue this war and ability to continue to kill innocent people rests in part on whether the Chinese government is going to assist them to do so.
KENNY: Should the rest of the world be threatening sanctions against China if they go down this path?
SENATOR PATERSON: Chris, in the past when third countries have tried to assist countries under sanction to evade those sanctions, there have been consequences for those third countries. I would hope it doesn't come to that. I would hope that the Chinese will live up to their own stated rhetoric, their own policies and commitments in this area, and they would instead aid the rest of the world in imposing these costs on Russia. I mean, let's think about this,Chris, at the United Nations just over a week ago, 141 countries voted in favour of resolution condemning Russia for its aggression against Ukraine. Only five countries voted against, with some abstentions, including China. You don't get that kind of unanimity at the UN unless it's voting against Israel, typically. And so, China should take very seriously how isolated its international position has become and the determination of the rest of the world to live up to our values to impose real costs on Putin and those who aid and abet him.
KENNY: Now, as I mentioned, you've been overseas, you've been to the UK and the US discussing these issues, but also, of course, discussing AUKUS. It was a bit of an AUKUS tour going to Washington and London. Just briefly, can you summarise where we're at and how AUKUS is injecting extra dimension into those alliances?
SENATOR PATERSON: Chris, I've spent a lot of time in Washington D.C. I've lived there twice. I haven't spent as much time in London, but my observation is that AUKUS has changed the game. The reception that the committee delegation received, particularly in Washington D.C., but also New York and London, was transformed from all previous experiences. There was real understanding from our AUKUS partners the pivotal place Australia has to help all of us collectively prevail in a 21st century conflict that we're engaged in the Indo-Pacific. There is an understanding that we have a unique and meaningful contribution to make that is far out of proportion to our previous contributions to the alliance, whether that's Iraq or Afghanistan. Not to say that they weren't meaningful contributions, but this is an existential challenge. It is a systemic challenge and Australia is on the front line. And there's incredible respect for the work we've done over the last five years to harden ourselves and build resilience within our systems to protect ourselves from foreign interference, coercion, cyber-attacks and espionage. And they're looking very closely at following our lead and implementing the policies that we've implemented, so our leadership role has generated incredible respect from some of the most important forums in the world.
KENNY: Great to hear from you. Senator, thanks for joining us.
SENATOR PATERSON: Thanks, Chris.
