Tag Archive for: Australia

Five constants for Australia’s Asia policy

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The increasing strategic competition between the US and China means one thing for most of the countries in the Asia–Pacific region: it’s going to be harder to respond to a more assertive China that challenges the international order and to a US that alternates between isolationist tendencies and confronting China.

The South China Sea continues to be one of the main theatres in which the great-power contest plays out, as the recent USS Decatur incident showed. In the face of rising tensions, Canberra and other key regional players may need to show more willingness to protect their economic interests in the sea lanes of communication. An emerging wave of pushback against Chinese investments in critical infrastructure in the region also hints that key US allies might be expected to collectively resist China’s overt economic expansion.

But in light of the tectonic shifts in the region, it’s important for Canberra to develop an Asia strategy of its own that reflects Australia’s national interests and sets a far-sighted policy for its interactions in the neighbourhood.

Here are five Cs or ‘constants’ for Australia to bear in mind in formulating its Asia policy in the wake of escalating great-power competition.

The first one is careful. It’s easy to get carried away by the confrontational narrative in an atmosphere that’s been heated up by speeches from Washington and Beijing on the possibilities of confrontation and preparedness for war. Aggression is contagious.

Australia is a responsible middle power and should keep a cool head. China’s political influence operations in Australia have already led to a ‘reset’ in Canberra’s thinking about relations and a diplomatic ‘freeze’ that only started thawing when Foreign Minister Marise Payne met her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi last week. Beijing will likely be involved in more incidents, such as further attempts to take advantage of Australia’s democratic and open society that could make Canberra pursue more retaliatory policies. Instead, Australia needs to strengthen domestic regulation to prevent further penetration; last year’s foreign interference law is a good example of that.

But beyond protecting its own political integrity, Australia has a larger, parallel, challenge of managing its alliance with the US. Canberra is facing both the fear of abandonment and the fear of entanglement—where the more powerful ally drags its partners into conflicts. Dealing with that challenge requires strategic planning rather than ad hoc responses.

Being careful also means having a thorough understanding of regional affairs and sentiments. To achieve that, Australia needs to show the second C—committed.

Canberra’s commitment to its direct neighbourhood has fluctuated in the past. Many have identified an ‘Australian ambivalence’—a tendency to be preoccupied with big and powerful, but often distant, partners, sometimes at the expense of those that are smaller but closer.

The Special Summit with ASEAN in March was a welcome initiative, but a long-term commitment needs more than sporadic gatherings. Australia needs to commit to a continued invested presence in the region. That will require a level of constant attention to, and engagement with, the region, regardless the political mood of the government of the day—which brings us to the third C: consistent.

Consistency is a rare quality these days in global politics. It should be an indispensable element in Australia’s policy. Inconsistency can have catastrophic effects—just look at the Philippines’ flip-flop under Rodrigo Duterte and how that has affected developments in the South China Sea.

Canberra’s stance should be consistent with what it believes and has announced through government policy statements over the years: a rules-based order and rejection of force or the threat of the use of force, in accordance with international law and UN conventions.

Notwithstanding the recent lively debate on a Plan B, the Australia–US alliance remains a cornerstone for Australia’s security posture. Australia is bound to work with Washington despite Canberra’s reservations about the Trump’s administration politics. Hence, there is an even a stronger need for the fourth constant: coordinated.

Alliance coordination is vital. Poor coordination among the allies can not only weaken the alliance but also erode trust between alliance members. Canberra still shares many of the fundamental goals that guide Washington’s engagement with the region. Australia and the US need to coordinate their efforts to avoid sending misleading signals that weaken confidence in the alliance, as well as undercut or raise the cost of efforts while decreasing the effect.

For example, if Australia wants to join forces with the US and Japan, and other like-minded partners, in offering ‘quality infrastructure’ as an alternative to the China’s debt-trap belt-and-road projects, it needs to refrain from making individual announcements in favour of a well-coordinated cooperative response. All participants need a detailed, research-based understanding of the areas in which they can multiply the outputs and areas in which individual efforts can be complementary.

Finally, as the region grows increasingly anxious about the machinations of the great powers, Australia should double down on the fifth C and be constructive. An example of playing a constructive role is further conceptualising the Indo-Pacific strategy so that it includes as many players in the region as possible and puts collective interests at the core of regional politics.

Such a strategy would seek to promote an equal playing field, economic and trade liberalisation, and respect for international law. Support for international institutions and their continued role in a free and open Indo-Pacific region that rejects both domination and isolationism would be the most welcome constructive input.

ASD moves into the light with landmark speech

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So, 71 years after its creation, the Australian Signals Directorate has stepped out of the shadows. Last night ASD Director-General Mike Burgess gave probably the most broad-ranging public outline of the work of a modern, high-end cyber organisation that we have seen internationally.

Burgess has joined the head of the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, in having a public presence and role.

There are two extraordinary things about this in the Australian environment: the first is that the head of the normally very secretive signals directorate has spoken publicly outside a parliamentary committee at all. The second is what he said.

Beginning to give ASD a voice in public debates is a big thing. But it’s important if Australia is to effectively manage the wide range of cybersecurity, technology and intelligence issues ASD is involved in.

ASD now has a very broad mandate.

It’s still about supporting the Australian Defence Force on operations, obtaining intelligence by collecting foreign communications and signals, being part of counterterrorism operations to prevent and disrupt terrorist attacks against Australians and Australian interests, securing government networks and information, and conducting offensive cyber operations.

In its new incarnation as an independent statutory agency within the defence portfolio, though, ASD’s mandate has broadened further—it now also covers countering cyber espionage and serious cyber-enabled crime offshore—and it has a clear role in providing cybersecurity assistance and advice to Australian businesses and citizens. This makes it relevant to many more Australians than ever before.

