ASEAN checks recalcitrant Australia's treaty snub

ASEAN checks recalcitrant Australia's treaty snub

Sid Astbury, Deutsche France-Agentur/Sydney, Australia

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has set himself up for a
big serving of humble pie by holding out for so long against
signing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' Treaty of
Amity and Cooperation (TAC) and thereby securing a seat at the
East Asian summit to be held in Malaysia at the end of the year.

The consensus in Canberra is that Howard will swallow hard and
accept that ASEAN leaders are serious when they say that
accession is a condition of attendance at a meeting it is
organizing that will bring together the 10 Southeast Asian
countries linked in ASEAN with dialog partners Japan, China,
South Korea and possibly Australia, New Zealand and India.

The inaugural summit might become regional diplomacy's key
annual event and exclusion would enforce a view that Australia
was an outsider.

Howard has boxed himself into a corner on the treaty, a 1976
invention that commits signatories to settling their differences
without recourse to force and which forbids interference in the
affairs of another signatory. He has described the treaty as
betokening a "mind set that we've all really moved on from" and
"not the sort of treaty" that a non-ASEAN nation would want to
sign.

Yet Japan has signed, as have South Korea and China. India has
expressed willingness to sign, as has New Zealand. Australia,
uncomfortably, is now the only potential invitee holding out
against signing.

Even more uncomfortably, Howard has ridiculed the notion that
Australia should, for the sake of attendance at the summit,
please the neighbors and go along with the treaty.

Howard's recalcitrance reflects more than hubris. His approach
to regional diplomacy has always been that Australia should not
grovel for acceptance. Unlike the Labor Party's Paul Keating,
whom he replaced as prime minister in 1996, Howard has been
unwilling to accept that Canberra needs to adapt and take account
of cultural differences if it wants to get on well with ASEAN
countries.

A case in point: Howard's declaration that Australia would
attack terrorist bases in the region if host governments
wouldn't. A commitment to pre-emptive strikes, though it was
clearly intended as a vote winner at home in the run up to the
October election, was considered needlessly offensive to
Australia's neighbors. It was taken as warning that, when it came
to the region, respecting sovereignty was not an absolute
principle.

The Labor Party's Kevin Rudd, opposition spokesman on foreign
affairs, is predicting Howard will change tack.

"When he backs down and agrees to the treaty, it will
demonstrate that his posturing on military pre-emption has been
just that: posturing for domestic politics to look hairy-chested
on terrorism," Rudd said.

The stakes are seen as too high for Howard not to negotiate a
retreat from his hardline stance. Said Malcolm Cook, a researcher
at Sydney's Lowy Institute think tank: "For Australia, getting
invited to the East Asian summit is a particularly important
policy outcome".

In fact, Howard is already backtracking. The 65-year-old
leader said last week that sometimes it was necessary to put
objections to one side to achieve a desired outcome.

In reference to his reluctance to sign the treaty, Howard
said: "Sometimes you've got to put that in balance against the
advantages of being involved in something that's valuable in the
future".

So implacable has Howard been in opposing the treaty that
ASEAN leaders are in no mood to help make a retreat gracious.
Again, Howard has been responsible for his own discomfiture.

When he hosted Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi in
Canberra earlier this month, Howard was still insisting that
signing the treaty was out of the question.

This obduracy, some suggest, prompted the Malaysian leader to
respond with some tough talking of his own. On a visit to China,
Abdullah declared that accession to the treaty was "absolutely
indispensable" for those angling for an invitation to the Kuala
Lumpur summit in December.

Most observers expect Howard to change his tune on the treaty
in coming weeks. But the tone of his remarks are not endearing
him to ASEAN leaders. Asked if he would welcome an invitation to
the summit, Howard replied: "It's a matter for ASEAN to decide.
We'd be very happy to participate but we are not knocking on
doors begging admission. We don't need to do that."