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    Rising US isolationism means Australia must become more resilient and autonomous, thinktank warns

    Rising US isolationism means Australia must become more resilient and autonomous, thinktank warnsUnited States Studies Centre finds Americans are not convinced the Indo-Pacific should be a priority region for the Biden administration

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    Voters in the US are not convinced the Indo-Pacific should be a priority region for the Biden administration, and isolationist sentiment in the country continues to rise, according to a new analysis by the United States Studies Centre.The new USSC State of the United States report, to be launched in Canberra at an event on Wednesday with the defence minister, Peter Dutton, Labor frontbenchers Penny Wong and Brendan O’Connor, and US congressman Joe Courtney, finds support for the US alliance with Canberra remains strong.But the USSC’s chief executive, Prof Simon Jackman, says the US in 2022 is “consumed by a fractious debate about its role in the world, and is almost paralysed by disunity”. The new analysis draws on YouGov polling undertaken in the US and Australia last December. The US sample size was 1,200 and the Australian sample size was 1,211.The data shows isolationist beliefs in the US have increased steadily from 28% of respondents in 2019 to 40% at the end of 2021. The new report also notes that prior to 2016, the American National Election Studies – a time series dating back to 1952 – has never found more than 30% of Americans holding isolationist beliefs.Dutton dials back language on Australia defending Taiwan in a potential war with ChinaRead moreWhile Joe Biden has stressed the importance of nurturing alliances since winning the White House, voters in the US appear more ambivalent. The largest group of respondents – around half or more – felt alliances made the US neither more nor less secure. This suggests, the report says, “the majority of Americans are unsure about the value of US alliances”.As well as growing isolationism, there is also pervasive pessimism. Voters in both the US and Australia also believe America’s best days are behind them (60% of respondents in the US and 70% in Australia).The research suggests people who voted for Biden in 2020 “are now just as pessimistic about the future of the United States as they were during the Trump administration, while the Republicans’ preferred candidate for the 2024 presidential election remains Donald Trump”.Jackman says the analysis suggests the US currently lacks the national unity that leaders of Australia’s defence and diplomatic establishment view as the critical ingredients of our national defence.“The implication for Australia is clear,” Jackman said. “While the US alliance remains Australia’s single most valuable strategic asset, Australia must continue to rapidly evolve its own capabilities, resilience and autonomy.”Jackman said realising the potential of the Aukus partnership would “require unrelenting focus and attention in Washington, cutting through domestic political division, bureaucratic inertia, vested interests and the many competing demands for the US attention and focus”.
    Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
    Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morningThe USSC analysis suggests people in the US are hesitant about sharing technology, like nuclear submarine capability, with allies, including Australia (35% of respondents said it was acceptable to share with Australia).Morrison decries ‘arc of autocracy’ reshaping world as he pledges to build nuclear submarine baseRead moreThe new analysis does show there is bipartisan consensus in the US that China is a major problem. New research from another leading Australian foreign policy thinktank, the Lowy Institute, to be released on Wednesday, looks at China’s future growth trajectory.A paper co-authored by Lowy’s lead economist, Roland Rajah, says China will likely experience a substantial long-term growth slowdown owing to demographic decline, the limits of capital-intensive growth, and a gradual deceleration in productivity growth.Rajah suggests annual economic growth in China will slow to about 3% by 2030 and 2% by 2040, while averaging 2–3% overall from now until 2050. The country remains on track to be the world’s largest economy, “but it would never enjoy a meaningful lead over the US and would remain far less prosperous and productive per person even by mid-century”.TopicsAustralian security and counter-terrorismAustralian foreign policyUS foreign policyAsia PacificUS politicsAukusJoe BidennewsReuse this content More

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    Five great reads: smart supermarkets, Biden’s first year and a gaming empire built by children

