The state of Australia: our international standing
Australia under the Abbott government has so far been treated to
a succession of foreign policy gaffes, including with Indonesia.
EPA/Adi Weda
In the lead-up to the budget, the story of crisis has
been hammered home, but there’s more to a country than its structural
deficit. So how is Australia doing overall? In this special series, ten
writers take a broader look at the State of Australia; our health,
wealth, education, culture, environment, well-being and international
standing.
The conduct of Australia’s foreign policy under the Rudd and Gillard
governments was anything but inspiring. Under Tony Abbott, we have so
far been treated to a succession of gaffes bordering on farce.
How we’re doing now
Since its election victory last September, the Abbott government has
managed to arouse the ire of three important neighbours (Indonesia,
China and East Timor) through words and gestures that are at best
ill-informed and at worst foolishly provocative.
Under Operation Sovereign Borders, refugee boats are being pushed back into Indonesian waters against Indonesia’s express wishes and Australian vessels have more than once breached Indonesia’s maritime boundary. We place great store on our sovereignty, but seem strangely unable to consider the sovereignty of our neighbours.
The spying saga regarding Australian interception of the personal phone calls of Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, including Abbott’s ill-judged response, has added fuel to the fire. By the end of 2013 the bilateral relationship was in a state of serious disrepair, where it continues to languish.
The relationship with China is more complex and the potential
ramifications of misjudgement even more serious. Though China is now by
far Australia’s most important trade partner, Australia has chosen to
upgrade its relations with Taiwan and has sided openly and somewhat stridently
with the United States and Japan in condemning China for declaring an
Air Defence Identification Zone in the disputed region of the East China
Sea.
To add insult to injury, Abbott described Japan as an “ally” (which is not technically accurate) and our “best friend in Asia”. This comes at a time when Japan has one of the most nationalist governments
of its post-war history, committed to expanding the country’s military
arsenal and revisiting its peace constitution. The Chinese response was predictably fierce and immediate.
In the case of East Timor, attorney-general George Brandis last December approved an ASIO raid on the office of lawyer Bernard Collaery, who is acting for East Timor in its spying case against Australia.
East Timor, one of the world’s poorest countries, is attempting to have
what it considers an unequal oil and gas treaty it signed with
Australia quashed in The Hague.
Much can be added to this sorry list of mis-steps. Unseemly pressure
has been brought to bear on Papua New Guinea and Nauru to help the
government deliver on its election promise to “stop the boats”.
Discussions are underway to have asylum seekers redirected to Cambodia, another poor country with a deplorable human rights record.
The budget deficit has also been used to justify cutting back the projected growth of Australian overseas aid by as much as A$4.5 billion over the next four years. Yet defence spending is planned to rise to $50 billion over the next ten years, nearly double the current defence budget.
At the UN General Assembly, Australia abstained on two key resolutions calling on Israel to cease its settlement activities, widely regarded as illegal,
and to “comply scrupulously” with the 1949 Geneva Convention. The
resolutions were carried by an overwhelming majority of UN members,
including most allies of the United States.
Australian interest in international climate change and nuclear disarmament negotiations has also visibly diminished.
EPA/Ed Jones
How we got here
Striking though it is, this catalogue of policy failures does not
signify a marked break with the Labor years. Neither Kevin Rudd nor
Julia Gillard was able to set Australia’s China policy on a sound
footing. The simplistic idea that Australia could rely on China for its
prosperity and the United States for its security was never seriously
questioned – nor was Australia’s costly and unproductive military
commitment in Afghanistan.
Rudd’s poorly articulated proposal for the creation of an Asia-Pacific community soon fizzled in the absence of prior consultation with Asian neighbours.
Gillard oversaw the production of the Australia in the Asian Century
white paper, but its sanitised contents, with their fixation on trade
and investment opportunities, were strangely silent on the geopolitical
and security implications of Asia’s rise and on the cultural gap still
separating Australia from its Asian neighbours.
Labor’s steady abandonment of anything resembling a humane asylum seeker policy meant acceptance of a Pacific solution, leading first to the abortive approaches to East Timor and Malaysia, and then to the re-opening of the Manus Island detention centre.
And, it was Labor governments that authorised the spying operations
aimed at the highest levels of the Indonesian and East Timor
governments.
A Labor government did secure a seat on the UN Security Council, but it seemed averse to or incapable of crafting a coherent set of initiatives. Rudd set up a commission for the elimination of nuclear weapons, but its key recommendations were left to gather dust.
How is such lack of drive and imagination to be explained? Why is it
that both major parties find it so difficult to rethink Australia’s
place in the world? No doubt several factors are at work.
The movers and shakers of the two major political parties and the
political class at large remain profoundly insular in their thinking and
parochial in their politics. They do not grasp the far-reaching
regional and global changes already underway and their dramatic impact
on economy, environment, culture and governance everywhere, not least in
Australia.
The reality, however, is that many of the principles and premises
that have guided Australia’s external relations since 1945 have lost
whatever relevance they may once have had.
We are seeing an unprecedented shift in economic power and political
influence away from the west and towards the east. European empires have
dissolved and America’s ascendancy is slowly but surely coming to an
end. The old reliance on great and powerful friends – first Britain,
then the United States – has reached its use-by date.
In the coming years, China, India, South Korea, Indonesia, but also
Russia, Brazil and others will play increasingly important roles not
just in trade and investment, but in shaping security, political and
environmental agendas.
did secure a seat on the UN Security Council but seemed averse to or
incapable of crafting a coherent set of foreign policy initiatives.
EPA/Andrew Gombert
The next ten years
The critical decisions Australia has to make do not involve choosing
between the United States and China, nor between China and Japan. While
maintaining strong and co-operative relations with all three, it has to
develop its own independent diplomacy and put an end to its subservience
to US diplomatic priorities and the US military and intelligence
establishments.
Australia needs to work closely with middle and small powers to
develop mechanisms that can help defuse maritime disputes, especially in
the East and South China Seas.
A serious policy of engagement with Asia entails, of course, more
than military security and economy. The environment, human rights,
poverty reduction and transnational crime require urgent attention.
Where states violate the rights of their own people – whether in China,
North Korea or Burma – Australia must be prepared to speak strongly on
behalf of the vulnerable.
AAP/Eoin Blackwell
Similarly, Australia has to distance itself from surveillance
activities, including those of the United States, for they erode the
democratic fabric of society. Such pressure, however, is more likely to
be effective if it is carefully applied in concert with others and if it
engages not just government, but business and civil society.
A similar approach could facilitate a region-wide, long-term solution to the processing and resettlement of asylum seekers.
Such a multifaceted agenda must necessarily take advantage of the
opportunities for multilateral solutions and be sensitive to the diverse
mindsets, interests, cultures and languages of our Asian partners.
To this end, after years of neglect, it is time to revamp the
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, endow it with much greater
resources and skills and an enhanced capacity to support initiatives and
projects in conflict prevention, mediation, peacebuilding and
importantly regional and global disarmament.
In all of this, the federal government has an important initiating
and co-ordinating role. But its efforts and resources must be carefully
pooled with those of state and local governments, and with the energies
and expertise of business, professional and community organisations.
Effective processes of consultation at all levels and a renewed
national educational strategy will be critical to positioning Australia
as a thriving, confident, internationally minded country equal to the
challenges of the coming decades.
Further reading: The State of Australia series
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