Cocos (Keeling) Islands

It will continue, of course, to give first priority to its approaches, particularly the East and South China Seas, and through, let's remember, 80% of China's oil from the Middle East comes through where? The Straits of Malacca.

And by the way, as an aside, we have an island called Cocos Keeling Island, which is just the other side of the Straits of Malacca.

Think about how we could use that if push keg to shove.

The Americans are rediscovering us geopolitically.

And then we go off and buy American nuclear-powered submarines.

What if they suddenly developed an interest in acquiring the Cocos Keeling Islands, which is super close to the Strait of Malacca, so they can strangle Chinese energy imports? And they say, oh, we're going to pause AUKUS until you hand us the islands.

Or they demand sovereignty over Pine Gap or Harold Holt over parts of our Antarctic territory.

There are so many potential flashpoints.

To Australia's most distant territory now.

Almost 80 years ago, a tradition faded on the Cocos Keeling Islands with the death of their only master shadow puppeteer.

Shadow puppetry had been an important part of cultural life on Cocos, but the knowledge and skills weren't passed on, so it fell into obscurity.

Now the art form has had a comeback.

Amy Rosbach has this story.

MUSIC

Traditional gamelan music fills the air and shadows dance across a brightly lit white screen as a puppeteer brings an art form to life that hasn't been seen on the Cocos Keeling Islands in almost 80 years.

A far-flung speck in the Indian Ocean, almost 3,000 kilometres northwest of Perth, Cocos is a group of 27 islands.

The land lines of Australia would then complete telegraph connection with the western coast.

In the Indian Ocean, it is proposed to connect West Australia to Cocos Island, and thence to Mauritius Coast.

and from thence to Natal and Cape Town.

Cocos Island is further to be connected with Singapore by a branch cable.

Singapore is already in connection with Hong Kong by an all-British cable.

Another branch is also proposed from Cocos Island to Ceylon.

At Mauritius, a connection would be formed with the existing cable at Seychelles, Aden, and Bombay.

In the Atlantic Ocean, in order to avoid the shallow seas along the west coast of Africa, Spain, Portugal, and France, a cable from Cape Town, touching at St. Helena, Ascension, and mid-ocean stations, and extending to Bathurst, which is already connected by existing cables to Gibraltar, has been laid within the last few months.

Exposed: The Cocos Plan to Blockade China by Elisa Barwick.

Australian and US war plans reveal that Australia's Cocos or Keeling Islands are being prepared for a significant new role in a future US military conflict with China, wrote award-winning investigative journalist Peter Cronau on the first of October.

Australia's Cocos Islands Territory is being converted to support US military operations, he wrote in an article for Declassified Australia, headlined Australian Island Bases Hidden US Military Role.

While no formal announcement has been made that the location will host a new US military base, quote, military construction is proceeding veiled through separate Australian construction projects, American military tenders, alliance force posture arrangements, and commercial port infrastructure, end quote.

US Navy tender documents were revealed in August twenty twenty-four by a Reuters journalist with infrastructure works for new forward-based military facilities listed under the heading Pacific Deterrence Initiative.

Wrote Cronau, The Pacific Deterrence Initiative is a fifteen billion US dollars eight-year project intended to disperse and strengthen American military infrastructure across the Indo-Pacific in preparation for possible conflict with China.

This includes, he said, challenging China's role as its main economic competitor, situating the tiny atolls two thousand eight hundred kilometers northwest of Perth and one thousand kilometers south of Indonesia in this framework is further evidence supporting former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans' statement to the AUKUS public inquiry that US submarines are being based at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia so they can interdict China's shipping through the Malacca Strait.

The US documents show, wrote Cronau, that the United States is specifically looking to utilize the Cocos Islands to project airborne power across the eastern Indian Ocean through the Indonesian Archipelago shipping passages and into the South China Sea.

I heard that the federal police are the local police in Canberra, but then I heard different from someone that was in the federal police.

In addition to its federal role, the AFP provides policing services to the ACT and external territories, excluding Christmas Island, Cocos [Keeling] Islands-

Okay

...

And then what they are saying is that what you can have is they have like, there's a technical word for this that's dropped out of my brain right now, but you have like hubs where they kind of hub through.

And the argument in the Indian Ocean is that you could be using the islands like Cocos Keeling Islands and others for these to start to hub through so they can start to build more like a mesh rather than these cables that typically used to follow sea lines, right? Now, anyway, my point being that that's how like information transmits all around the world

is through these

subsea cables.