Trump-Xi showdown over Taiwan could trigger ‘nuclear holocaust’, inquiry hears

A former senior Defence official has warned Australia against hosting US forces without being fully involved in American war planning, saying he genuinely feared that a Trump-Xi showdown over Taiwan could trigger a ‘nuclear holocaust’.

Mike Pezzullo made the confronting claim at a public inquiry into the AUKUS trilateral security agreement, echoing concerns raised by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd about a dangerous window emerging in 2028.

“Let’s assume it would be Trump on the one side of the abyss, Xi Jinping staring at the other side, because they’re really the two protagonists who will decide the fate of humanity, and it could well be that that’s the last year that we will survive,” he said.

Mr Pezzullo doesn’t believe China would strike Australia unless it was caught up in a “great power war”, telling the inquiry he saw almost no prospect of an out-of-the-blue attack.

Without that threat, he said he could not “see the need for us to spend anywhere near the amount of money we’re spending on defence now”.

However, he warned China’s strategy was becoming more aggressive and assertive, and geopolitical tensions could come to a head in 2028 when the Taiwanese presidential elections are due to be held.

“In January 2028, we will reach a very dangerous point in global history at that time, and it might well make the Cuban Missile Crisis look like a rather tame affair,” he said.

Mr Pezzullo, who was involved with national security considerations up until three years ago, said if he were a Chinese war planner he would “pre-emptively strike or, with very little provocation, take out quite a number of Australian installations”.

“I’d flatten every single potential facility that might be used overnight by American flying in, so I’d deny them their ability to communicate with their submarines, for instance, by attacking North West Cape,” he said.

“I would certainly destroy Tindal.”

“I would knock out Stirling, absolutely, even if there were no American submarines there.”

“If there’s a war going on, which I think would be catastrophic for all sorts of reasons, it would make the war in Iran and the war in Ukraine look very tame by comparison, because supply chains would be wrecked, global trade would be wrecked.”

He predicted undersea warfare will increasingly resemble the science fiction novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, “where the sea will become like the air”.

“It’ll be populated by all sorts of different vessels,” he told the inquiry, saying the three Virginia-class submarines Australia plans to acquire from the US will “get our entry into this new world”.

Mr Pezzullo said Australia had two choices: sit the war out, which he didn’t think is plausible, or signal in advance that it would be involved, alongside the US.

“I prefer that latter approach, which is riskier because you’re getting more embedded into a war machine,” he said.

“But the war machine is the thing that prevents the war, and that’s the risk-reward calculation that you’re running.”

He argued Canberra shouldn’t pre-commit to any war, saying “no ally ever does”, but should be fully engaged in US planning and preparations.

“Australia needs to press full integration or come out of these arrangements,” he said.

“At the moment we’re in no man’s land … where we’re neither in nor out.

“Unless we become full alliance partners, fully integrated into relevant war planning and preparations, we will in fact have given our sovereignty away for reasons that I think history will ill judge.”