SOUTHEAST ASIA'S MUTED REACTION TO THE 2016 DEFENCE WHITE PAPER

摘要

Like its predecessors, Australia's new Defence White Paper pays considerable attention to Southeast Asia. Its "strategic outlook" chapter reiterates the long-held and axiomatic conventional wisdom that* the geography of the archipelago to Australia'snorth, "will always have particular significance", because any conventional military threat - and indeed some low-intensity challenges such as people and drug smuggling are, "likely to approach through the archipelago".The DWP also notes Australia's, "deep economic security interests", in Southeast Asia, including the fact that nearly two-thirds of the country's exports pass through the South China Sea.