Tag Archive for: Australia-US relations

Quo vadis, Australia?

Foreign policy white papers can disappoint. More than white papers on domestic policy, they deal largely with the unknown. And, for small and medium-sized countries in particular, foreign policy is often more a matter of reaction than action.

They’re also the products of government and are therefore seldom modest about government achievements. And, because they are diplomatic instruments, their thrust can be obscure for fear of upsetting those with whom we seek to engage.

But, that said, they force a government to think through the issues and compel interaction between the government and the community on the priorities of the day—hopefully contributing to a national perspective. In that respect, the DFAT white paper launched last week was a good effort.

The central issue in the paper is the challenge posed by the rise of China and the concomitant relative decline in United States influence. The paper is lucid and frank in its analysis of the challenges, but less satisfying in what it proposes we do about them.

In essence, the paper prescribes a three-legged approach to our security environment: widening and deepening the security relationship with the United States; enhancing our relationship with China; and strengthening our relationships with other regional countries—particularly Japan and India—partly as a hedge against a diminution in the United States’ commitment to the region.

However, the paper—and the comments by ministers at its launch—suggests that the alliance leg is overwhelmingly the most important of the three and is the one that will weigh most decisively in our approach to the region.

Hence, while the paper, and the remarks that launched it, describe a confident Australia proud of its sovereignty, its underlying message suggests an insecure and needy Australia. To draw on Allan Gyngell’s phrase, we seem to be a country in fear of abandonment.

The paper won’t be the end of the debate on how we should approach our region. Australians will—and indeed should—continue to ponder, not the merits of the three-legged approach, which makes good sense, but the relative emphasis we give to each of the legs. In particular, some will continue to argue that, while ANZUS remains central to our external posture, it doesn’t have to be the dominant feature of that posture.

Among its other main themes, the paper underlines, correctly, the importance of the rules-based system. Countries like Australia, with limited power, benefit most from international rules. Adherence to a sound international system matters—whether it applies to security, the environment or trade. Our diplomacy has to be guided by rules-based precepts, including when those precepts are challenged not only by China, but also by the United States.

The paper sets out cogently our policy responsibilities in our immediate Pacific neighbourhood. That is all to the good, not only for altruistic reasons but because we should balance excessive Chinese influence in the region. It also describes the economic opportunities offered by the growth of the region. No argument there.

While there will be differences in the Australian community about foreign policy content, there should be little disagreement with one all-encompassing thrust of the paper: Australia has to be more mindful of its international environment and alert to both problems and opportunities given the changes that are taking place and the uncertainty that those changes bring in their wake.

If that conclusion is accepted, several things need to happen.

The Australian government and opposition have to accord our external policies appropriate weight in overall political terms. The effective conduct of our foreign policy has to be a national priority—in the same way that economic reform was a priority in the 1980s and 1990s and counterterrorism has been since 9/11. Real resources have to be to put into foreign policy implementation, and in particular into the underfunded Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The government of the day has to bring the community with it in understanding the need for enhanced regional engagement. Such an effort has to stretch into education of the community in the widest sense.

The recommendations of the Asian century white paper were allowed to lie fallow by Labor because they were not seen as a funding priority, and were consigned to oblivion by the Coalition because the paper wasn’t their own.

Australians have to understand that no other Western democracy has a greater number of priority foreign partners with traditions and historical background so different from its own, and that we have to grasp how those societies work.

We must practise what we preach. Reputation counts. It is, for example, hard to claim leadership on human rights while defending our policies on the camps on Manus and Nauru.

We should seek more national constancy on policy. While there will be policy differences between the parties, every effort should be made to uphold international commitments. Labor’s retreat in 2008 on the quadrilateral talks involving Australia, the United States, Japan and India and its temporary injunction in 2007 against uranium exports to India caused doubts in the region about our international credibility. And the Coalition’s questioning of our UN Security Council candidature in 2014 and backtracking on bipartisan commitments to overseas aid didn’t redound to our national credit.

In foreign policy, predictability and reliability are assets.

Australia and the US in the age of disruption

Australia and the United States enjoy deep historical links in the areas of law, the economy and defence.

