China s envoy urges Australia to resist US pressure on military spending

CANBERRA – China’s envoy to Canberra urged Australia not to be “incited” by Nato’s support for US demands to sharply raise defence spending and instead cooperate with Beijing to resolve regional disputes.

Ambassador Xiao Qian, in an opinion article published in The Australian newspaper on June 30, wrote that both Australia and China rely on the same trade routes and have a major stake in safeguarding maritime security.

He emphasised their roles as key trade partners with “highly complementary” economies.

“Dramatically increasing military spending places a heavy fiscal burden on the countries involved, undermining their efforts to boost economies and improve livelihoods, and further straining a global economy already struggling with weak recovery,” he said.

Mr Xiao added that some countries at events such as the Group of Seven summit and the recent Nato meeting have “hyped up the so-called China threat narrative”, to increase defence spending “and even incited Australia to follow suit”.

Australia spends a little over 2 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defence, and is under pressure from the US to raise that to 3.5 per cent.

The centre-left government has pushed back, pointing out it has already increased outlays.

At a higher level, Canberra is trying to balance the increasingly confrontational relationship between the US and China, which are respectively Australia’s historic security ally and its biggest trading partner.

Australia likely wants to avoid raising defence spending excessively and antagonising Beijing.

“As I often hear from Australian friends, ‘we have hundreds of reasons to be friends, and none to be enemies’,” Mr Xiao said.

Nato leaders last week agreed to increase defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP and renewed their “ironclad commitment” to mutual security as they aim to push back against an increasingly belligerent Russia.

The US wants allies