    Five great reads: smart supermarkets, Biden’s first year and a gaming empire built by childrenGuardian Australia’s daily round-up of compelling reads as selected by lifestyle editor Alyx Gorman Grab a piece of fruit and a beverage of your preference and settle in for Five Great Reads: your morning tea wrap of great writing, curiosity and usefulness, lovingly selected by me – Alyx Gorman, Guardian Australia’s lifestyle editor (cold brew and blueberries, in case you’re wondering).If you’d rather be reading the news as it unfolds, hop over to our live blog; and if you just want a quick hit of something other than Covid, read about this badger that discovered a trove of 209 Roman coins in Spain.If you’re reading this on our website and fancy getting it in your inbox instead, you can sign up to receive Five Great Reads as an email by popping your address in the box above. Go on, do it!Now, on to the rest of the reads.1. Big-name writers on Biden’s first yearFour leading American authors – SA Cosby, Richard Ford, Margo Jefferson and Joyce Carol Oates – share their thoughts on Biden’s leadership through 12 months of political polarisation and the pandemic.Notable quote: “The other day, someone was talking about the DW Winnicott idea of the good enough mother,” writes Pulitzer-prize winning critic and author Margo Jefferson. “She’s not a saint, she has her own problems, but she’s good enough for the child to grow up reasonably well. With Joe Biden, it’s a case of the good enough president.”How long will it take me to read? About 10 minutes.2. The rise of the sentient supermarketWell, OK they’re not really sentient, but they’re smart. AI-powered shops in the UK, Scandinavia and the US could spell the end of the grocery store as we know it.The bit that’s good for you: You never have to queue again.The bit that’s good for the supermarket: These stores have no shoplifting (and very few staff).The bit that’s a Black Mirror episode: All this is achieved by thousands of cameras tracking shoppers’ every move, and sending the bill to their phone as they walk out.How long will it take me to read? About five minutes.3. A video game empire built on child labourRoblox – a platform which allows people to not only play games, but build and make money from them – is the most valuable video game company in the world. “It is an empire built on the sale of virtual boots and hats,” Simon Parkins writes. “And considering that almost half of its users are aged 13 or under, the creativity and labour of children.”Notable quote: “It began to have a negative effect on my mental health,” says Regan Green, who spent two years working as a developer on a Sonic the Hedgehog Roblox game. “I was constantly trying to find ways to improve the project, but [the game’s creator] always wanted more out of me and I became incredibly burned out.”Yeah, but everyone is burning out at the moment. Did I mention that he was working on the game between the ages of 12 and 14?Oh. Then: “The pressure caused me to break.”4. Hanya Yanagihara on her new novel and America’s brattinessThe A Little Life author’s new book To Paradise – a work of alternative history that spans three centuries – has already been called “as good as War and Peace” (by fellow author Edmund White). Here Yanagihara talks about the book and the American ideals it explores and critiques.Yanagihara on writing very big books, while holding down a very fancy job (as editor of T Magazine): “I’m not the smartest or hardest-working or most educated person, but I am the best at time management.”I guess I need to get better at time management then. Same.So how long will it take me to read this? Five well-managed minutes.5. Exercising with a heart conditionThe latest in our How to Move series tackles fitness with a difficult ticker.Notable quote: “The importance of exercise is to increase the efficiency of the muscles to de-load the heart,” says exercise physiologist Bridget Nash. “A strong muscle is an efficient muscle.”TopicsAustralia newsFive Great ReadsUS politicsGamesfeaturesReuse this content More

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    Biden nominates Caroline Kennedy to be ambassador to Australia

    Biden nominates Caroline Kennedy to be ambassador to AustraliaDaughter of John F Kennedy was long seen as top candidate for a prominent diplomatic role Joe Biden has nominated Caroline Kennedy, daughter of John F Kennedy, to be the US ambassador to Australia.Kennedy, 63, a member of one of America’s most famous political families, has long been considered a leading candidate for a high-profile envoy position after she threw her support behind Biden’s presidential campaign.More details soon …TopicsBiden administrationUS politicsnews More

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    Malcolm Turnbull on Murdoch, lies and the climate crisis: ‘The same forces that enabled Trump are at work in Australia’