This broad mandate may explain why Burgess has gone public about ASD’s work. He knows that if ASD is to be a trusted, credible adviser to Australia’s business sector and to the public, then he has to demystify the organisation and engage in the public discussion.

Letting other stakeholders—whether they’re firms with cybersecurity products to sell or critics of government intelligence agencies—determine the direction of discussion in the absence of ASD’s perspectives doesn’t advance informed public debate. The encryption legislation is one current example.

Back to the speech itself. Like many big speeches, this one will take time to digest and analyse, and we’ll no doubt see a few informed commentators bringing out different elements covered by Burgess over the next few weeks.

A few specific things got my attention listening to him last night.

He didn’t leave the audience wondering what he thought about claims that ASD was interested in wholesale collection of Australians’ electronic communications, for example, saying, ‘We have no interest in the communications of everyday Australians’; instead, ASD is focused on foreign signals intelligence and cybersecurity.

Unsurprisingly but refreshingly, he also recommitted ASD to being ‘meticulous in execution’, including ‘always acting legally and ethically’, and understanding that to have continued public and government support, ASD needs to be ‘accountable to the public through government for everything we do’.

He politely but bluntly warned company boards in Australia that might be ‘contemplating the prospect of hacking back to defend themselves against potential attacks’ that this ‘would be an illegal act here in Australia’, saying, ‘An obligation to protect corporate assets does not extend to breaking the law.’

We also got a pretty good insight into the future directions of this highly secretive organisation deep within the Australian government’s intelligence apparatus.

In what might be the part of his speech most worth thinking over carefully and deeply, Burgess talked about the full potential of technology, connectivity and software being realised. As director-general, he thinks it is time to ‘turn our mind equally to integrity and availability’ of data and information.

This means moving beyond the last decade’s focus on preventing data theft and security of government networks.

ASD is now becoming the government’s trusted adviser as it navigates through the huge technological changes bringing us the connected ‘internet of things’, and as we see the emergence of China as a source of innovation in communications and critical infrastructure systems and technologies.

The best example here was his openness about the recent government decision to exclude ‘high-risk vendors’ from Australia’s 5G networks—notably China’s two tech telco giants ZTE and Huawei.

He laid out ASD’s advice on 5G in crystal-clear language: ‘Our starting point was that, if 5G technology delivers on its promise, the next generation of telecommunications networks will be at the top of every country’s list of critical national infrastructure.’ (And presumably every nation’s intelligence agencies’ target lists as a result.)

‘5G is not just fast data, it is also high density connection of devices—human to human, human to machine and machine to machine—and finally it is much lower signal latency or speed of response.

‘5G technology will underpin the communications that Australians rely on every day, from our health systems and the potential applications of remote surgery, to self-driving cars and through to the operation of our power and water supply.

‘The stakes could not be higher. This is about more than protecting the confidentiality of our information—it is also about the integrity and availability of the data and systems on which we depend.’

So, we have a new voice in Australian national security policy and cybersecurity. Let’s look for more from ASD’s new head now that he has stepped out of the shadows. Australian businesses and Australian citizens now know who to call. And Australia’s cyber adversaries—whether criminals, terrorists or state actors—know they have ASD’s full attention.

Is Indonesia Australia’s ‘most important’ security partner?

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In late August, Indonesia and Australia signed a new comprehensive strategic partnership agreement during Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s visit to Jakarta. The document provides a new long-term framework for the bilateral relationship as part of a broader Indo-Pacific vision. Defence cooperation is a central component of that vision.

The relationship between the Indonesian defence force (TNI) and the Australian defence force (ADF) has been on the upswing. In early September, the Indonesian navy participated in Exercise Kakadu, Australia’s largest maritime exercise involving 27 countries. And in 2016, the Indonesian army held a joint training exercise in Darwin as part of Exercise Wirra Jaya, which is now an annual event. It was the first time an Indonesian unit had trained on Australian soil since 1995.

Back in July, senior leaders of the armed forces agreed to hold more joint TNI–ADF exercises and training in 2019 and 2020.

Such developments reinforce the common refrain in the Australian strategic community that Indonesia is the country’s ‘most important’ regional security partner.

This notion goes back to the 1995 Agreement to Maintain Security, the first defence agreement between the two countries. Although the pact was scrapped after the 1999 Australian-led UN intervention in East Timor, the 2006 Lombok Treaty revived the narrative.

The 2009 defence white paper noted that ‘Australia’s relationship with Indonesia remains our most important defence relationship in the immediate region’. Despite the bilateral crises and hiccups over the past decade, that view has persisted among Australian officials and analysts. The 2016 white paper stated that a ‘strong and productive relationship with Indonesia is critical to Australia’s national security’. Most recently, one former senior Department of Defence official argued that Indonesia remains ‘the country of most importance to Australia and our long-term security’.

But this story of Indonesia’s importance is inaccurate.

First, Indonesia has never been the largest recipient of funding from Australia’s defence cooperation program (DCP). That position has been held by Papua New Guinea since the 1970s. Indonesia wasn’t even always the highest DCP recipient among Southeast Asian nations.

After the Lombok Treaty, DCP funding to Indonesia averaged around A$4.4 million per year. But compared to other DCP recipients over the past two decades, Indonesia ranked second-highest only twice (2006–07 and 2016–17). Most often, Indonesia ranked third (12 years), fourth (two years), fifth (three years) or sixth (once, in 2000–01).

The DCP may not be the only form of defence engagement, but historically it constitutes the bulk of it, and the available DCP data provides a powerful measure that is difficult to ignore.

Second, Indonesia has never been Australia’s most important training partner. That title belongs to the United States.

Bilateral exercises with Indonesia amount to only around 8% (37 out of 449) of all ADF bilateral exercises between 1997 and 2015. The United States, New Zealand, Thailand, Papua New Guinea and Malaysia have had more exercises with Australia than Indonesia has in that period.