As we confront the challenges of the age of disruption, there are five policy approaches that will guide a Shorten Labor government in our relationship with the US:

  • First, we must have a clear idea of our national interests, and of the national interests of the US, and work to harmonise those interests to the benefit of both parties and the broader international community with which we work.
  • Second, we must accept that we do live in a disrupted world—the world as it is—and approach its challenges with confidence and optimism to create the world we want for ourselves, our children and their children.
  • Third, we must work with the US as it is—a nation of enormous agility, energy, generosity, invention and vitality.
  • Fourth, we need to work with the US to build our mutual capacity to strengthen the resilience, stability and prosperity of our region, underpinned by an internationally observed rules-based order.
  • And fifth, we need to apply the operating principles of the ANZUS Treaty—consultation (article 3) and action (article 4)—across the entire bilateral relationship, and not restrict them simply to our defence relationship.

The US, of course, has a global dimension to its national power, especially its economic and military power, that reflects its extraordinary national power. Australia’s interests are global, but our power evidently is not. The fundamental question for all nations is how they intend to employ their national power in pursuit of their national interests.

We need to engage on interests. A US emphasis on national economic sovereignty, or protection, for instance, as distinct from leadership in generating a fair global economic system, is a significant development. As a mature, reliable and contributing partner with the US, we need to voice these kinds of issues, as much in the interests of the US as in our own interests.

Labor’s second policy approach is acceptance that we live in a disrupted world. Across Asia, the Americas, the Middle East, Africa and Europe, disruptive forces are at play. Unpredictable political groupings, re-emergent nationalism, the increasing challenge to democracy as the most effective form of political participation, global terrorism, worsening economic inequality and the growing challenge to the international rules-based order—these are the elements of global disruption.

The US has contributed to the disruption that now characterises the global political environment. A year on from President Trump’s election, what kind of world is emerging and what kind of country America is becoming has not become much clearer, and how we might transcend personality politics in both the US and Australia has not become any easier.

I again make the point, as I made then, that our relationship with the US is deep, longstanding and institutional, and is not a function of the personalities of our respective leaders.

China’s newfound economic strength and assertiveness have also contributed to the age of disruption. As we have seen with China’s extraordinary rise, economic power can now have a strategic effect independent of military power. What remains uncertain is the consequence of China’s military strength growing to match its economic strength as its strategic ambitions are realised over the coming decades. This ‘double whammy’ form of disruption—the separation of economic and military power and then its recombination—will largely define the region in which Australia and the US have strategic interests for the rest of this century.

For Australia, the best way to manage disruption on a global scale is to engage actively in constructive internationalism, in what Gareth Evans proposed 25 years ago as ‘good international citizenship’. This means that we must contribute to creating global and regional public goods. These include managing climate change; arms control; protecting and advancing human rights; working to manage and reduce the global refugee crisis; preventing and responding to global terrorism, drug distribution and criminality; and many other global issues.

Our third policy approach is to work with the US as it is now, not as it might once have been, or as some of its naysayers claim it’s going to become. The US has a lot on its plate at present. The reality is it is one of the most vibrant societies on earth, as energetic and full of potential as it has ever been. It is constantly transforming itself as it capitalises on its enormous human, social and physical capital resources.

The fourth policy approach is to build our mutual capacity to strengthen the resilience, stability and prosperity of our region, underpinned by an internationally observed rules-based order.

As reflected in Labor’s FutureAsia strategy, our region matters to us. It also matters to China. And it matters to the US. I have said elsewhere that as we look west and north to Asia, we see a landmass and a series of archipelagos bookended by Asia’s two historical cultural influencers—China and India—and including the great economic powerhouses of China, Japan, South Korea and India. We also see a group of 10 nations—the members of ASEAN—that have invested continuously for over 50 years in building and maintaining regional stability.

And our final policy approach is to apply the operating principles of the ANZUS Treaty across the entire bilateral relationship.

Our defence relationship is both historic and significant. But it is not truly separable from the structures that define the entire bilateral relationship. Our purpose here is not to securitise our bilateral relationship. Far from it. It is to generate the depth and robustness that the relationship needs if it is to realise the opportunities that the age of disruption brings with it.

To achieve these objectives, Labor intends to broaden and deepen the relationship at a government-to-government level and, equally importantly, to work with our think tanks and universities to expand Track 2 links between our two countries.