CANBERRA, Australia: Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday his government held a less dramatic view of US-China strategic tensions than a predecessor who warned of a potential “hot war” before US presidential elections in November. “Our defense update expresses it differently and certainly not as dramatically as Kevin,” Morrison told the Aspen Security Forum in an online address from the Australian capital Canberra. “But in our own defense update, we’ve acknowledged that what was previously inconceivable and not considered even possible or likely in terms of those types of outcomes is not considered in those contexts anymore,” he added. Morrison disagreed with many in Washington that the United States was in a new Cold War with China. Australia and the Unites States share a bilateral security treaty as well as an alliance with India and Japan through the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which China views with distrust.

Source: Manila Times August 05, 2020 05:37 UTC