    Australian politicsMalcolm Turnbull on Murdoch, lies and the climate crisis: ‘The same forces that enabled Trump are at work in Australia’ Systematic partisan lying and misinformation from the media, both mainstream and social, has done enormous damage to liberal democracies, the former PM writesMalcolm TurnbullSun 17 Oct 2021 16.41 EDTLast modified on Sun 17 Oct 2021 17.09 EDTThe United States has suffered the largest number of Covid-19 deaths: about 600,000 at the time of writing. The same political and media players who deny the reality of global warming also denied and politicised the Covid-19 virus.To his credit, Donald Trump poured billions into Operation Warp Speed, which assisted the development of vaccines in a timeframe that matched the program’s ambitious title. But he also downplayed the gravity of Covid-19, then peddled quack therapies and mocked cities that mandated social distancing and mask wearing.Trump’s catastrophic management of the pandemic resulted in election defeat in November 2020. It says a lot about the insanity of America’s political discourse that the then presidential nominee Joe Biden had to say, again and again: “Mask wearing is not a political statement.”Australia’s ambition on climate change is held back by a toxic mix of rightwing politics, media and vested interests | Kevin Rudd and Malcolm TurnbullRead moreFrom our relative safety and sanity, Australians looked to America with increasing horror. If the Covid-19 disaster was not enough, the callous police murder of George Floyd on 25 May 2020 ignited a wave of outraged protest against racism in the US and around the world. And then events took another sinister turn.Anticipating defeat, Trump had been busy claiming the election would be rigged by the Democrats. He predicted widespread voter fraud, setting himself up for an “I wuz robbed” case if the result went against him. He had done the same in 2016.As it happened, Biden won convincingly. Trump and the Republican party launched more than 60 legal challenges to the result. Their failure did not stop the misinformation campaign.Relentlessly, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and the rest of the rightwing media claque claimed Biden had stolen the election. A protest march was scheduled in Washington for 6 January 2021, the day Congress was scheduled to formally count the electoral college votes and confirm Biden’s win. The protest was expressly designed to pressure Congress, and especially the then vice-president, Mike Pence, to overthrow the decision of the people and declare Trump re-elected.They assembled in their thousands. Trump wound them up with a typically inflammatory address, culminating in a call to march on the Capitol. The mob proceeded to besiege and break into the home of US democracy. They surged through the corridors, threatening to hang Pence and the Speaker, Nancy Pelosi. Several security guards were killed, as was one of the insurgents. Luckily, none of the legislators were found by the mob, although several appeared to have encouraged them in the lead-up to the assault.It was nothing less than an attempted coup, promoted and encouraged by the president himself and his media allies like Murdoch who, through Fox News, has probably done more damage to US democracy than any other individual.Vladimir Putin’s disinformation campaigns have sought to exacerbate divisions in western democracies and undermine popular trust in their institutions. By creating and exploiting a market for crazy conspiracy theories untethered from the facts, let alone science, Murdoch has done Putin’s work – better than any Russian intelligence agency could ever imagine possible.That is why I supported the former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s call for a royal commission into the Murdoch media, which does not operate like a conventional news organisation but rather like a political party, pushing its own agendas, running vendettas against its critics and covering up for its friends.Murdoch empire’s global chief Robert Thomson to front questions at Australian Senate inquiryRead moreIn April I reinforced these points in an interview with CNN’s Brian Stelter, as I had to the Australian Senate’s inquiry into media diversity. Of all the endorsements, none was more significant than that of James Clapper, the former US director of national intelligence, who said Fox News was “a megaphone for conspiracies and falsehoods”.We have to face the uncomfortable fact that the systematic partisan lying and misinformation from the media, both mainstream and social – what Clapper calls the “truth deficit” – has done enormous damage to liberal democracies, and none more so than the US itself. Thanks to this relentless diet of lies, a quarter of all Americans and 56% of Republicans believe Trump is the true president today.Biden is leading a more traditional and rational administration. The friends