Australia releases strategy document, says China not threat

Australia today released a new military roadmap underlining its "enormous stake" in managing strategic change in the resource-rich Indo-Pacific region and declaring that it no longer sees China as a threat.
Releasing the 2013 Defence White Paper, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said, "The white paper underlines the enormous stake Australia has in managing strategic change in the Indo-Pacific region and managing it peacefully, in particular in a US-China relationship in which competition is minimised and co-operation maximised."
"And in a region in which flashpoints, such as North Korea and territorial disputes, are managed peacefully and in a way that avoids the risk of dangerous miscalculations," she said, quoted by AAP news agency.

She said there had been significant changes since the last paper in 2009. This included a shift in global economic and strategic weight to the region, the renewed US focus on the pacific, Australian Defence Force (ADF) drawdowns in Afghanistan and the global financial crisis.
"China's defence capabilities are growing and its military is modernising as a natural and legitimate outcome of its economic growth," said the roadmap backtracking on the 2009 document, which questioned China's long term strategic ambitions.
Gillard said the government was committed to manufacture 12 advanced new submarines in South Australia.

However, due to the need for detailed design analysis, any further work on buying an existing or modified overseas model was off the table because it was unlikely to meet Australian requirements.

She further said Australia was committed to defence spending of two per cent of annual gross domestic product (GDP).
"I want to be clear that we see this as a longer term objective as and when fiscal circumstances allow," she said.
"In this year's budget we will once again allocate more than USD 100 billion to defence over the forward estimates," she said adding defence spending would "rise in a modest way, relative to last year's budget estimates" and would be "appropriate and sustainable."
In response to the white paper, Defence minister Stephen Smith said it set out a framework to "protect and defend the national security interests of the Commonwealth and continue to have an effective and capable Australian Defence Force".

Referring the four priorities for ADF, he said these were defending Australia, taking the lead in the South Pacific and East Timor, working with its partners in the Asia-Pacific and contributing to global operations, such as Afghanistan.
Smith said there were no proposals to reduce military numbers.
"The white paper refers to our part of the world not as the Asia Pacific or Indian Ocean rim, but the Indo Pacific," he said.