PERSPECTIVES | Talking tough? The politics of naming China a threat

This article appeared in UTS:ACRI's Perspectives on August 19 2025. Perspectives is the commentary series of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS:ACRI), offering research-informed viewpoints on developments and debates in the Australia-China relationship.

Former US National Security Adviser John Bolton’s recent intervention in the Australian debate illustrates a broader feature of alliance politics, wherein rhetoric has often been treated as a significant measure of reliability, alongside material contributions. Washington is especially attentive to this dynamic, but it is not unique, of course.

In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald published on August 14 2025, Bolton stated that the Albanese government has been ‘less vocal about what the problem is’ – namely Beijing’s growing power and coercive behaviour – than its predecessors. He added, ‘Why the hell are we worried about talking about what the threat is? The struggle is on, and we ought to be candid about it.’ 

Elbridge Colby, the US official reviewing the AUKUS agreement, has likewise pushed for Canberra to depict AUKUS explicitly as a military deterrent against Beijing in public rhetoric. 

This critique has echoes within Australian domestic commentary. On August 16, The Australian’s Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan contended that the Albanese government was ‘making the strongest effort of any government since Gough Whitlam’s disastrous interregnum in the early 1970s to distance itself from Washington and to contradict the US on specific issues and on world view’. Sheridan linked this in part to Canberra’s ‘claiming to be committed to contributing to joint military deterrence while being unwilling to say what or who [it’s] deterring’. Similar arguments hold that rhetorical restraint is a liability for alliance management, particularly in the Trump era. 

These interventions underscore that rhetoric is not peripheral. Language shapes expectations and send signals of reassurance or deterrence. But critiques of Albanese’s caution risk overstating divergence and underestimating how far Australia has in practice deepened its alliance integration.  

Canberra’s record under Albanese includes forging ahead with the AUKUS partnership – though some commentators question whether the government is fully committed, even asking whether Albanese ‘wants the US to pull away the AUKUS rug.’ 

Alongside AUKUS, however, Canberra has pursued significant acquisitions: more than 200 Tomahawk cruise missiles ($1.3 billion) purchase from the US, more than 60 Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range weapons ($431 million), an expanded program of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) launcher vehicles ($1.6 billion), the first two of which were delivered in March 2025. In July 2024, Reuters reported that the US was ‘building infrastructure in northern Australia to help it project power into the South China Sea if a crisis with China erupts’. The Australian government also committed to spending up to $18 billion to ‘harden’ Australia’s northern defence bases. In June 2025, Export Finance Australia approved a loan facility of up to US$150 million to shipbuilder Austal to support expansion of its Alabama shipyard, subject to final documentation. 

Over the past four years, Canberra has also secured security arrangements with Pacific Island nations including Vanuatu, Nauru, Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. These measures are direct responses to PRC military capacity, even if framed in less stark terms. 

For Washington, this pattern is familiar. The US has long treated allied rhetoric as part of alliance discipline. During the Vietnam War, for example, US officials orchestrated common language at the 1966 Manila Summit. Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton reported to Robert McNamara that ‘the Conference went well. I think we got what we wanted: Display of not-US-aloness, of resolve… we clarified some stands (for the world and for the enemy)’. 

The ‘war on terror’ provides an even clearer example. On September 20 2001, President George W. Bush told Congress: ‘Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.’ The line functioned as a public loyalty test: allies were expected to adopt the frame or risk being perceived as equivocating. Participation itself was rhetorically branded. The administration spoke of a ‘coalition of the willing’ and the White House published running lists of members, describing a global enterprise ‘from every continent’. Those who endorsed the label were publicly tallied; those that did not were conspicuous. When France and Germany opposed US policy in Iraq, they were publicly rebuked. Then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld contrasted them with Central and Eastern European states that had endorsed US framing, remarking: ‘You’re thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don’t. I think that’s old Europe.’

This tradition of rhetorical disciplining contextualises American remarks in the present day. Canberra’s caution is not unusual in comparative terms, what matters is that Washington has historically equated blunt speech with reliability. Notably, even within Australia’s opposition, there are acknowledgements that alliance management cannot come at the expense of sovereignty. Shadow Finance Minister James Paterson, while critical of the Albanese government, said in an August 12 2025 interview with Sky News Australia, ‘Australia's foreign policy is a matter for Australia, and we should decide it consistent with our own national interest, regardless of what our friends or allies might say.’ Such statements suggest that even critics are wary of appearing to subordinate Australian policy to American expectations. This underlines that questions of sovereignty and rhetorical alignment are live issues in Canberra.

Nor is the strategic use of language confined to Washington. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) invests heavily in rhetorical framing, though directed toward a different aim. Where Washington often presses allies toward explicit candour, Beijing tends to use language to blur divergences and project consensus. Alice Ekman of the European Union Institute for Security Studies observed in 2017 that Beijing had increasingly employed democratic-sounding terms such as ‘rule of law’ and ‘connectivity’, but with meanings that diverge sharply from liberal usage – a ‘definition gap’ that projects agreement where little exists. President Xi Jinping’s call to ‘spread China’s voice well’ acknowledges that discourse is a field of competition in its own right. 

The contrast is instructive: Washington’s approach narrows ambiguity but can constrain allied room to manoeuvre, while Beijing’s approach preserves ambiguity but risks obscuring substantive disagreement. This highlights how different rhetorical strategies carry distinct trade-offs for states seeking to manage alliances and regional influence.

The call for Australia to label the PRC a threat serves three functions. First, it locks in alignment as once a government adopts the language, backtracking carries high political costs. Second, it shapes domestic opinion by legitimising higher defence spending and risk acceptance. Third, it amplifies deterrence signalling by presenting a cohesive allied front to Beijing. 

Yet the claim that Canberra is silent or evasive is not borne out by the record. Since mid-2022, Australia has consistently expressed concerns about the PRC’s military build-up, publicly protested the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) ‘unsafe and unprofessional’ air and sea interactions with Australian aircraft and navy vessels, criticised ‘destabilising and dangerous’ PLA conduct in the South China Sea and criticised Beijing’s repressive actions in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. Defence Minister Richard Marles has described the PRC’s ‘extraordinary military build-up’ as the ‘fundamental issue’ for the region while Foreign Minister Penny Wong has referred to a ‘permanent state of contest in our region’. This author’s survey of Wong’s media releases and statements from May 2022 to August 19 2025 shows that 41 of 384 (11 percent) contain some criticism of Beijing.¹ The difference from the previous government lies not in recognising risks, but in avoiding adversary-naming and open-ended doctrinal commitments to conflict over Taiwan. 

Australia’s reluctance to employ the explicit terminology of threat reflects sovereignty concerns. Ambiguity preserves autonomy, reduces the risk of unnecessary provocation and still compels Beijing to plan for multiple possibilities. It also manages the practical constraints of economic interdependence with the PRC. Regionally, restrained language keeps Australia attuned to Southeast Asian partners that resist stark bloc politics.

The issue is not whether rhetoric matters, but how much weight it should carry relative to material commitments. Canberra’s record suggests that restraint in language and depth in capability can coexist.

Endnotes

[1] Note: The total of 384 media releases and statements excludes announcements relating to grants and appointments (ambassadors, consuls-general, high commissioners, special representatives, special envoys and government board members). If these are included, the total rises to 566.