Australia should spend big on defence to counter China, John Bolton says | KnottMatthew
Australia should counter the rise of China more forcefully by significantly increasing defence spending and pursuing new security partnerships with like-minded countries in the Indo-Pacific, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton says.
Bolton said that, unlike during the Cold War, Western nations such as the US and Australia had entered a “tripolar nuclear world” where simultaneous attacks from two nuclear-armed nations – Russia and China – were possible.The prominent China hawk said the AUKUS security pact with the US and the United Kingdom was not only a “huge breakthrough” but a “paradigm for other things that can happen in the region”.
The United States’ track record in the Pacific had not just been bad but “embarrassing”, Bolton said, opening the door for China to expand its influence with nations such as Solomon Islands.Bolton said the Quadrilateral security dialogue – an increasingly prominent grouping between the US, Australia, India and Japan – was still “very vague” in many respects and should be beefed up to provide a serious counterweight to China’s growing dominance in the region.
But he said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was the most likely Republican presidential nominee, while Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were the leading contenders for the Democratic Party nomination.
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