Preemptive threat will damage Australian interests in Asia: Analysts<\/p>\n
Jack Taylor, Agence France-Presse, Sydney, Australia<\/p>\n
Prime Minister John Howard's brawl with Asia over his support for
\npreemptive strikes against terrorists overseas is the latest in a
\nseries of bruising rows which analysts say will damage
\nAustralia's long-term interests in the region.<\/p>\n
At a time Australia needs to rebuild already strained ties
\nwith its neighbors in a hypersensitive security environment,
\nHoward is once again seen to have created a furious backlash with
\npotentially damaging consequences.<\/p>\n
"I think it is very damaging to Australia's interests in Asia
\nbecause we have the history of being a white colonial power with
\na white Australia policy," said Elaine Thompson, a professor of
\npolitics and international relations at Sydney's University of
\nNew South Wales.<\/p>\n
"Howard's outrageous statement is just going to reinforce the
\nview of us as an alien."<\/p>\n
Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines -- the
\nnations whose cooperation Howard most needed after the Bali
\nbombing -- have lined up to express their anger at Howard's
\nstatement.<\/p>\n
They are also the countries whose economies will be hurt most
\nby Canberra's recent warnings to Australians against holiday
\ntravel in the region.<\/p>\n
Nearly half of the more than 190 people killed in the Oct. 12
\nBali bombing were Australian.<\/p>\n
Australia's recent heavy-handed anti-terrorist crackdown in
\nwhich police and intelligence agents raided the homes of
\nIndonesian Muslims further fueled Asian resentment.<\/p>\n
All four nations had already taken a dim view of Howard a few
\nyears ago over his apparently ambivalent attitude towards former
\nMP Pauline Hanson, and what was widely seen as a racist campaign
\nby her One Nation Party to halt Asian immigration.<\/p>\n
Howard was the last senior Australian politician to condemn
\nher.<\/p>\n
Indonesia has also barely forgiven Australia for sending
\ntroops to East Timor in a bid to end the violence by Jakarta-
\nbacked militia in September 1999 after a vote for independence.<\/p>\n
Then in August 2001 came the so-called Tampa incident in which
\nAustralia turned away a shipload of Muslim refugees and
\nintroduced a tough policy of refusing to allow asylum seekers to
\nland on the Australian mainland.<\/p>\n
Howard sought the help of Indonesian President Megawati
\nSoekarnoputri but she refused even to answer his phone calls.
\nHe was able to exploit his government's tough stance on illegal
\nimmigration in his successful campaign to win the re-election
\nlater that year and was accused by Hanson of stealing her
\npolicies.<\/p>\n
Glen Barclay, a senior academic specializing in international
\nrelations at Canberra's Australian National University, said the
\nelection was to a very great extent a racist election, "wrapped
\nup in nonsense about border protection."<\/p>\n
"Since then there has been the war on terrorism, which again
\nshapes up as aggression against Islamic countries," he told AFP.<\/p>\n
"But Howard's statement in which he was considering Australia
\nshould have the right to make preemptive strikes on neighboring
\ncountries a la Israel's Ariel Sharon was quite incredible, a
\nludicrous statement."<\/p>\n
Barclay said Howard's government appeared determined to
\nreverse in every possible way the pro-Asia policies of the former
\nLabor government of prime minister Paul Keating.<\/p>\n
"The consequences of all of this are likely to show up in a
\ndiminishing capacity of Australian businesses to operate in Asia
\nwhere we are already working under quite significant
\ndifficulties," he said.<\/p>\n
Australia was at a disadvantage by not being a member of the
\nAssociation of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), and was now
\nfacing exclusion from a China-ASEAN free trade area, which will
\nin economic terms become the largest preferential trading
\narrangement in the world.<\/p>\n
Thompson said she believed Howard's comments about terrorist
\nthreats were playing to domestic politics.<\/p>\n
"There is no rational reason to try and frighten Australians
\nin the way they have been in talking up threats except to play to
\na domestic electorate," she said.<\/p>\n
Howard denied on Tuesday that his comments about possible
\npreemptive action against terrorists overseas had damaged
\nAustralia's relations with its Asian neighbors and said he did
\nnot resile from them.<\/p>",
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