Mark Beeson: It Would Be Madness for China to Even Contemplate Such a Thing"

Adjunct professor, Mark Beeson: An academic who has spent considerable time in China argued at the Fremantle hearing that AUKUS misreads both the threat and the opportunity, and that Australia should be pursuing cooperation, not confrontation, with Beijing. On deterrence: "At the moment we've got one operational submarine defending us from foreign foes...Think of New Zealand — they don't have any at all, and nobody's queuing up to invade them." On trade: "China is the biggest trading nation in the world — why would China want to interrupt the vital trade links and maritime passageways on which it depends even more than we do?" On obsolescence: "By the time the AUKUS submarines are due to arrive... they will have been taken over by a technological revolution in undersea warfare — it'll be cheap and cheerful drones." On opportunity cost: "We could fix free education for higher education, we could fix the social housing problem... with $368 billion that are much, much more worthwhile." Make a submission to the AUKUS Public Inquiry: The Inquiry is accepting public submissions until September 1st, 2026. Your voice matters. All views are welcome: aukuspublicinquiry.com Support the Inquiry: This is an independent, community-funded inquiry. Help us continue this vital work: https://chuffed.org/project/173009-pu... We will be visiting other locations around Australia in the coming months. Visit our page here to register: https://events.humanitix.com/host/pub... — All are welcome to attend and observe. Nominate your interest in presenting to Commissioners at checkout. Space and time to do so is subject to availability on the day. Apologies for the audio and visual quality throughout this recording. It was captured with limited AV equipment. All submissions and/or transcripts for each hearing are otherwise available on our website.