Yes Virginia, there is a vertical launch capability: ADDENDUM
Addendum: And Then, What Else Might China Do?
When you attempt to join the big league, it should be no surprise that the established players take you seriously. So, as Australia has sought a place in the strategic manoeuvring in the conflict between China and Taiwan through the formation of AUKUS, it should be no surprise that China would take steps to neutralise Australia's presence.
Already strongly placed with its submarine warfare developments, China is now developing further options to restrict Australia's capacity to mount a submarine-based challenge to China's interests.
One such option became apparent in late March when the text of a proposed security arrangement between the People's Republic of China and the Solomon Islands was leaked. Much of the text was vague and imprecise but it immediately raised the possibility that China might be setting up conditions that would allow it to position naval vessels in the Solomons.
Even the faint possibility of such a move rekindles fears ignited in 1942, when Australia stood isolated as Japanese forces advanced into the South-West Pacific. To most Australians this is probably a dim image of Japan defeating British forces in Singapore and advancing through the Indonesian archipelago, finishing with the bombing of Darwin. In fact, Australian interests were first attacked by an Imperial Japanese naval force sailing from its base on Truk in the Caroline Islands to the Australian mandate at Rabaul only 47 days after the attack on Pearl Harbour.
Rudimentary Australian forces were overwhelmed and Rabaul became a Japanese stronghold that they held until the general surrender of Japanese forces at the end of the war. From here, Japan occupied the northern coast of Papua and spread southwards through the Solomon Islands. On Guadalcanal they built an airstrip from which they hoped to be able to disrupt American efforts to build up its forces in Australia.
It took most of 1942 for American GIs to seize control of the strip and then neutralise Japanese forces on the island. During that campaign Japanese submarines were able to reduce the strength of the USN carrier force in the South-West Pacific to one, by sinking the USS Wasp and damaging others.
A Chinese naval facility in the Solomons would provide the means to mount the kind of harassment operations with Chinese “fishing boats”, shepherded by its coastguard vessels, of the type it regularly mounts in South East Asian waters. The requirements for such a strategy would coalesce if China manages to conclude its proposed fisheries agreement with PNG. If strategic circumstances further deteriorated, port facilities would facilitate Chinese escalation of conventional naval activities.
In responding to Australia’s proposed acquisition of nuclear powered submarines, a base in the Solomons would give China increased options for complicating deployment from the foreshadowed East Coast submarine base. While the PLAN (PLA Navy) would have no difficulty maintaining nuclear submarine surveillance of RAN movements, facilities in the Solomons would increase its range of options.
In essence the move would allow China to employ its fleet mix of nuclear and conventional powered submarines beyond the defence of its own waters. We calculate that, by the time that Australia would be able to begin operating nuclear powered submarines, the Chinese would likely be using advanced conventional submarines with light metal battery (LMB) energy systems capable of transiting discreetly to the Solomons in 12-14 days. From here, they could be loitering off an Australian East Coast submarine base within 3-5 days.
Thus naval facilities in the Solomons would allow China to complicate the deployment of Australian missile-armed submarines before they get anywhere near the Taiwan theatre of operations.
Whether such scenarios eventuate remains uncertain. The eventual agreement made with the Solomon Islands government may be more specific and less generous. It may not be made at all or could be rescinded after a change of government in a country where relationships with China have become as violently divisive as the pre-existing ethnic and regional frictions.
What remains as an inescapable observation is that joining allies to contain Chinese strategic objectives is not something that happens far away, at a safe distance from Australia. It is not like commitments to coalitions in Iraq or Afghanistan. China is capable of compromising the security of Australia much closer to home and can be expected to explore options for doing so, whatever the outcome of their current approach to the Solomon Islands.
Where the government may think its submarine procurement will neatly replicate Australia’s support of established alliances with no consequences for the security of the Australian continent, the Chinese riposte indicates otherwise.
What this Solomons incident indicates is that the eternal security debate between “forward defence” and “defence of Australia” remains alive and critical. Critical, because it is not apparent that the capabilities, force structure and platforms required for one policy are entirely compatible with the requirements of the other.
For submarine warfare, for instance, it’s not at all clear that a 10,000 tonne behemoth would be suitable for operations in the archipelagic chain to the north and east of Australia. Nor that Australia’s investment in hydrography and oceanography, in an area subject to constant tectonic forces, would be sufficient to support submarine operations let alone match China’s concerted efforts in this field.
If Australia wishes to be part of an effort to counter the threat of a growing China it is apparent that it needs to do more than simply procure a new type of submarine. Much more.
If it does nothing else, the prospect of China acquiring access to facilities in the Solomons emphasises the need for a serious effort to develop a viable defence strategy. China has a capacity to provoke events quickly; Australia’s defence procedures move slowly (very slowly). Peter Jennings makes a case that this disjunction calls for a new review of the ADF’s force structure of the type not done since the Dibb review of 1986.
But Australia needs to think further if it wants to plan for its security in an era of uncertainty – shaped around the continuing rise of China’s influence. It needs an inclusive national security strategy of the type initiated by Kevin Rudd in 2008, ignored by Julia Gillard and never understood during the ad hoc security responses of the Coalition years. And it needs a more coherent and focused foreign policy.
Yet even further, Australia needs to consider how its security is linked to its industrial potential and what vision it has for the shape of its future economy.
At present, the nation has an industrial policy anchored to the building of naval vessels. What it increasingly will need in the future is an approach that supplies the appropriate military capabilities from its financial, technological and social strengths.
Whoever forms the next Commonwealth Government has their work cut out for them if they are serious about national security.
Derek Woolner and David Glynne Jones
March 2022
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