Third, Indonesia and Australia don’t have a well-developed and institutionalised arrangement for defence technological cooperation or defence industrial collaboration.

Policymakers only recently explored the possibility of industrial collaboration. In late 2016, Australia and Indonesia agreed to work together on developing an armoured vehicle based on the design of Thales Australia’s Bushmaster.

But such efforts pale in comparison to the low level of Indonesia–Australia technological cooperation. From 1969 to 2016, for example, Australia sent patrol boats, fighter aircraft, and light transport and maritime patrol aircraft to Indonesia. Most of the vessels, however, were provided during the Cold War and are by now around 40 years old.

Indeed, according to a survey of Indonesian recipients of Australian education and training programs, the lack of technological cooperation remains one of the big stumbling blocks in defence collaboration.

Taken together, these indicators suggest that Australia has more important security partners than Indonesia. Instead, Indonesia’s significance to Australia’s strategic geography and the historical volatility of bilateral ties seem to have driven the narrative.

In any case, to ensure that the broad vision outlined in the new partnership agreement can materialise, both Jakarta and Canberra need to stabilise and institutionalise bilateral defence ties. One of the first steps needs to be to stop saying that Indonesia is Australia’s most important security partner. After all, that label is not only inaccurate, but also raises unnecessary and unrealistic expectations of what defence cooperation can accomplish.

Learning to listen to Asia

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The 2017 foreign policy white paper makes much of Australia’s values. Malcolm Turnbull’s introduction to the white paper says that ‘Australia’s values are enduring’. Turnbull has now moved on, but the focus on Australia’s values remains a core theme of official statements about Australian foreign policy. That’s hardly surprising; all nations have principles that guide their foreign policies.

But the emphasis on values runs into two problems in our relations with our Asian neighbours. First, quite a few Australian values jar markedly with Asian ones. Second, it often isn’t clear that we’re even aware of this clash. In short, we don’t seem to be good at listening to the voices in our region.

Just what are the values that we point to? The white paper lists support for such things as democracy, freedom, equality, the rule of law, and mutual respect. In the economic arena, Australian statements frequently mention such things as the need for stronger markets, free trade, the private sector and limited government.

But it’s easier to espouse principles than to apply them. Most countries in the world say (frequently) that they subscribe to ideals such as freedom, democracy and free trade. However, these statements often mean little. And there’s no shortage of examples in recent years of Australia’s actions in Asia not living up to Australian rhetoric.

Australia has struggled to define a coherent set of principles to guide its relations with Asia for over a century. One of Australia’s leading diplomats, Rawdon Dalrymple, wrote about a ‘sense of unease’ about Asia at the core of Australia’s nationhood in his book Continental drift. The subtitle of the book was ‘Australia’s search for a regional identity’.

And the situation is complicated by the awkward fact that there are around 4 billion of them and only 25 million of us. Sticking close to our protectors—first, the United Kingdom, and more recently, the United States—has brought comfort but hasn’t really solved the problem. After all, they may not be reliable. President Donald Trump, for example, might not respond if we call. And Asia is changing rapidly.

Reform in our relations with Asia requires at least two major changes.

First, we need to pay more attention to our neighbours. The problem with focusing on promoting our values is that while we’re talking, we’re not listening. Indeed, disagreements over values are not really the issue. There are key differences between Australia and our regional neighbours—not over values but, rather, over priorities.

Energy is a case in point. In Australia, much discussion about energy policy focuses on the goal of shifting towards cleaner energy. But in developing Asia, there’s a second priority as well: the urgent need to get much more electricity.

Average annual electricity consumption in Australia is around 10,000 kilowatt hours per person. In India, Indonesia and the Philippines, the figure is below 1,000. So, as our Asian neighbours see it, top priority needs to be given to the rapid expansion of electricity supplies. And it seems inevitable that much of this expansion will be in coal-fired power plants.

For Australia to have an effective conversation with our regional neighbours about global energy issues, we need to recognise their priorities as well as talk about our own.

Second, we need to find ways of being more open to the economies and markets of the region. Openness is a key factor for any country in promoting economic success.

Australia’s policies of promoting open trade with Asia and the world have brought enormous economic gain to Australians. But an emphasis on openness needs to go well beyond trade—it needs to extend to other markets such as capital and labour markets, and to all sorts of other flows, such as exchanges of ideas and technology.

To share in the huge economic boom now gathering strength in Asia, we will need to continue making reforms to promote openness. The deregulation of the education sector with the opening to overseas students in the mid-1980s, for example, transformed Australian universities from inward-looking institutions servicing a protected local market to a rapidly expanding export-oriented sector. Similar forms of deregulation are needed across other parts of Australia’s service sector.

And, difficult though it is, we need to consider carefully the economic implications of an expanded focus on security issues in our dealings with Asia. Increased security might provide increased protection—but it is also protectionist. It’s not possible to build walls and to open markets at the same time. We need to find ways of opening our doors to Asia, not closing them.

Pivoting to the Pacific

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Over the past year, there’s been a frenzy of public interest—in Australia and beyond—in the Pacific region. The concern has, of course, been focused on China’s growing activities in the Pacific islands. All of the sudden, it has become a hotly contested geopolitical space. Conventional partners are reacting. Australia is ‘stepping up’. New Zealand is ‘resetting’. The UK is opening new diplomatic posts in the region. France wants to ‘pivot’ back to the region. The US is taking a more active interest.

