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

Richard Woolcott, Adelaide | Opinion | Wed, December 05 2012, 11:13 AM

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We do not consult and talk with China at the Head of Government and Ministerial levels in the regular manner we should in the Asian Century. Although it will be more difficult because of cultural and political differences, political and business and academic leaders should communicate regularly with their counterparts.

This will not be easy but it is important. As a foundation member of the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue, I am conscious of the extent to which that dialogue has deepened the political engagement with the US of Australian politicians on both sides of politics.

We still lack a sufficiently deep engagement with China beyond trade and to understand more fully Chinese views. Just as alliance should not equate to compliance in the case of the US, understanding need not equate to agreement in the case of China.

The recent and present debate about China mainly assumes that Australia has no choice but to support American primacy in Asia against the threat of a perceived rising Chinese hegemony.

Former prime ministers Paul Keating and Malcolm Fraser have argued that this is a simplistic notion which should be challenged.

Similar concerns have been raised by a number of Australian business leaders, academics and commentators. No global regional problem can now be resolved without China’s involvement.

As well as rebalancing our relationships with China and the United States, we need to deepen and strengthen substantially our engagement, as the White Paper has indicated, with Japan, India, South Korea, Indonesia and the other ASEAN countries. To this list I would add Russia. Twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union it is clear that Russia is determined to restore its international influence and is also seeking to play an active role in the Pacific.

It is a nuclear super power, with a major naval presence in the Pacific, and it is an important supplier of energy. It successfully hosted the recent APEC meeting in Vladivostok.

The White Paper sensibly argues the importance of strengthening Australia’s diplomatic network in Asia. It is also a question of diplomatic style. As I have already noted, we need to strengthen regular improved consultation, as a habit, with the main Asian countries on a wide range of issues in advance of major policy decisions, especially those which affect them. A recent example of a failure to do so with negative consequences was the decision to ban live cattle exports to Indonesia.

In the handling of the so-called boat people and asylum seekers, both the government and the opposition, seem to be engaged in a race to the bottom, motivated by domestic politics, in sharp contrast to the handling of the Vietnamese refugees and boat people of the late 1970s and, indeed to the sentiment expressed in the second verse of our National Anthem.

We also need to avoid the perception in Asian countries that racism and religious intolerance remain present in our political and public attitudes. Because of our history, including the White Australia policy, and statements by some politicians we are on a “good behavior bond” in the eyes of many thinking Asians who remain uncertain about the depth and sincerity of our commitment to our Asian and South West Pacific neighborhood.

In the context of our identity as a nation, issues like moving out of the United Nations’ Western European and Others Group (WEOG) and moving into the Asian group and also the establishment of an Australian Republic are important.

They are not merely symbolic. They are significant indicators of the international image Australia should project and how we see ourselves and our place in the world. Occasional references to Australia as being part of the “Anglosphere” are outdated, except in an historical context, and are very unhelpful now to our increasing involvement in Asia.

Also, if one is talking about the future there are some other issues which I believe we need to consider. Australia is a wonderful country, with great potential, which I have represented mostly with pride overseas for many years.

The Asian Century now offers us major new opportunities as the White Paper points out. To take full advantage of them however, Australia must maintain its strong economy and continue the process of economic reform originally launched in the early 1980s by Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. Australia must be competitive if it is to take advantage of the opportunities created by a resurgent Asia.

Despite advancing years I still have causes which I hope to live to see achieved. One was that I did not want to go to my grave as our last representative on the Security Council. This has now been achieved and Australia will be a member of the Council from the 1st of January. Another is the Australian Republic, which I have
already mentioned.

The Republic was not mentioned in the White Paper but I believe that it should not have been overlooked. Australia is still a work in progress. The next constitutional step in the unfolding story of Australia should be the establishment of the Republic which will be, like Federation itself, a defining moment in our history.

Our anachronistic links with the English Monarchy and the fact that our Head of State is still the Queen of England limits the understanding overseas of Australia’s place in the world. The Queen of England is of decreasing relevance to an increasing number of migrants from many countries, including Asia, which have no links with the United Kingdom.

We are now a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society and the severance of this link with the British crown could be a rallying point for all Australians regardless of their origins.

Prediction is always a hostage to fortune and that the prospects for more effective management of common problems at the international level remain uncertain. Complex issues such as potential competition for scarce resources, climate change, continuing poverty, food insecurity, nuclear proliferation and unresolved territorial disputes in the Asia Pacific region all need to be addressed, and this puts a strong focus on how best to achieve more meaningful and coordinated action at a regional level to reduce tensions.

