Political Futures Through New Pathways for Stability and Sustainable Development in Our Near North

The folly of drifting back to Cold War values has negative consequences for economic futures in both Australia and the economies of ASEAN countries. Strategic fears of an emergent China offset the national consensus on the need for more regional investment here and in the countries to our near north.

The latest ABS data to 2024 shows that progress has been achieved on this front both in inward and outward investment from Australia. The short-term decline in Australia’s International Investment Position (IIP) is not particularly significant as both investment indicators are moving in an upward direction.

Of concern, is the movement of both investment indicators towards our distant strategic allies and away from the countries to our near north:

Nearby ASEAN countries with their combined four trillion-dollar GDP, offer a lesson in the value of a more balanced investment mix with a closer association with China’s Belt and Road Initiatives in development assistance and investment. Malaysia achieves this balance without compromising long-standing investment ties with Australia, NZ, Britain and Singapore.

Under Project Starlight, troops from Singapore have conducted training exercises and civil defence projects throughout Taiwan for over 50 years (Global Taiwan Institute).

Malaysia retains its Five Power Defence ties with Australia, NZ, UK and Singapore as established since 1971. There is a co-tenancy agreement to maintain Australian and NZ defence resources at the Butterworth Base from where Poseidon surveillance aircraft take-off to monitor Chinese military air and shipping traffic in the South China Sea in association with other joint surveillance operations from US bases in Guam and Clark Air Base in the Philippines (ABC News 23 June 2022).

However, Malaysia and its adjacent neighbours are quite open to Belt and Road Investment in the Pan Asian Railway from Kunming in China through Laos to Thailand and onto Malaysia. The high-speed standard gauge rail link into Thailand across the Mekong River will offer a dual rail gauge access from Laos. Work is scheduled to commence soon on standard and dual gauge access into Thailand with extensions to Malaysia in the 2030s.

Prior to the signing of the Australia-China Free Trade Agreement in 2015, there were overtures of goodwill towards China even when the LNP was in government during the Obama administration. NT News (12 April 2014) reported on the extent of this strategic co-operation:

“CHINESE People’s Liberation Army troops will join in ‘exchanges and exercises’ alongside Australian Defence Force soldiers in the Northern Territory, PM Tony Abbott says. Starting from a low base, Australian defence ties with China have expanded steadily in recent years.

Australian and Chinese defence leaders hold annual talks and Australian and Chinese warships have staged reciprocal port visits. In late 2012, Australia hosted exercise Co-operation Spirit, featuring a small number of Australian, New Zealand and Chinese PLA personnel.

This didn’t involve troops with weapons against a pretend adversary. Rather, participants practised disaster relief and medical procedures at Enoggera Barracks in Brisbane over four days. For the first time, Chinese forces will participate in this year’s US-hosted RIMPAC, the world’s largest maritime exercise staged on and around Hawaii in June and July.”

The current round of flood disasters in Thailand, Sumatra and Sri Lanka justify a restoration of these commitments. Chinese ambassador, along with associations and organizations, donated 30M baht to aid southern Thailand flood victims, reinforcing the strong China-Thailand bond during this crisis (The Nation, 2 December 2025). This is the equivalent of the costs of one surveillance flight from Butterworth over the contested territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Both the US and Australia are still locked into patrols by air and sea between Japan and the South China Sea on a regular basis at great cost to Australian taxpayers to confront the strategic outreach of China (BBC News: 7 July 2023):

ABC News (29 July 2025) has kept everyone informed of developments in the South China Sea:

“China occupied virtually zero dry land in the South China Sea at the start of the 2010s.

‘Since then, China has created seven military bases on the Spratly Islands, 800 or so miles [1,300 kilometres] from mainland China’s coast, some of which have airstrips and deepwater ports,’ Mr Poling said.

Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) analysis of one of those bases, at Mischief Reef, shows combat aircraft hangars, missile shelters and high-frequency radar systems.

It is a level of detail that provides a clearer understanding of China’s capabilities in the region.”

With President Trump now claiming to be a serious global peacemaker, there may be an opportunity for US economic diplomacy with China to replace these well-established war-games in our region (White House Media 4 November 2025):

“Following my meeting with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China on October 30, 2025, in the Republic of Korea, the United States and the PRC reached a historic and monumental deal on economic and trade relations (Kuala Lumpur Joint Arrangement or Arrangement).  Under the Arrangement, the PRC has committed to, among other things, postpone and effectively eliminate the PRC’s current and proposed coercive global export controls on rare earth elements and other critical minerals, and address Chinese retaliation against United States semiconductor manufacturers and other major companies in the semiconductor supply chain.  The PRC has also committed to purchase United States agricultural exports integral to the economy and general welfare of the United States, including soybeans, sorghum, and logs.”

China’s co-operation in restoring US soybean imports has saved a key component of the US rural sector from its worst crisis in forty years according to the Australian’s Washington correspondent Joe Kelly (6 December 2025).

Analysts at Pine Gap can monitor the positives and negatives of China’s involvement in our near north to achieve the optimum balance in strategic involvement for Australia to minimise the need for ongoing war games over a vast region between Japan and the South China Sea. Far-right governments in Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines all have territorial claims over the contested seaways and maintain a vested interest perpetuating the strategic tensions.

Australia’s response to China’s Belt and Road opportunities should not be trumped by the return of Cold War rivalries when the need for more investment and trade interchanges with near north countries is so important to regional stability and sustainable living standards here and in the near north.

Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building on the critical issues raised in each article. Your comments on this and related articles can be recorded on theaimn.net site.

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