Close watchers of the Pacific are scratching their heads asking, why now? The growing presence of China in the Pacific has been well documented for some time, and indeed the roots of Chinese engagement in many parts of the region date back generations. Michael Powles was writing about it in 2007. Graeme Smith was talking about China in the Pacific in 2011. Books have been written and a number of PhDs have been completed on the subject. In 2015, the Lowy Institute released its map of Chinese aid in the Pacific, which received significant attention for being the first to quantify the size and reach of China’s aid program in the region.

For whatever reason, the pin has clearly dropped in the past year.

Before China’s engagement in the Pacific, geopolitics in the region had been relatively benign—a point the 2013 PNG defence white paper acknowledged, and Greg Colton examines in his recent Lowy Institute paper. Thanks to China, the Pacific has been empowered with options beyond its traditional partners of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the United States. In response to this, along with upping their own games, Australia and New Zealand are actively recruiting ‘traditional’ partners to get back into the game. But what would a ‘Pacific pivot’ from more ‘like-minded’ or ‘traditional’ partners look like?

Since China has used its aid program as a vehicle to spread into the region, we’ll focus on the role of development assistance. This is only one part, and in many cases a minor one, of broader diplomatic and geostrategic relations. But, for many donors, the aid relationship remains a critical component of interaction with Pacific island nations.

Over the past 18 months, we have also been developing a tool—the Lowy Institute Pacific Aid Map, launched today—that will make analysis of foreign assistance in the Pacific far more comprehensive. The map is an interactive, multi-faceted platform that contains data on close to 13,000 projects in 14 Pacific countries from 62 donors (new and old) from 2011 onwards. With the primary objective of enhancing aid effectiveness in the Pacific by improving coordination, alignment and accountability of foreign aid, it is the most comprehensive data-collection effort of aid in the Pacific that has ever been undertaken.

The Pacific Aid Map also illustrates how far these partners will have to go to increase their presence on the ground.

View site in full screen

Top donors to the Pacific islands region, 2011–2016

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Source: Lowy Institute Pacific Aid Map

Let’s start with the United States. The US has a long and turbulent history with the North Pacific. The Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palau all maintain a compact of free association with the US. Between 2011 and 2016, more than 85% of US aid to the region has gone to these three countries. The compact is up for renegotiation in 2023, and Palau (already under pressure from China) hasn’t received compact funding for seven years.

There are also problems brewing in US territories in the region, notably Saipan. The US should look to reaffirm its role in the north Pacific and engage in more targeted action further south, such as enhancing its diplomatic footprint, supporting regional organisations, providing more scholarship support, and involving Pacific partners in more joint military operations.

France has a very strong presence in the region, but only in its territories of French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Wallis and Futuna. More than 500,000 French citizens call the Pacific home. The territories benefit from annual domestic transfers from Paris to the tune of US$3–3.5 billion, almost double the total aid budget for the rest of the region. Close to 2,000 troops are permanently stationed in New Caledonia, and they actively police their vast exclusive economic zones in the East Pacific.

In the ‘Anglo-Pacific’ (or sovereign Pacific), however, the footprint of France is hardly noticed. France didn’t participate in the Bougainville or Solomon Islands interventions. While France has the third largest diplomatic network in the world, it maintains only three posts in the Pacific. France has taken steps in recent years to engage more in the region, most notably working with French Polynesia and New Caledonia on their accession to full membership of the Pacific Islands Forum in 2016. Despite this, the Pacific Aid Map shows that aid from both France and the EU has been in decline since 2011. France should focus on reversing this trend and continuing to crack out of its territorial shell in the Pacific.

The UK has perhaps the longest way to go, with marginal development and diplomatic footprints. Leaving the EU (now far from certain) does present an opportunity as the UK looks to reassert itself bilaterally and reassign aid resources. Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson saw the Commonwealth, a dated community of 53 current and former UK colonies, as a vehicle for reengagement. While 20% of Commonwealth countries are in the Pacific, it remains to be seen whether this ambition will be realised without Johnson at the helm. New diplomatic posts are welcome, but they will be a sideshow if concerted aid dollars don’t come in behind them.

None of this is to say that these countries shouldn’t look to take a more active role in the Pacific, or that Australia and New Zealand shouldn’t be actively courting them. The Pacific faces critical development challenges. Overall aid is on the decline. France, the UK and the US may also bring new ideas and relationships along with their money that could be of benefit of the Pacific. Just don’t expect a Pacific pivot to drastically shift the dial on our new and competitive status quo.

Australia’s deteriorating strategic outlook

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Australia’s strategic outlook is deteriorating and, for the first time since World War II, we face an increased prospect of threat from a major power. This means that a major change in Australia’s approach to the management of strategic risk is needed.

Strategic risk is a grey area in which governments need to make critical assessments of capability, motive and intent. Over recent decades, judgements in this area have relied heavily on the conclusion that the capabilities required for a serious assault on Australia simply didn’t exist in our region. In contrast, in the years ahead, the level of capability able to be brought to bear against Australia will increase, so judgements relating to contingencies and the associated warning time will need to rely less on evidence of capability and more on assessments of motive and intent. Such areas for judgement are inherently ambiguous and uncertain.

In particular, China’s economic and political influence continues to grow, and its program of military modernisation and expansion is ambitious. The latter means that the comfortable judgements of previous years about the limited levels of capability within our region are no longer appropriate. The potential warning time is now shorter, because capability levels are higher and will increase yet further. This observation applies both to shorter term contingencies and, increasingly, to more serious contingencies credible in the foreseeable future.

It’s important not to designate China as inevitably hostile to Australia, and to recognise in any case that there would be constraints on the expansion of its military influence. Beyond the short to medium term, there would be intrinsic difficulties in operating in waters potentially dominated by Indian anti-access capabilities, and there’s potential, too, for Indonesia to develop significant sea-denial capabilities. Nevertheless, China’s aggressive policies towards the South China Sea and elsewhere are grounds for concern that it seeks political domination over countries in its region, including countries in Southeast Asia and including Australia. It’s China, therefore, that could come to pose serious challenges for Australian defence policy.

