Australia will not commit troops in advance to any conflict, minister says

SYDNEY – Australia will not commit troops in advance to any conflict, Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said on July 13, responding to a report that the Pentagon has

pressed its ally to clarify what role it would play

if the US and China went to war over Taiwan.

Australia prioritises its sovereignty and “we don’t discuss hypotheticals”, Mr Conroy said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“The decision to commit Australian troops to a conflict will be made by the government of the day, not in advance but by the government of the day,” he said.

The Financial Times reported on July 12 that Mr Elbridge Colby, the US under-secretary of defence for policy, has been pushing Australian and Japanese defence officials on what they would do in a Taiwan conflict, although the US does not offer a blank cheque guarantee to defend Taiwan.

Mr Colby posted on X that the Department of Defence is implementing President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda of restoring deterrence, which includes “urging allies to step up their defence spending and other efforts related to our collective defence”.

China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own and has not ruled out the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. Taiwan President Lai Ching-te rejects China’s sovereignty claims, saying only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, speaking in Shanghai at the start of a six-day visit to China that is likely to focus on security and trade, said Canberra did not want any change to the status quo on Taiwan.

Mr Conroy said Australia was concerned about China’s military build-up of nuclear and conventional forces, and wants a balanced Indo-Pacific region where no country dominates.

He said China was seeking a military base in the Pacific, which was not in Australia’s interest.

‘Goal is no war’

Talisman Sabre, Australia’s largest war-fighting exercise with the United States, opened on July 13 in Sydney Harbour and will involve about 35,000 troops from 19 countries, including Japan, South Korea, India, Britain, France and Canada.

Mr Conroy said China’s navy might be watching the exercise to collect information as it had done in the past.

The war games will span thousands of kilometres from Australia’s Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island to the Coral Sea on Australia’s east coast, in a rehearsal of joint war fighting, said Vice-Admiral Justin Jones, chief of joint operations for the Australian Defence Force.

The air, sea, land and space exercises over two weeks will “test our ability to move our forces into the north of Australia and operate from Australia”, he told reporters.

“I will leave it to China to interpret what 19 friends, allies and partners wanting to operate together in the region means to them. But for me... it is nations that are in search of a common aspiration for peace, stability, a free and open Indo-Pacific,” he said.

US Army Lieutenant-General Joel Vowell, deputy commanding general for the Pacific, said Talisman Sabre would improve the readiness of militaries to respond together and was “a deterrent mechanism because our ultimate goal is no war”.

“If we could do all this alone and we could go fast, but because we want to go far, we have to do it together and that is important because of the instability that is resident in the region,” Lt-Gen Vowell said.

The US is Australia’s major security ally.

Although Australia does not permit foreign bases, the US military is expanding its rotational presence and fuel stores on Australian bases, which from 2027 will have US Virginia submarines at port in Western Australia.

These would play a key role in supporting US forces in any conflict over Taiwan, analysts say. REUTERS