While Talisman Sabre with its line-up of Western allies is provocative, Asean nations who drill with the Chinese military are also involved
While Anthony Albanese was busy this week trying to improve relations and promote business for Australia in his state visit to China, his country and the United States were hosting what has been advertised as their biggest military exercise involving 17 other allies and friendly nations.
Talisman Sabre is the biennial exercise dating back to the mid-2000s. This year, it involves almost 40,000 troops and 19 nations. And a not-too-subtle hint: they are united in preparing against an aggressive and expansionist China.
Talk about Canberra sending mixed messages to Beijing!
The press releases put out earlier by the defence departments of Australia and the US were positively breathless.
“Talisman Sabre 2025 is the largest and most sophisticated warfighting exercise ever conducted in Australia,” the Australian version read.
“Over the next three weeks, more than 35,000 military personnel from Australia and partnering nations will deploy across Queensland, Northern Territory, Western Australia, New South Wales and Christmas Island. For the first time, activities will also be conducted outside of Australia in Papua New Guinea.”
Poor New Guinea! But when your two overlords say so, you don’t have much of a choice. Likewise with Fiji and Tonga, two other “allies” called to duty to boost the numbers.
Still, the exercise may be a demonstration of strength, to tell Beijing who’s the real boss. After all, besides the above mentioned, it also includes Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and the United Kingdom.
As one Rupert Murdoch rag puts it, “[The exercise] is meant to send a message to China: The US and its partners are ready to respond together to aggression from Beijing, which has been increasingly asserting itself in what it regards as its sphere of influence in the Asia-Pacific region.”
Really, how dare China try to exert influence over the Asia-Pacific, unlike, say, the US and its Western allies Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and the UK. The operative word here is “Western”, that is, countries on the other side of the globe.
How would these Western allies respond if the Brics nations carry out a biennial exercise in Western Russia, right along the borders of a dozen member states of the European Union? Maybe the Brics navies could drill in the Baltic and exercise freedom of navigation through the North Sea, between the UK and northwestern Europe?
That would, of course, be considered highly provocative and may even start a war. But when the Western allies do it in the Asia-Pacific, it’s considered normal and justified because China is the aggressor, transgressing, presumably, in its own backyard? And those sea lanes must be protected from China, which actually uses them the most for its export-driven economy.
The US has in fact built up an extensive military network sometimes referred to as the first and second island chains of “defence”, or rather containment, facing the entire southeastern coasts of China, and with Taiwan at the centre.
That’s why Taiwan is a key Western security asset for boxing in China through a series of island chains, if war breaks out; or in Western lingo, to defend Taiwanese democracy.
But back to Talisman Sabre. The participation of India, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand does not signify they are switching sides and will go to war against China. India and China took part in joint military drills in Russia in 2022.
Last year, China and Indonesia agreed to resume joint military drills after a decade. In November, the militaries of China and Singapore exercised together with a focus on urban counterterrorism in Henan province.
Last August, China and Thailand carried out Falcon Strike 2024, a joint exercise in northeast Thailand described as their “most complex to date”, including special forces, fighter jets and attack helicopters. In other words, these Asean states drill with everybody, and don’t signal any military commitment in the event of a China war.