and allies Trump had outraged around the world are breathing a sigh of relief. The US has rejoined the Paris agreement on climate change and Biden is seeking to lead the world with deeper, faster cuts to emissions.But the same forces that amplified and enabled Trump are still at work in the US and here in Australia. In April the Murdoch press bullied the New South Wales government into reversing its decision to appoint me chairman of a committee to advise on the transition to a net zero emission economy. My “crime” was to not support the continued, unconstrained expansion of open-cut coalmining in the Hunter Valley. In the crazed, rightwing media echo chamber so influential with many Liberal and National party members, the primary qualification to advise on net zero emissions is, apparently, unqualified support for coalmining.As though we hadn’t had enough demonstration of the Murdochs’ vendetta tactics, right on cue on 2 May Sky News Australia broadcast a “documentary” designed to disparage me and Rudd as being, in effect, political twins separated at birth. As a job, I am told it gave hatchets a bad name. But the message was clear to anyone inclined to hold Murdoch to account: step out of line and you will be next.And while politicians are accountable, the Murdochs are not. Their abuse of power has been so shameful that James Murdoch has resigned from the company. His brother, Lachlan, however, is thoroughly in charge and apparently more rightwing than his father. Yet he has chosen to move back to Australia with his family, fleeing the hatreds and divisions of America that he and his father have done so much to exacerbate.As bushfires raged in the summer of 2019-20 I hoped that this red-raw reality of global warming would end the crazy, politicised climate wars in Australia. Well, it didn’t. The onset of the pandemic served to distract everyone, although the irony of following the virus science while ignoring the climate science seems to have been lost on too many members of the Australian government.Australia is more out of step with its friends and allies than it has ever been. All of our closest friends – the US, the UK, the EU, Japan and New Zealand – are now committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2050.On 18 May the International Energy Agency released a new report on how the world can, and must, reach net zero.For the first time this expert agency, always regarded as sympathetic to the oil and gas sectors, demanded that investment in new oil, gas and coal projects cease and that we make a rapid shift to renewables and storage. They described how this would enable us to have more, and cheaper, electricity.02:13To coincide with this report (of which the Australian government had full prior notice), Scott Morrison chose to announce that his government would invest $600m to build a new gas-fired power station in the Hunter Valley. The energy sector, the regulators, the NSW government and other experts were united in saying the power station was not needed – $600m wasted. To the rest of the world, increasingly puzzled by Australia’s fossil-fuel fetish, it must have looked like a calculated “fuck you” to the global consensus demanding climate action.More Australians than ever are worried about the climate crisis, annual survey suggestsRead moreTo those concerned about the lack of leadership on climate, Morrison says his five predecessors all lost their job, one way or another, because of climate policy. He is determined not to let the right wing of the Coalition do to him what it did to me. Before June he would point to the instability in the National party and warn how a shift on climate could trigger a party room revolt, led by Barnaby Joyce, Matt Canavan and others, to overthrow Michael McCormack. That has now happened, and Joyce made his case for change on the basis of McCormack not doing more to oppose Morrison’s edging towards a net zero commitment.So Morrison is determined not to lead on climate; he wants business and other governments to take the lead and for events to take their course so that the transition to zero emissions happens without any discernible action from the Australian government at all. In the meantime he will continue to use support for coal as a totemic issue to rally working-class voters in mining areas.Scott is long on tactics and very short on strategy. With climate, he underlines my biggest concern about his government: that it will be successful at winning elections but do little in office. And with Barnaby back as deputy prime minister, he has another excuse to do nothing.
    This is an edited extract from the new foreword to A Bigger Picture by Malcolm Turnbull (Hardie Grant Books, available now in paperback)
    TopicsAustralian politicsMalcolm TurnbullAustralian mediaNews CorporationScott MorrisonUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpextractsReuse this content More