We need also to keep a watchful eye on Indonesia against the possibility that Islamist extremism will come to dominate that country. This isn’t the country’s current trajectory, but the security consequences for Australia of such a development would be severe, especially if Indonesia over the years ahead were to become a major regional power.

How should Australia respond? Contingencies that are credible in the shorter term could now be characterised by higher levels of intensity and technological sophistication than those of earlier decades. This means that readiness and sustainability need to be increased: we need higher training levels, a demonstrable and sustainable surge capacity, increased stocks of munitions, more maintenance spares, a robust fuel supply system, and modernised operational bases, especially in the north of Australia.

For the longer term, the key issue is whether there’s a sound basis for the timely expansion of the ADF. In many ways, the expansion base is impressive, in that relevant capabilities already exist or are in the forward program, although not necessarily in the right numbers. Matters that would benefit from specific examination include the development of an Australian equivalent of an anti-access and area denial capability (especially for our vulnerable northern and western approaches) and an improved capacity for antisubmarine warfare.

The prospect of shortened warning times now needs to be a major factor in today’s defence planning. Much more thought needs to be given to planning for the expansion of the ADF and its capacity to engage in high-intensity conflict in our own defence—in a way that we haven’t previously had to consider. Planning for the defence of Australia needs to take the new realities into account, including by re-examining the ADF’s preparedness levels and the lead times for key elements of the expansion base. The conduct of operations further afield, and Defence’s involvement in counterterrorism, mustn’t be allowed to distract either from the effort that needs to go into this planning or from the funding that enhanced capabilities will require.

This is the executive summary of an ASPI Strategic Insights paper, Australia’s management of strategic risk in the new era, released today.

Limited ‘Trump time’ has implications for Australia

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Donald Trump sows a great deal of uncertainty, but there’s every indication that he’ll see less of the Australian prime minister than did his two immediate predecessors, Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Consider each president’s first year in office. John Howard met Bush in the Oval Office in September 2001 during a four-day visit when he also commemorated the 50th anniversary of the ANZUS treaty, hosted the president and a third of his cabinet at the Australian ambassador’s residence, and was coincidentally in Washington when the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred. Kevin Rudd made two trips to the White House in 2009, in what Obama called a ‘great meeting of the minds’, and saw the new president at several multilateral summits that year.

The length and quality of leader-to-leader engagement between the US and Australia in the first year of the Trump administration has been lower, and not just because of that phone call. While Trump and Malcolm Turnbull seemingly soothed any lingering tensions in a 45-minute meeting prior to the Coral Sea commemoration event in New York in May, and are expected to hold a second in Asia next week, Trump won’t have spent much time with his Australian counterpart by the end of his first year in the presidency.

Looking ahead, that’s not likely to change. Trump’s aversion to travel, the delicately poised Australian parliament, and an upcoming federal election don’t foreshadow a high level of engagement between the 45th president and Australia’s prime minister.

A new database compiled by the United States Studies Centre enables direct comparisons between Trump and his two predecessors. The database chronicles every in-person interaction between Bush, Obama and Trump (so far) with Australian prime ministers, and shows that over the past 16 years the US president has interacted with his Australian counterpart in either a formal or informal capacity an average of 3.4 times per year.

The US president has hosted the Australian prime minister in the Oval Office on 12 occasions since Bush was inaugurated in January 2001—more than the comparable figure for both the Japanese (10) and Canadian (11) prime ministers. Bush and Obama each visited Australia twice during their presidencies—they logged one international summit and one bilateral visit apiece, including presidential addresses to the Australian parliament in 2003 and 2011. During their two-term presidencies, Bush held more official working visits with his Australian counterpart (10) than Obama (6), but Obama attended a regional or global summit with the Australian prime minister on no fewer than 28 occasions.

The upward trend in the frequency of personal contact—if not necessarily the length or depth of direct leader-to-leader engagement—under President Obama was primarily due to his prolific attendance at multilateral meetings. In addition to long-standing presidential and prime ministerial attendance at summits such as the UN General Assembly, APEC and NATO, the US has attended the G20 since Bush first hosted the grouping in 2008. Obama first attended the East Asia Summit in 2011 and only missed one thereafter (in 2013, but only because he was dealing with a US government shutdown at the time).

By contrast, Trump has shown himself to be less willing to travel interstate, let alone overseas, than presidents before him: one New York Times journalist labelled Trump a ‘homebody president’. Trump’s first foreign trip was on 20 May—the latest first foreign trip in more than 50 years by a US president.

The White House’s initial suggestion that the president would not attend next week’s East Asia Summit (a decision that has now been reversed), despite being in the Philippines the day before, was the latest indicator that the Trump administration holds a dim view of multilateral engagement. The US has either left or is threatening to leave the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris Climate Agreement, UNESCO, NAFTA and the Iran nuclear deal. This ‘withdrawal doctrine’, in combination with the president’s aversion to foreign travel, portends a lower level of US–Australia leader-to-leader contact throughout Trump’s presidency.

Whether or not Trump manages a visit to Australia—and follows his predecessors by addressing the Australian parliament—it’s time for Australian stewards of the alliance to grapple with the implications of limited ‘Trump time’.

Don’t write off the Alliance

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I was privileged to be in the audience last month for an address by former Prime Minister Paul Keating. I have long been an admirer of Mr Keating for his vision and courage while in office, and, of course, his famed rhetorical flair. He didn’t fail to deliver on this occasion. He spoke with eloquence: on his defence of the Alliance during the Cold War; and on his predictions for both America’s decline on the global stage and the inevitable rise of China—as he argued are ordained by history.

It was fascinating. It was articulate. It was wrong.

