Australian Polity, Volume 9 Number 3 - Digital Version

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Building sovereign capacityBuilding our own sovereign capability and resilience iscentral to our efforts to enhance cooperation for globalsecurity and stability. Australia’s strategic environmenthas changed significantly over recent years. Acceleratingtrends are working against our interests. The view theworld hasn’t changed in the last five years, is disconnectedfrom reality. Things have changed, accelerating trendsare working against our interests.The Indo-Pacific region – our region – is the epicentreof renewed strategic competition. The risks ofmiscalculation and conflict are very present growing.And the technological edge enjoyed historically byAustralia and our allies is under challenge. In last year’sDefence Strategic Update, our Government committedan additional $270 billion over the next decade to ourdefence capability growth. Australia has never soughta free ride when it comes to our security. We may lookto our allies and partners, but we never leave it to them.We bring agency as Australians and critical sovereigncapabilities to our partnerships. We add value to thecombined effort, with our partners. This is why we arerespected. This is why we are at the table. We mustintensify our own efforts and cooperation with othersto meet the complex security challenges we face. Thereis much more to do. Because Australia does, and must,play an active role in securing our own future, using allthe tools of statecraft we have available to us.Australia has been working hard in our region, building onthe strong cooperation with the United States, Japan andIndia, stepping up in the Pacific, supporting SoutheastAsia and engaging ASEAN as a steadfast partner. I lookforward to discussing the strategic challenges of theIndo-Pacific with our longstanding and unshakable alliesand friends.The Biden Administration has made its focus on theIndo-Pacific region very clear and the region is alreadythe focus of our alliance. My first face-to-face meetingwith President Biden will provide the chance to furthercement our alliance partnership, built on the bonds andthe values that are shared between our two peoples.30 Australian PolityAn ever-closer security and defence relationship hasbecome a signature part also of our Special StrategicPartnership with Japan. I look forward again to affirmingour strengthened bilateral security cooperation when Imeet with Prime Minister Suga in Cornwall, as we worktowards signing our Reciprocal Access Agreement,agreed in-principle last November.I welcome the United Kingdom’s commitment to engagemore deeply in the Indo-Pacific following the IntegratedReview announced by Prime Minister Johnson in March.When we meet in the UK, it will be an opportunity todiscuss how we can deepen cooperation also on securityand defence issues. And of course, I look forward tosharing perspectives on the Indo-Pacific region’sstrategic challenges with other leaders at Cornwall, andwith President Macron when I visit France on my returnto Australia. A key focus of discussions will be ensuringthat markets for new and critical technologies developin ways that reflect our shared values.Growing security challenges surround the developmentof secure and resilient supply chains for criticaltechnologies. Artificial intelligence, machine learning,quantum computing and other technologies haveenormous potential to support the prosperity, securityand well-being of our people. But they do carry risks.We need these technologies to be reliable, affordable,resilient and importantly secure, as well as governed byrules and norms that reflect our liberal democratic values.Secure and diverse supply chainsA further priority is the development of secure anddiverse supply chains in those critical minerals, essentialfor clean energy technologies and military applications.At present, the supply chain for rare earths is not diverse- a single nation currently accounts for about 85 percent of the world’s refined rare earths products. Andgiven its endowment in critical minerals, Australia has aresponsibility to contribute to greater diversity of criticalminerals supply, as far along the value chain as possible.The same can be said for lithium. That effort will yieldboth a strategic and economic dividend for Australia.I also look forward to discussions on broader supplychain issues as they relate to our economic, health and
social resilience. Australia is a keen advocate of effortsto keep supply chains open, transparent, competitive,trusted and diverse. We’ve joined India and Japan toestablish a new Supply Chain Resilience Initiative and athome we’ve set up an Office of Supply Chain Resilience.We’ve launched a $107 million program to remove keysupply chain vulnerabilities. At Cornwall, I will point tosupply chains for critical medical equipment, PPE andvaccines as key examples where we need enhancedcooperation and I think that view is broadly shared.Importantly, sovereign capability does not mean we mustproduce everything we consume here. No economy canor should be self-sufficient in all products and services.That is why reliable supply chains with trusted partnersare so important.stronger, more independent World Health Organizationwith enhanced surveillance and pandemic responsepowers, as I have articulated before. And I stronglysupport President Biden’s recent statement that weneed to bolster and accelerate efforts to identify theorigins of the COVID-19 pandemic. Having led callsfor such an inquiry, an independent inquiry, it remainsAustralia’s firm view that understanding the cause of thispandemic has nothing to do with politics, it is essentialfor preventing the next one, for the benefit of all peopleeverywhere. It is a very practical, sensible perspective.The Hon Scott Morrison MP is the Prime Minister of Australia. Thisis an edited extract of his speech to the Perth USASIA Centre, PerthWA, 9 June 2021.Cooperating on global challenges will be the third focalpoint of Australia’s participation in the G7 Plus. Ourdiscussions at Cornwall will also focus on the need todo more to prevent a pandemic like COVID-19 happeningagain. I will lend Australia’s weight to growing calls for a“Competition does not have to lead to conflict.Nor does competition justify coercion. We need allnations to participate in the global system in waysthat foster development and cooperation.”Australian Polity 31
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