Aussies 'outsiders' despite new foreign policy?

By S.P. Seth

SYDNEY (JP): Australia's first foreign policy white paper was issued recently in Canberra. It sets out the priorities and goals of its foreign policy over the next 15 years.

The obvious question is why now?

Because the present Australian government, with John Howard as prime minister, has created doubts and question marks about where Australia is headed. The white paper is an attempt to restate Australia's Asia-Pacific priorities.

The Pauline Hanson phenomenon, which has become synonymous with racism in Australia, has seriously dented Australia's regional image. Hanson is scapegoating Asians for all Australia's real or imagined evils; its high unemployment, crime, diseases, racial imbalance and so on. And sees in all this an Asian/international conspiracy to destabilize and destroy Australia.

If Hanson were just a solitary politician, it wouldn't matter. But opinion polls favor her views against Asian immigration by over 60 percent. Even Howard felt that she was reflecting the Australian mainstream on the Asian question.

Not surprisingly, the Hanson phenomenon has upset the country's Asian neighbors, though their governments have hesitated to criticize Canberra loudly. But Howard's response, stressing Australia's commitment to racial equality and engagement with the Asia-Pacific region, lacks the passion and conviction of former prime minister Paul Keating.

Howard believed his predecessor, Keating, was way out of step with Australian people in his advocacy of Australia's Asian connection. His "rhetoric" had created confusion and insecurity among Australians about Asia.

Therefore, people needed reassurance that Australia wasn't being pushed into uncharted waters of Asia, with which they had no particular empathy. Howard has, therefore, been keen to emphasize that Australia did not need to choose between its history (European origin) and geography (Asian location). He said this during his Indonesian visit. And it is reiterated in the white paper.

In other words, Howard believes that Australia can remain largely unaffected as a society and culture while still making the most of its economic integration with Asia. Or Australia can dictate the terms on which it will engage with Asia.

Paul Kelly, a prominent columnist, wrote in The Australian newspaper: "It's a new form of political correctness. We are supposed to pretend that engagement with Asia is not a transforming process ... ."

It is based on "John Howard's blinkered view of Australia", which says that "Australia must maximize its economic integration with East Asia but it is a vacuum on the people-to-people engagement needed to achieve this."

The white paper nominates Australia's core relationships, with the United States, Japan, China and Indonesia. The primacy of Australia's relationship with the United States is self-evident. The two countries are security partners in the Australia, New Zealand, U.S. (ANZUS) alliance.

Their security relationship was further upgraded after the election of the Howard government in 1996. According to Professor Paul Dibb, who heads the Strategic and Defense Studies Center at the Australian National University, "ANZUS has both a deterrent role, including an extended nuclear deterrent role, and it has tangible military and intelligence benefits that are a force multiplier for the Australian Defense Force in changing strategic balance."

As for Japan, it is vitally important both for economic and security reasons (Australia and Japan are the United States' closest security allies in the region).

China is both an opportunity (with Australia's expanding trade ties) and a potential threat to regional stability and security. Beijing was very upset when the Howard government decided to upgrade Australia's defense ties with the U.S. It regarded this, as well as similar moves to further strengthen U.S.-Japan security partnership, as part of a U.S.-led pincer movement to encircle and contain China.

Canberra has since taken corrective political measures to mollify Beijing. It has significantly muted its criticism of China's human rights and started high level dialogs and exchanges between their defense establishments.

But China remains wary and critical. Commenting on Australia's white paper, The People's Daily (as quoted in the Australian press) deprecated Australia's tendency to rely strongly on the United States.

In the process, it "not only exaggerates the importance of the U.S. military presence in the western Pacific, but it also supported enhanced defense cooperation between the U.S. and Japan."

This revealed "the two basic orbits of foreign policy of Australia: In economics and trade, it faces towards Asia, but in security, it relies on the U.S. and Japan."

The Chinese paper added: "This shows that although Australia has continuously expressed the idea of getting involved in Asia, it lacks confidence that the members of the region can solve their own security issues through dialog and consultation."

Indonesia, another core Asian country nominated in the white paper, is Australia's nearest northern neighbor. It has generally been regarded as a potential security threat. Now that the two countries are joined in a defense pact, this fear is not so pronounced. It hasn't disappeared though.

In any case, Indonesia simply doesn't have the military wherewithal to even contemplate such an adventure. And it will take Jakarta two decades to even put together any such force, if it were at all possible.

However, the white paper does worry about possible political instability in Indonesia, in the context of succession to Soeharto's long political reign. Which could affect its foreign and defense policies.

As for the region in general, Australia's assessment of its future economic growth is positive. The white paper does, however, acknowledge problems from worsening current account deficits, high debt levels, weak financial sectors (as dramatized by the recent currency crisis), uneven regional growth and so on.

All in all, Australia is right about identifying its future with Asia. But it is wrong about Howard's approach of selective association -- opting for economic integration while shunning comprehensive engagement.

Dr. Stephen Fitzgerald, a prominent expert on Asian affairs, said: "In Australia's case, the fundamental problem is that while we may have come to make the sentiment of belonging to the region, we have done too little to belong in human terms or to make the necessary intellectual adjustment ... and for as long as we continue in this mode we will always be outsiders, however much we may participate in the formal institutions of the region."

The situation has only worsened since the Howard government came to power. And the white paper on foreign policy doesn't come anywhere near addressing the important question of comprehensive engagement with Asia.

The writer is a free-lance journalist based in Sydney.