His primary error is in assuming an inevitability to the rise and fall of nations. At the end of the 19th century, Argentina was expected to be a superpower. In 1979, there were very few who expected the Soviet Union to fall in 1989. And by 1989 there were even fewer who anticipated where China would be today. As the great American philosopher Yogi Berra taught us: ‘It’s tough to make predictions. Especially about the future.’

Presumably because of this inevitability thesis, there’s an insistent murmuring in certain sectors of this country that Australia must make a choice: America? Or China? I frankly find this a bewildering notion—not least because neither China, nor the US, are actually asking this question of Australia.

Now, a nation’s foreign policy is derived from its interests and principles. With every country there’s a Venn diagram of where these overlap. The goal is to maximise the benefit derived from the overlap and minimise the friction in areas that don’t overlap. Regardless of who sits in the White House, US foreign policy always has these three underlying touchstones.

  1. The defence of a political philosophy of basic civil freedoms, the rule of law, and government by the consent of the governed. Our own peace and security are enhanced when these rights are enhanced.
  2. A global trade system that is not zero sum and is underpinned by internationally agreed rules.
  3. To better secure the foregoing, we enter into treaties and alliances.

I believe Australian foreign policy has a very similar basis.

The US–Australian alliance has been mutually beneficial. When we have worked together, it’s because Australia determined it was in Australia’s interest for us to work together. This is not some perverse finger trap—broken only by severing the bonds of allegiance. Nor is it fuelled by misty nostalgia without regard to current realities. This has always been a working and effective partnership—one in which we sometimes speak bluntly to each other; but then go and grab a beer together afterwards. This is ‘independent Australian foreign policy’ at work.

Peter Varghese recently commented on what he called the ‘phony debate’ on whether there’s an independent Australian foreign policy. He said those people: ‘should pay more attention to the historical drivers of Australia’s Asia policy. If they did, they’d recognise a fairly consistent pattern of seeing Asia through the prism of Australian national interests. And where Australian policy coincided with first British and then American policy in the post war period it was not imitation or dependence, but shared interests that shaped the coincidence.’

You may say that was in the past. Now, the US is withdrawing from global leadership. But just where is this withdrawal? Not in the Middle East, where we continue to support the pushback against ISIS and the development of Iraq. Certainly not in Afghanistan—the President has just released his strategy for Afghanistan and South Asia. And not in Asia where, you may have heard, we are committed to working with our allies in resolving the many grave threats posed by North Korea.

We don’t need to look beyond our own region to see the new administration, at the highest levels, pursuing bilateral, trilateral and multilateral partnerships to solve the world’s most pressing issues, old and new.

In the first nine months of the Trump administration, our countries have had leaders’ meetings, attended high-level strategic dialogues, enjoyed Vice-Presidential visits and had the President’s commitment to attend regional meetings later this year. These are not the actions of a country fleeing from multilateralism. They are the actions of a country working closely with the world at large. Check out the number of conversations between Trump and Xi, Abe, Moon, Modi, and Turnbull.

However—and this is the crux of the matter—we are engaging on our own terms. I draw upon President Trump’s remarks to Prime Minister Abe earlier this year in seeking a ‘trading relationship that is free, fair and reciprocal, benefitting both of our countries’. This is no different to how Australia or China or any previous US president has operated on the world stage. We all want the best outcomes for our people.

And peace, prosperity, and security in the Indo-Asia–Pacific—indeed, the world—is in the best interests of the US. Secretary Mattis affirmed last month that ‘each nation gains security in concert with other nations’. And, as Vice President Pence has repeatedly said, ‘America first’ does not mean America only. Let’s not forget, even before the Obama administration announced its Asia Pivot in 2011, we were deeply involved in Asia.

Our goal remains to reduce barriers to, and raise standards for, trade and investment, regionally and globally, while upholding the rules-based order to ensure the continued safety and prosperity of our people. The difference is that our modus operandi is now written in bold. And underlined a few times. And then tweeted for good measure. That’s democracy for you. But you are all well-versed in how to peer beyond the rhetoric, to see through the daily media fodder and focus on tangible actions and outcomes.

Mr Keating noted in his address last month that China has provided 60% of global economic growth since the GFC in 2008. This is true. China is currently the world’s number one trading partner—indeed, it’s America’s number one trading partner.

But the US is a pretty handy partner too. We offer reliability, market access, capital, technology, work opportunities, and joint ventures that are not government mandated. Your companies trust our courts as avenues for unbiased dispute resolution. That’s why the US is, by far, the largest destination for Australian outbound investment. We can each pursue our economic interests knowing we’re working in an environment of predictable standards and practices. That’s why Australian companies operating in the US made more than $60 billion in sales last year. That’s why American firms have created 335,000 highly-paid jobs in Australia. And that’s why we are Australia’s most significant economic partner. That’s the economic value of shared interests and principles.

We have a history of investment in this country that has weathered wars, withstood economic crises and witnessed world leaders come and go. The veins of this partnership run deep—not just at the government level, but between individuals, companies and institutions. They run deep because our nations—and our people—operate on the common principles of individual liberties, equal rights and, to steal that wonderful Aussie phrase, the principle of ‘a fair go’.

One commentator, debating the so-called US/China choice last month, argued that China is Australia’s most important economic partner because ‘we could replace one but not the other’. Who would ever posit that greater reliance on a single customer is a good idea? This perspective discounts the sheer impact of US investment in Australia—which is worth more than the 2nd and 3rd largest investors combined. And it completely ignores the consequences for Australia’s next largest export markets—Japan and Korea; not to mention the huge potential of India. We need only to look at the official tightening of Chinese foreign investment to conclude: it may not be entirely up to you.