There is, for example, a danger that adversarial attitudes toward China could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. While China can be expected to resist American “hegemony” over the Asian region, it welcomes a continuing constructive US involvement in Asia.

China is not a natural enemy of the US. It is essential that both countries and the other major countries in the region develop the habit of discussing frankly difficulties as they arise within existing cooperative frameworks, such as the G-20 and the East Asian Summit which is a de facto emerging Asia-Pacific community.

Australia faces great opportunities and challenges in the Asian century. My comments about where Australia should be heading are based on sixty years’ experience working inside and outside of Australia and inside the public service and in the private sector, I have put them forward.

But it is for a new generation of forward looking men and women to carry the torch to ensure Australia is in the future a less complacent and a more economically competitive and compassionate country, integrated more fully with its Asia and South West Pacific neighborhood. We need to think big and not small. We need to be less inward looking and more outward looking, especially toward a resurgent Asia-Pacific region.

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.

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Bob Hawke’s comments

He (Woolcott) spoke about some fundamentally important things and none more important than the question of China and the US and Australia in terms of that relationship.

Now there is so much bloody nonsense talked about China and so good to hear a man of this experience and erudition, clearing away that fog of nonsense.

There is an attempt in some parts in the US and elsewhere to almost equate China with the Soviet Union as the enemy we must have. You know, they suffer from the EDS, the enemy deficiency syndrome. Got to have an enemy.

Now it is absolutely absurd to attempt in any way to equate China with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union by definition was an eudemonistic organization committed to expansion and the conversion around the globe.

China has not got an eudemonistic history. Remember about 600 years ago now, admiral Ho made those seven voyages with the biggest fleet ever heard of, the largest troops, going from China all the way through the Southeast Asia, Asia, right down the east coast of Africa with no attempt to colonize.

Essentially doing what they’re doing today, opening up trading opportunities and trying to go guarantee the safety of trading routes.

The contrast with the situation of the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and comparing with China and the US now, there simply is no comparison. The basic point being of course that in the period of the Cold War there was no economic relationship at all between the Soviet Union and the US.

They didn’t trade with one another, didn’t invest. Whereas in the present situation China and the US fundamentally depend each upon the other and intelligent self-interest will demand that they work out a modus vivendi. I must say that essentially I am optimistic. It’s not good just being optimist, it’s going to work out, we have to work on it but the essentials are there for the emergence of, as I say, a modus vivendi because it’s in the intelligent self-interest of both the US and China that that should happen.

The situation is one where Australia should, as Dick said, recognize that we should have no part of any concept of containment.

I know from my personal experience that the Chinese leadership understand when you tell them that we have a historic relationship with US, we’ll continue that, but it is not either/or. You can continue that relationship but get a burgeoning, developing, growing and deepening relationship with China.

There’s no doubt that the critical issue for the future peace of the region of the world is going to be the quality of the relationship between the US and China and Dick has spelled that out and I agree with every word he has said about that.

Just a couple of other comments. Dick, you rightly referred to the question of the republic. Our friends in Asia don’t understand it. My view, which I have put to Julia (Prime Minister Julia Gillard), is this; that there should be a referendum put to the Australian people in two parts.

One, are you in favor of Australia becoming a republic? The republic to come into effect at the end of the reign of the present monarch. And I believe that you’d get a 95 percent vote if you did that.

I’m not concerned about the Queen as the Queen of England but as head of the Commonwealth she has done an effective job. She hasn’t just been a figurehead, she’s been actively involved and people recognize that.

So we can wait. Let’s make the decision and let it come into effect at that time. I think that makes sense as far as Australia is concerned and it would clear the air as far as our friends in Asia are concerned.

Let me conclude by saying that historically the phrase about Australia and our position in the world was that we suffered from the tyranny of distance. That was coined, the term, in the period when the center of economic gravity was in mid-Atlantic in Europe, England.

But now we do not suffer from the tyranny of distance. We have the benefit of proximity. The benefit of proximity to the fastest growing region in the world and we all have the responsibility, this University, the state government, the federal government and all of us as business people and as citizens, if we want to get the best of our future for our children and grandchildren that is going to be done by forging the most effective, cordial, congenial, productive bonds with the people of Asia in general and I would suggest of China in particular.

This article is part of former prime minister Bob Hawke’s vote of thanks to Ambassador Woolcott’s presentation transcribed from audio recording.
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