Many people in Canberra think we should partner with Japan to build our new submarines, whether or not they offer the best boats for the money, because Japan's bid is much more than a commercial deal. It's the basis for a closer strategic commitment as well, so they think we'd get two birds with one stone.
But there are big risks in this, both to our submarine capability and to our relations with Japan. We need to understand those risks before taking a decision.
We are very unlikely to seriously jeopardise our links with Beijing to do Japan any favours.
Supporters of Japan's bid think that working with it to build Australia's most vital military capability would transform the already-growing defence relationship into a virtual military alliance. They think, and sometimes even say, we need this alliance to protect ourselves from China.
This is how the Abe government sees it, too. Tokyo's hard sell constantly stresses the strategic advantages to both countries of an even tighter "special strategic partnership". In fact, it says this is why it is breaking the post-war taboo on major arms exports to bid for the contract. It is not in it for the money.
We must be quite clear about this. Tokyo expects that in return for its help to build our submarines, it would receive not just many of billions of dollars, but clear understandings that Australia will support Japan politically, strategically and even militarily against China. That is why Japan is bidding.
This is the big difference between Japan and its two European rivals. The French and Germans just want our money. The Japanese want much more. As Tony Abbott said in Tokyo recently 'For Japan this submarine deal is strategic: for the others, it's commercial.' And he ought to know, because he has always been the Japanese option's most ardent champion.
So before we decide whether to select the Japanese bid, we have to ask if an alliance with Japan is good for Australia. Would it be a big additional benefit, or a big additional cost? Advocates say it's a benefit. They think a close bond with Japan will strengthen both countries' alliances with America and send a clear message to Beijing that we are determined to stand together against its challenge to the regional order.
Faced with this, they think Beijing will back off. Then America's leadership in Asia would be restored, and everything would return to the way it used to be before China got stroppy. In other words, supporters of an alliance with Japan are sure it would never be tested, because simply creating it would help ensure that China's threat would disappear. And if that happens, it matters much less whose submarines we buy, because they won't be needed.
But will things work out this way? That depends on whether Washington, with or without others' support, really can convince China to back off. Maybe it can, if China is already heading for a major economic and political crisis, as many assume. But Beijing has weathered looming crises before, and President Xi Jinping's resolve to expand China's international power is very clear.
Meanwhile, the United States' resolve and capacity look, at best, a little uncertain. Will Xi be intimidated by a country that talks so big and then acts so timidly in the South China Sea, and that comes even this close to anointing Donald Trump? And will an Australia-Japan alliance really make much difference to his calculations?
It's much more likely that China will not be deterred by any messages we send through buying submarines and building an alliance with Japan. Instead, it will keep claiming more political and strategic weight in Asia, and tensions will keep rising. And what would an alliance with Japan mean then? Is it wise for us to commit ourselves to support Japan against China if, as is quite likely, strategic tensions between them keep growing?
We may share a commitment to democracy, but how sure are we that our interests will always coincide with Japan's against China? How willing would we be, ultimately, to take Japan's side in a war, and send our forces – including our submarines – to fight alongside them against China?
These are not hypothetical questions. In the new power politics of the Asian Century, they are very real, and we have to take them seriously because they are certainly taken seriously in Tokyo. An alliance of the kind Tokyo clearly seeks would mortgage Australia's relationship with China, and indeed our entire future in Asia, to the troubled future of China-Japan relations. This is, quite obviously, not in our interests.
In fact, the real problem with linking the subs project with a Japanese alliance is not the risk that the alliance would hold, and we would sacrifice our own interests to support Japan against China. It is the near-certainty that alliance would fail because we wouldn't be willing to do that.
In reality, no matter what Tony Abbott might believe, Australia is not going to give Japan the strategic support it wants. We are very unlikely to seriously jeopardise our links with Beijing to do Japan any favours – let alone go to war with China at Japan's behest. So we would let Japan down.
And that has huge implications for the submarine deal. Japan is only willing to share its ultra-sensitive submarine secrets because it expects us to be its close ally. If we don't give Japan what it expects from the deal, we won't get what we expect from it: unstinting help to make sure our submarines project succeeds.
What kind of co-operation will we get from Japan if in say, five or 10 years, with the project well under way but no subs yet delivered, Japan faces a confrontation with China and we don't give it the support it expects? Why wouldn't Japan walk away from the project, or start putting tight limits on what it is willing to share with us?
That would be a disaster for the submarine project, and for our relations with Japan. So we'd be much better off keeping them separate. The beauty of the German and French bids is that their bids are so much simpler. They are only in it for the money, and that's a good thing, because that is a price we know we are willing to pay.
Hugh White is an Age columnist and professor of strategic studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU.