China is and will continue to be a critical counterpart in the region and the world, as it should be. Our bilateral relationship is deep and we cooperate across a broad range of global issues, including non-proliferation, counter-terrorism and climate change. And Chinese investors continue to flock to the US market for those very same benefits as Australians. Anybody who thinks the US is a replaceable economic power clearly has not told the Chinese.

Beyond the alarmist headlines, China and the US enjoy and work to strengthen a very productive relationship even as we have strong disagreements on certain matters. The Chinese economic miracle could not have happened without the rules-based order the US, Australia and Japan have long supported. But to reiterate a recent sentiment expressed by Secretary Tillerson: with economic power comes security responsibilities. China has a huge stake in maintaining the system that got them to where they are today.

I hark back to July 1973 when Gough Whitlam told the National Press Club in Washington: ‘… in our efforts to redress the imbalance of a generation of unthinking hostility towards China, we do not propose to introduce a new imbalance by discarding or downgrading older relationships’.

Earlier this year, Dennis Richardson noted that Australia has two friends; one Alliance. Two strong economic partnerships; one firm, historic friendship. There is no either/or. The trite phrase ‘more Asia, less America’ might as well be ‘more walking, less gum-chewing’. I think you can do both.

Australia continues to reap the rewards of significant economic and irreplaceable strategic relationships across the Pacific. You have achieved security and a record run of economic growth by following your interests and principles. So it really begs the question: if you’re sitting on a royal flush—why so eager to discard the ace?

Cambodian Prince to Oz: ditch the Queen to join ASEAN

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An Australia seeking to join ASEAN is going to face tough questions about its interests and identity.

Some in Southeast Asia think an Australian republic would be a more natural fit for ASEAN than an Australia still pledged to the British monarch. A surprising proponent of that view is a leading member of Cambodia’s royal family, the former deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Prince Norodom Sirivudh.

In my conversation with the Prince, I found myself laughing as I exclaimed, ‘Your Highness, for Australia, you’re a republican!’

The equally cheerful response from Prince Norodom Sirivudh was that he’d have to apologise to his fellow royal, Queen Elizabeth. But, as Sirivudh said, there’s a lot involved in a discussion about whether the ‘white guys’ (Australia and New Zealand) can join the club of the ‘Asian guys’.

On Oz’s mindset and place in Asia, Sirivudh turned unprompted to the republic issue, pointing to Australia’s failed republic referendum in 1999:

I followed this very closely. The republican referendum is an ideal example—I’m sorry for Her Majesty the Queen—to distance [Australia] from the United Kingdom. You must pass somewhere through a referendum. It’s so important, it’s so fundamental. That one day Australia says it’s nothing to do with Her Majesty based in London, but we are a nation. It’s mindset again. Politically, nothing changes. But mindset grows from things like that. And in ASEAN, too, we think about this kind of mindset. I think a referendum must be an obligation of passage. It’s so important that you bring this to the Asian guys.

Cop that, John Howard! An Asian prince says Australia should drop the royals. Talk about a challenge to the Howard mantra that Australia doesn’t have to choose between its history and geography in making its future in Asia. The Howard no-need-to-choose line is good politics and a wonderful debating point. Yet diplomacy and strategy are always about choices. And the bigger the issue, the tougher the choices. Australia joining ASEAN might have to be added to the list of things that Canberra doesn’t want to think about until after Queen Elizabeth II departs the throne.

As I’ve previously argued, the ASEAN–Australia summit in Sydney in March will be the ideal moment to launch the long conversation about Australia joining ASEAN. On interests, it’s easy to list a host of reasons why Australia and ASEAN would be good for each other. Australia could bring much to the development of ASEAN’s community in its political-security, economic and socio-cultural dimensions.

Prince Norodom Sirivudh agrees this is a conversation worth having, while offering caveats and cautions. On the positive side, he says, the geographic veto—that Australia isn’t part of Southeast Asia—is no longer the end of the argument. Sirivudh says ASEAN has emphatically broadened its geographic reach through the creation of the East Asia Summit.

From interests, though, the Prince turns to culture and how Australia thinks of itself in Asia:

If I’m an Australian—do I feel more Asian, or do I stick with my Western identities, cultures, organisation system? It is a big debate. It is a long debate. It seems to us that you feel more and more Asian in terms of economics, in terms of political-security. Perhaps the feeling has grown. Perhaps the closer link is with Asia, with the Asia continent, with Asian states. But in terms of culture, in terms of the Australian consciousness, how they think of themselves as the white guys.

Sirivudh says that Australia identifies itself as a ‘US cousin’ and has a strong focus on the US alliance. The Australia–US alliance could be a barrier in ways that don’t apply to Thailand and the Philippines as formal US allies, and Singapore as an informal but committed US ally.

The Prince muses that China’s opposition would be important in preventing any ASEAN consensus on Australia. Sirivudh says China would say to friends such as Cambodia and Malaysia: ‘You must think twice. One more American ally in your family?’ He says Australia would face the suspicion that it was acting for the US, not for itself. ‘We work on consensus’, Sirivudh says of ASEAN. ‘Only one disagrees, everything stuck. So the chance is very, very thin—based on consensus.’

Would Australia have to change the way it does foreign policy as well as ditch the Queen?

‘You have to show that you are first, Australian’, Sirivudh replies. ‘You are friends with the US. And you are friends with China. You are not the US proxy.’

Sirivudh thinks a slow process in which Australia took the half step to become an ASEAN observer is an interesting idea. When, as Cambodia’s foreign minister, he launched Cambodia’s effort to enter ASEAN, the status of ASEAN observer was the useful intermediate step. Or, as others suggest, ASEAN could create a new category of partner/member for Australia and New Zealand.

Before such mechanics, however, comes the mindset. Australia will have to convince itself. And ASEAN. And China.

