On February 19, 1942, an estimated 260 Japanese airplanes attacked Darwin in northern Australia. The airplanes dropped bombs and strafed the town and its harbor, sinking multiple ships and killing 252 civilians and military personnel. Smaller such raids were repeated in April, June, July and November of 1942 and March of 1943 with forces of 30 to 40 airplanes. Japanese airplanes also attacked more than a dozen other harbor towns around the northern coastline of Australia. In total there were 97 air attacks on northern Australia, and Japanese air reconnaissance over the region continued through most of 1944.
Japanese submarines also attacked and sank multiple ships off the eastern and southern coastlines of Australia. On May 31, 1942, three midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour to attack moored ships. All three were destroyed, but one did manage to sink the HMAS Kuttabul. A week later, two of these midget submarines’ parent subs returned to bombard Sydney with their deck guns.
Brad Manera, head of the ANZAC Memorial in Sydney, told ABC News that the attacks were designed to terrify Australians and keep Australian forces from venturing into Southeast Asia. At the outbreak of the war, Darwin was earmarked to be the staging area for Australian naval and air forces that would target warzones in the Dutch East Indies.
The Japanese attacks were not a precursor to a feared invasion, but served to interrupt the use of wartime port facilities while diverting anti-aircraft and air force units. Australia’s military analysts now have to calculate how China’s military would act if a war breaks out over Taiwan. Such a war could be sparked by a Chinese blockade of Taiwan, a Chinese attack on Taiwan’s strategically important outlying islands, or an invasion of Taiwan’s main island. Current indications are that the U.S. would almost certainly react forcefully to any such actions. It is even possible that such a conflict would lead to a chain reaction that would draw in Japan and eventually lead to a world war.
Whether such a theoretical future conflict would stay contained around Taiwan or escalate to something much bigger is something that Australians have to prepare for today. One week ago, Australian newspapers The Age and Sydney Morning Herald published a report by five security analysts that warned that a conflict over Taiwan is much more likely than most Australian citizens realize. The report also warned that Australia needs to prepare for war with China in three years’ time.
In their report, the analysts say they don’t want war, but they urgently want to strengthen Australia as a means of sustaining peace through deterrence, and that “complacency will increase the probability of conflict.” The report says there is a serious risk that China will attack Taiwan and spark a conflict with the U.S. and other democracies, including Australia. It points at Chinese President Xi Jinping’s increasingly aggressive stance and China’s rapid buildup of forces designed to invade Taiwan and also keep its allies’ forces from getting close to Taiwan. The report states: “The need to dramatically strengthen our military and national security capabilities is urgent, but Australia is unprepared. Our defense and national security establishment, all too often, lacks agility and is risk-averse. Determined to stabilize relations with its biggest trading partner, the federal government is reluctant to openly identify the threat we face: an increasingly aggressive communist China.”
The analysts say the likelihood of war within three years is high because a tipping point is about to be reached: Beijing will have military superiority over the U.S. in the Taiwan Strait because China has focused on strengthening its offense and defense in this theater for several decades, while the U.S. and other countries need to rebuild their stocks of munitions dispatched to Ukraine. They assess that Xi judges China to have greater political will than the U.S. and its allies. Yet Xi must fear that this advantage could be temporary as China’s population shrinks and its economy slows. The analysts say this window of opportunity will not be open for long and Xi may be tempted to strike at the moment of greatest opportunity.
The report says that the conflict would be a direct threat to Japan, and the U.S. military would be at risk of direct attack at its bases in the region. Southeast Asia and the Pacific Island states could then be dominated by Beijing, and Australia’s commercial and security lifelines to the world would operate “only at Beijing’s pleasure.” Australia would be highly vulnerable to economic coercion, military intrusion or both. Its sovereignty would be conditional on the Chinese Communist Party’s policies towards a subject power.
In my next article I will look at what Australia has to win and lose in a theoretical future conflict, and what its options are in terms of politics and military capabilities. Click here for that article.
Image: RAN Historical Collection, Crown Copyright
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