Aussies 'outsiders' despite new foreign policy?

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.