ANZUS for the 21st century

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Defence Department Secretary Dennis Richardson retired today, after 48 years in the public service. In that time he also headed ASIO and DFAT, and served a term as Australia’s ambassador to Washington. This is an edited version of his farewell speech at the National Press Club in Canberra on the complex three-way relationship of Australia, the US and China.

 

[When I] joined the public service in 1969, the Cold War was 22 years old, and had another 23 years to run. Then the US economy accounted for 37.9% of the global economy while China, then in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, accounted for just under 3%. Today, China’s share of the global economy is 15.5%, with the US at 24.4%, demonstrating both China’s remarkable rise and American resilience.

The events of 9/11 and the subsequent operations in Iraq led to us being militarily engaged in the Middle East alongside the US for most of the past 16 years. The global financial crisis of 2008-9 gave rise to populist and economic nationalism in many Liberal Democracies, contributing to politico-strategic uncertainty and anxiety. That populism, in part, also saw the election of Donald Trump.

All of that, especially the rise of China and the arrival of President Trump, have raised questions about the continued relevance and value of our Alliance with the US and the question of ‘independence’ in Australian policy. But any reassessment of the Alliance should flow from clear-eyed analysis and judgement, not the emotional reaction to one person.

Australian governments generally have a strong and consistent record of charting their own course, with the Alliance part of the overall strategy, not the driver. Indonesia is perhaps the best example of where Australian and US approaches have often diverged. And Australia’s approach to New Zealand after its effective withdrawal from ANZUS in the early 1980’s is another.

At decisive points, Australian governments have very much done their own thing or have pressed the US hard to take a particular course to serve our own interests.

The Howard Government’s decision in 2005 to seek membership of the East Asia Summit and the decision by the Bush Administration to call a G20 Leaders Meeting in 2008, as opposed to a G13 or G14 which would have omitted Australia, are but two examples.

Including the Korean War, Australia has been involved in ten major military operations since 1951, excluding operations such as Cambodia, Rwanda and the Solomon Islands. The US was not involved militarily in the Malayan Emergency or Konfrontasi, and was in a supportive role in East Timor. The Korean War and the 1991 Iraq War were backed by Chapter 7 UN resolutions. Somalia, East Timor and Afghanistan were also supported and framed by UN resolutions.

Without US leadership and involvement, we would not have been in most of the conflicts since 1951. But the Alliance has not always been the sole driver of decision making, with our presence in Iraq/Syria and Afghanistan today serving strong national interests independent of the Alliance. In some instances, without the US we would not have been able to give full effect to our own national interests through the use of force. And sometimes the use of force is necessary.

The Alliance was the dominant reason for our involvement in Vietnam and in the invasion of Iraq. It’s also arguable that, given the world as seen from Canberra in the 1960s, there was a respectable case for Vietnam, independent of the Alliance. And, in the case of Iraq in 2003, the government was very careful about the extent and nature of its on-ground commitment, in contrast to the UK. Australian governments have generally been pragmatic and hard headed in weighing Alliance considerations on matters of war and peace. Understanding that is critical at a time when it is all too easy to opportunistically suggest that Australia lacks policy independence.

We need to ensure that military operations don’t drive policy. Beyond operations, military-to-military activity needs to be conducted within a deliberate policy framework. A decision to embed an Australian naval vessel within a US carrier strike group should always be considered a matter of policy, not a routine navy to navy activity.

The preparedness of the US to share sensitive military technologies and capabilities is now more essential to our defence and broader strategic interests than ever.

Intelligence sharing arrangements, have expanded enormously, but are well understood and appreciated by the Australian community because of enhanced transparency and accountability, and the immediacy of terrorism.

China’s relationship with Australia is beyond the imagining of 50 years ago, including: our largest merchandise trading partner by far, a growing investment relationship, people-to-people ties encompassing tourism, education and migration, and developing defence ties. Australia and China are in the 20th year of annual Defence Strategic Dialogues. The range and scope of joint military exercises has slowly increased, albeit from a very low base.

But it is no secret that China is very active in intelligence activities directed at us. It is more than Cyber. That is no reason to engage in knee jerk anti-China decision making or to avoid seeking to build a stronger relationship with China. It’s simply the world in which we live.

Foreign investment proposals from China are weighed carefully, but it doesn’t follow that because one electricity grid can go to a Chinese entity, another must.  Those who argue for so called consistency across a single sector of the economy should be careful of what they seek. We should have open and frank discussions with China about this. Certainly, they are not bashful in denying foreign investment opportunities in their own country.

Likewise, China’s government keeps a watchful eye inside Australian-Chinese communities and effectively controls some Chinese language media in Australia. We have substantive concerns about China’s activities in the South China Sea, and look to China to do much more on North Korea.

I’ve always thought that we in Australia do not always see the full dimension of the US/China relationship, in both its depth and complexity. The US and China are strategic rivals. There are, and will continue to be, points of real tension. The dynamic will play out for many decades. Misunderstandings could lead to miscalculation. But both seek to manage the relationship reasonably sensibly and work hard to avoid military conflicts.

I think Australia’s relationship with China and the US will continue to be ‘friends with both, allies with one’, and any notion that the growth in our relationship with China requires a recalibration of our relationship with the US is inconsistent with the facts, and lacks logic or purpose.

Some, including former decision makers, suggest that we should retain the Alliance, but with the US in more of a stand-off arrangement in the region, engaging when needed, especially if China overreaches. But do we expect an inalienable right to a US response if things get difficult while we put in less and talk the Alliance down?

It’s essential for those who believe the Alliance is important to our national interests to engage in the public discourse. It’s perfectly reasonable for millennials to question and query its contemporary relevance. That relevance should be articulated in terms of today’s world: its strategic dynamics, the vibrancy and depth of the contemporary Australia-US relationship, and a bit of history to connect past and present.