Forging our future in the Asian region (Part 1 of 2)

Richard Woolcott, Adelaide | Opinion | Tue, December 04 2012, 10:20 AM

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Why does the Asian Century matter deeply to Australia?

We need to accept the reality that Australia is permanently situated in the Southeast Asian and Southwest Pacific region. I have argued this since I joined the then department of external affairs in 1950.

This has always been a geographic reality but some Australians have yet to come to grips with the implications of this fact. Our adjustment to this reality will largely determine the success or possible failure of our diplomatic, strategic and commercial future.

In our approach to the Asian Century we need to acknowledge that Asia is a western geographical description of a huge region of great political, religious and social diversity.

It includes three monarchies, two of the world’s largest three democracies, four countries still administered by Communist Party governments and the extensive practice of four of the world’s main religions, as well as several philosophies (eg Confucianism) which differ from our own western orientated approach.

The idea that Australians do not have to choose between our history and our geography, is simplistic and has been a politically expedient cliché to avoid considering in depth our relationships with the United States and China.

Our history is our past; some of it noble and some of it shameful. The reality is that our future lies in our geography.

The steadily increasing importance of Asia and the need for Australia to adjust to its geographical environment is of course not new. Successive governments have advocated this but their responses, so far, have yet to reach stated outcomes or government rhetoric and have been far from adequate.

What is new is the urgency for Australia created by the unprecedented transfer of wealth from the West to the East, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, which will continue into the foreseeable future.

This seismic shift, driven by the spectacular rise of China in particular but also by the rise of India, the continuing economic strengths of Japan and South Korea in addition to the growing potential of Indonesia and Vietnam constitute an historic global turning point to which Australia must respond, if we are not to find ourselves left behind.

We now live in a much more interconnected and technologically advanced world. The Asia Pacific is the region where the world’s major power relationships most closely intersect.

It is where the template for the United States China relationship will largely be shaped. It is also the crucible in which the interrelationships on Asian and major global issues involving United States, China, Japan, Russia, India, Indonesia, South Korea and the main ASEAN countries will be forged.

What should we do to strengthen our place in the world, especially in Asia?

Firstly, I think Australians need a fundamental change to our national psyche, which will be focused more on Asia, than on our well established links with the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe.

We also need a continuous and sustained, rather than a spasmodic, approach to the countries of Asia. Both the White Paper and our membership of the Security Council are relevant to defining more clearly our national identity and place in a changing world.

The most important foreign and strategic policy issue Australia faces today, is the urgent need, to determine a more appropriate, and updated balance in our relations with the United States and China, the emerging superpower.

On this fundamental question our government will need to assess frankly the extent to which the United States, although it will continue to be militarily, if not economically, the strongest power in the world for the foreseeable future, and China are likely to evolve over the next decade.

We should not be afraid of forward looking change. For example, the ANZUS treaty, now 60 years on, is somewhat out of date and should not be regarded as an absolute guarantee of American military support, which it is not, or as a political sacred cow.

The only occasion on which Australia sought American support under ANZUS during Indonesia’s “confrontation” of Malaysia in 1964 in which our forces were involved in conflict with Indonesian forces in Kalimantan, the United States declined. Moreover, I find an increasing number of Australians consider that ANZUS, or our broader military alliance with the United States, has now involved us in three unsuccessful wars — Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, in support of policy decisions taken essentially in Washington.

In my view we should have withdrawn in 2010 when, as the new Prime Minister, Julia Gillard could have reviewed our policy. By the end of 2014, when the last Americans are due to cease fighting, the Taliban will not have been defeated, and a truly democratic government will not be in place.

Because support for the war in Australia is bipartisan (despite majority popular opposition according to our polls), it does not mean it is either right or in our national interest.

The White Paper is a timely and valuable document — I hope the government will make it clear it intends to maintain an unambiguous signal to the Australian public, to China, and to the United States, as well as other countries in the
Asia Pacific region that, while we have some different attitudes from China and are in an alliance with the United States, Australia welcomes the rise of China, opposes policies directed at the “containment” of China and sees no intrinsic reason why China, under its system of authoritarian capitalism, cannot continue to rise peacefully, although it faces major social and economic problems which it will need to address.

The rise of China, if mismanaged, could lead to instability and frustrate progress towards the shared and necessary goal of Asia Pacific regional cooperation, which is the corner stone for future peace, stability and continuing development in the Asian region.

It will be important for Australia, as an ally, to ascertain the precise nature of the United States “pivot to Asia”. Australia’s interest will be to avoid this developing in the context of a “containment” policy, an approach which Secretary of State Clinton has stated will not be the case. But this will need to be judged by actions rather than words.

This article is excerpted from the “2012 Annual Hawke Lecture” delivered by Ambassador Richard Woolcott on Nov. 5 at the Adelaide Town Hall. Mr Woolcott is Australia’s veteran diplomat who has been assigned to many postings, including Jakarta and the United Nations in New York. He was prime minister Hawke’s special envoy in the development and evolution of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) throughout 1989.