Canberra, KL and much ado about ASEM

Canberra, KL and much ado about ASEM

Exclusion from ASEM will disadvantage Australian diplomacy in
the Asia-Pacific, says Milton Osborne.

SINGAPORE: Malaysia's decision to exclude Australia from the
next Asia-Europe summit (ASEM), due to be held in London in 1998,
has evoked a range of reactions in Australia. While the Foreign
Minister, Alexander Downer, has suggested the issue is not of
great importance, other commentators have argued the matter is
one for real concern.

Professor Stephen FitzGerald, the Director of the University
of New South Wales' Asia-Australia Institute and a former
Australian Ambassador to China, has spoken publicly of the
Malaysian decision as a serious political act. A similar point of
view has been expressed by Greg Sheridan, The Australian
newspaper's respected foreign editor, who has written of the
rebuff as being "part of a trend of Australia being excluded from
new East Asian regional groupings".

The government's desire to minimize the significance of
continuing exclusion from ASEM is understandable, not least in
terms of Australia's recent failure to get elected to the United
Nations Security Council despite widespread expectations that
this goal would be achieved. After a period of difficulty in
relations with China and the fall-out associated with Pauline
Hanson's anti-Asian remarks, the last thing the Howard government
wants to emphasize is a further difficulty on the diplomatic
front.

This concern also explains the readiness with which government
"sources have been eager to publicize the fact that Australia was
not without friends at the Singapore ASEM meeting in February.

In particular, attention has been drawn to the role played by
Japan during the summit, and to the fact that a further six of
the Asian participants at the meeting were in favor of
Australia's admission to the group.

Additionally, Australian officials insist, those countries
that did not favor admitting Australia to ASEM at this stage,
China and Brunei, in addition to Malaysia, were not speaking
against Australia so much as against enlarging the number of non-
European participants. But the fact remains that the key Asian
vote against Australia's membership came from Malaysia and this
raises a number of questions, not all of which can be easily
answered.

First, is the question of whether Dr. Mahathir Mohamad's
rejection of Australia's strongly expressed desire to join the
ASEM process should be viewed in essentially personal terms? Is
it credible to suggest that Dr. Mahathir's current policies are
dictated by memories of past Australian ham-fistedness and
thoughtless comment?

Could it be that the Malaysian Prime Minister still harbors
resentment at the sudden withdrawal of an invitation to visit
Australia in the early 1970s and former Prime Minister Keating's
characterization of Dr. Mahathir as "recalcitrant in 1993?
Without being privy to his innermost thoughts, it is nonetheless
difficult to believe these concerns determined Dr. Mahathir's
thinking.

After all, and following the meeting, brief though it was,
between Prime Minister Howard and the Malaysian leader last year,
it appeared there was a real improvement in relations between the
two countries after what had been, without doubt, a period of
distinct coolness. It is now clear that approval for Australia's
participation in ASEM has not been part of that improvement.

A more convincing explanation for what has happened, and for
Australia a more worrying one, is that Dr. Mahathir remains
unconvinced of Australia's claim to be an integral part of the
Asian region, even if it is not, by any reasonable set of
criteria, an Asian nation itself.

The Hanson affair and allegations of racist behavior against
Malaysian students in Australia are likely to have confirmed his
judgment.

Australia's promotion of APEC, particularly by Paul Keating,
was clearly seen as a challenge to Dr. Mahathir's concept of an
East Asia Economic Caucus. More damaging for Australia, Keating
openly expressed his doubts about ASEM's importance, a view, it
should be said, his Foreign Minister, Gareth Evans, did not
share.

More recently, the Howard government's commitment to enhancing
ties with the United States, appears to have reinforced Malaysian
doubts as to where Australia places its interests. While
Malaysia's relations with Washington have improved in recent
times, there remain doubts in Kuala Lumpur about the extent to
which the U.S. is sufficiently alert to the interests of Asian
nations, not least in relation to human rights issues.

In short, and quite apart from personality politics, there are
enough basic policy differences between Australia and Malaysia to
explain what happened in Singapore, so raising the most vital
question of all. Is Malaysia likely to change its position in the
future?

Prediction is always risky, but it is clear there will have to
be a substantial change in Malaysian attitudes for Australia to
be admitted to ASEM. For the moment, all that can be said with
certainty is that the Howard government has a difficult task
ahead of it and one which, if it does not succeed, will leave
Australia seriously disadvantaged in the region it sees as vital
to its future and within which ASEM seems set to be an
increasingly important forum.

Dr. Milton Osborne is a freelance writer and consultant on
Asian issues based in Sydney and a former senior Australia
intelligence analyst.