27-May-2008
Articles, Foreign Affairs
For all the talk of Kevin Rudd’s foreign affairs experience, after six months in government all the talk in our region is about his obsession with China at the expense of all other important relationships in North, East and Southeast Asia, says Andrew Robb.
Outside of China, the main actions so far appear designed to “trail our coat” with old friends and strategic allies alike.
In six months, Rudd has failed to pick up the phone to the Prime Minister of Japan to explain Australia’s gunboat diplomacy against Japanese whalers.
He also snubbed Japan and every other Asian country except China in his 17-day world tour.
He has taken the axe to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, slashing more than $100 million from its budget despite already committing Australia to an increased role in climate change, the UN, Asia and the Pacific, and Afghanistan.
Yet he has downgraded negotiations of a free trade agreement with China and Japan; effectively told India we don’t trust it with our uranium by reneging on the agreement of the former Coalition government to supply that country with uranium for power generation, seriously reducing its capacity to combat climate change; and abandoned Australia’s commitment to the quadrilateral dialogue with India, the US and Japan, raising concerns with India and Japan about the Rudd Government’s China bias.
The Prime Minister’s longstanding relationship with China, and his Mandarin-speaking abilities, should be a great advantage to Australia.
However, to fully capitalise on these attributes, he needs to almost overcompensate in the region so that fears of a China bias don’t sour many other critical relationships.
To date, the opposite has been the case. India and Japan have been offended. Indonesia has been overlooked. Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore and others rate no mention.
In March, Indonesian Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono publicly expressed concern that the Rudd Government might be putting too much stock in its relationship with China to the detriment of links with near neighbours.
As our strongest friend in Asia, and our largest export market by a country mile, the only question Japan wanted answered after Rudd’s election was: would he visit Tokyo before Beijing?
For Rudd to then spend four days in China on a 17-day world tour and not find one hour to visit Japan caused a great loss of face in Japan. It was an act of diplomatic stupidity or perversity. No doubt this action will serve to undermine Japan’s sense of confidence in its position and in its relationship with Australia.
Japan also lost face when Foreign Minister Stephen Smith made his offensive remarks on the abandonment of the quadrilateral talks while in a press conference with China Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.
The quadrilateral dialogue of democracies was clearly abandoned to appease China. This is disturbing. China is of great importance to Australia, but we must not be in a position of tugging the forelock to any country.
Further concerns have been raised in Japan, India and Southeast Asian countries over the lack of meaningful consultations between these countries and Australia over Rudd’s preference to institutionalise and expand the six-party talks (which were originally established to discuss North Korea) to include Australia but not India or Indonesia.
The Rudd Government’s decision to reverse the former government’s agreement to supply India with uranium for clean power generation is also a serious snub and reduces that country’s capacity to combat climate change.
Nuclear power generation would be a safe, sustainable and non-polluting source of energy for India. Clean nuclear power has the potential to meet 35 per cent of India’s expanded energy needs by 2050. It makes absolutely no sense to sell uranium to China and Russia but not to India. Indian government officials have said they are angered by the Rudd Government’s “pathetic hypocrisy on this issue”.
This issue alone can make Australia a strategically important partner to India, the world’s largest democracy and an emerging regional powerhouse.
Access to uranium is the thing India really wants from us. It is a big issue.
It is expected that Smith will engage in frantic visits to Australia’s neighbours in the north and east during the next few months. The situation never should have got to the extent where such desperate action was required.
To date, Rudd has offended or ignored most Asian countries and failed to present a coherent policy towards Asia, other than for China.
The Howard government demonstrated that Australia could simultaneously deepen and broaden all of these relationships. The Rudd Government has a regional repair job to do, and fast.