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    Biden to call Macron amid outrage over Australia's nuclear submarine deal, says White House – video

    The White House said US president Joe Biden will hold a call with French president Emmanuel Macron in the coming days to reaffirm America’s commitment to one of its “oldest and closest partners” amid a diplomatic crisis stemming from a nuclear submarine deal. France is reeling after being humiliated by a major Pacific defence pact orchestrated by the US, Australia and Britain, which involved a submarine deal that sank a rival French submarine contract.

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    Aukus deal showing France and EU that Biden not all he seems

    FranceAukus deal showing France and EU that Biden not all he seemsAnalysis: the western alliance is the main victim – and China will win out unless US can soothe Paris’s anger Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editorThu 16 Sep 2021 12.09 EDTLast modified on Thu 16 Sep 2021 14.22 EDTFury in Paris at Australia’s decision to tear up plans to buy a French-built fleet of submarines is not only a row about a defence contract, cost overruns and technical specifications. It throws into question the transatlantic alliance to confront China.The Aukus deal has left the French political class seething at Joe Biden’s Trumpian unilateralism, Australian two-facedness and the usual British perfidy. “Nothing was done by sneaking behind anyone’s back,” assured the British defence minister, Ben Wallace, in an attempt to soothe the row. But that is not the view in Paris. “This is an enormous disappointment,” said Florence Parly, the French defence minister.As recently as August, Parly had held a summit with her Australian counterpart, Peter Dutton, in Paris, and issued a lengthy joint communique highlighting the importance of their joint work on the submarines as part of a broader strategy to contain China in the Indo-Pacific region. Given Dutton’s failure to tell his French counterparts of the months of secret negotiations with the US, the only conclusion can be he was kept out of the loop, was deeply forgetful, or chose not to reveal what he knew.There was no forewarning. France only heard through rumours in the Australian media that its contract was about to be torn up live on TV in a video link-up between the White House, Canberra and London.Moreover, the move was presented not only as a switch from the diesel-powered subs France was building to longer-range nuclear vessels, but as part of a new three-way security pact for the region that would develop new technologies. Perhaps someone had decided the French could not be trusted to join this alliance. Perhaps there were sensitivities around US-UK tech transfer in nuclear propulsion and the other areas of tech cooperation, such as undersea drones, artificial intelligence and quantum.To add insult to injury, Biden timed the announcement for the day before the EU was to publish its long-planned Indo-Pacific policy. The EU said it was not consulted in advance, although Pentagon officials said otherwise.Australia said it had given ample warning that design delays meant it could look elsewhere by September, and France’s Naval Group was in fact given until September to revise its plans for the next two years of the project.But in reality, Australia was already working on plan B with the US. To French eyes, Biden had showed – and not for the first time – that he will put the US national interest first.01:27The language emanating from Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French foreign minister and the man behind the original 2016 deal with Australia, is unprecedented. “This brutal, unilateral and unpredictable decision reminds me a lot of what Mr Trump used to do. I am angry and bitter. This isn’t done between allies. It’s really a stab in the back.”Emmanuel Macron, too, will be livid. He received Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister, on 15 June at the Élysée Palace, referring to the contract for the 12 submarines as a “pillar [of] the partnership and of the relationship of trust between [the] two countries. Such a programme is based on the transfer of knowhow and technology and will bind us for decades to come.”Coming on top of the mishandled US exit from Afghanistan, a Nato operation in which allies had little say, France and the EU have come to terms with the fact that Biden is not all he seemed when he travelled to Brussels to promise America was back.Doubtless the US believes French ire will subside, or is a piece of artifice ahead of the French presidential elections. France is a major arms exporter, and the loss of an estimated €10bn (£7.25bn), once penalty clauses are included, hardly dents this industry. A state visit to Washington for Macron, a few contracts directed at the French Naval Group in Cherbourg, some Biden charm, an assurance that this was a purely Australian military decision based on a changed threat assessment, and all can be smoothed over.But that is not the language emanating from Paris or Brussels. France points out that the engine was designed specifically as a diesel to meet Australian specifications and it could have offered nuclear-powered subs. But France’s exclusion shows the extent to which the US does not trust it with nuclear technology. This is a big win for Boris Johnson, and those that said post-Brexit Britain would remain more important to the US than the EU, even if it is going to alarm the pro-China business lobby in the UK. Macron now has no option but to restate the case for greater European strategic defence autonomy, a subject less evidenced in real life than the seminars devoted to it. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, on Wednesday promised in her state of the union address an EU defence summit, saying Europe has to acquire the political will to build up and deploy its own military forces.Senior US officials in briefing on the Aukus deal seemed unaware of the offence it would cause, blandly saying the alliance “is not only intended to improve our capabilities in the Indo-Pacific, but also to involve Europe, especially Great Britain, more closely in our strategy in the region”.Washington, if it is wise, will work flat out to convince France it can still be a partner in the Indo-Pacific. If not, the only long-term beneficiary will be China.TopicsFranceUS politicsChinaForeign policyAsia PacificanalysisReuse this content More