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R01052 US Army C-560 north from Ft. Bragg, NC after a ground stop to Lynchburg, VA-Regional Airport
US and Australia propose 'network of alliances' to curb China
In a move likely to irk Beijing, the U.S. and Australia look to build a "network of alliances" to secure the Indo-Pacific under efforts discussed at a two-day meeting that wrapped up Tuesday. The topic of China dominated the "two plus two" dialogue, where U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper hosted Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defense Minister Linda Reynolds. Their gathering in Washington was the 30th edition of the Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations, or AUSMIN. As Sino-American tensions rise, Washington successfully brought Australia to its side of the superpower tug of war, with Canberra vowing to make better use of current alliances and build new groupings to counter Beijing. "We'll work more closely with existing partnerships," Payne told a news conference after the meeting, "such as the Five Eyes, ASEAN, the Quad, the Trilateral Infrastructure Partnership, the East Asia Summit," name-checking a list of multilateral Asian alliances, collectives and organizations. "We will build new groupings, cementing friendships, improving our security through a network of nations that share our vision of an open, prosperous and secure Indo-Pacific," she said. The Five Eyes intelligence alliance comprises the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The Quad, or Quadrilateral Strategic Dialogue, is a framework formed by the U.S., Japan, India and Australia. The Trilateral Infrastructure Partnership is a grouping of development finance institutions of the U.S., Japan and Australia.
A joint statement issued after the event also vowed to cooperate with ASEAN and Five Eyes but added South Korea and made special mention of Vietnam the current chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations lauding its leadership in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. Esper said the recent trilateral exercises in the Philippine Sea by the U.S., Australia and Japan aimed to send China a message. "Last week, five Australian ships joined the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier strike group and a Japanese destroyer in conducting trilateral naval exercises," he said. "These exercises not only bolster interoperability, but also send a clear signal to Beijing, that that we will fly, we will sail and we will operate wherever international law allows," Esper said. Reynolds, his Australian counterpart, said the two countries agreed to further deepen cooperation in defense, science, technology and industry. "This includes hypersonics, electronic warfare and space-based capabilities," she said.
These are seen as key capabilities in penetrating China's anti-access/area denial, or A2/AD, strategy – which combines ships, missiles and sensors to prevent adversaries from approaching the Chinese mainland. Hypersonic missiles, for instance, can travel five times the speed of sound at high altitudes, making them difficult to intercept and ideal for targeting Chinese aircraft carriers. Electronic warfare and space capabilities are seen as crucial in denying China satellite communications and access its Beidou global navigation system.
"My biggest takeaway is that the U.S. and Australia are very much on the same page when it comes to dealing with China," said Derek Grossman, senior defense analyst at the California-based Rand Corp. "We shouldn't take that for granted because Australia in the past has been hesitant to push China too far." Grossman said that "since perhaps as early as the publication of Canberra's last defense white paper in 2016, and certainly within the last few months as punctuated by the 2020 defense strategy and force posture update, Australian policymakers have appeared more willing to support the U.S. in great-power competition against China." However, Foreign Minister Payne towed a line of caution because of Australia's economic dependence on and geographic proximity to China. The "relationship with China is important … we don't want to injure it," she said. Reynolds did not commit to freedom-of-navigation operations closer to the disputed island chains in the South China Sea when asked by a reporter, stating instead that those operations will remain "consistent" with what the country has been doing. "There probably is some wiggle room in Australian policy to keep the relationship with Beijing on an even keel," Grossman observed. "China is Australia's No. 1 trade partner, and so I think they will be more reluctant to 'decouple,' so to speak, from Beijing.
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https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/US-China-tensions/US-and-Australia-propose-network-of-alliances-to-curb-China
they all have pardons that ended on January 20th, 2017-and they would have been renewed if Hillbags won.
This is the case with most of them I believe
they all have pardons that ran out on January 20 2017 and would have been renewed had hillbags won.