The prime minister has had a couple of compulsory excursions but a visit to Washington is timely and should do much to develop the ‘feel’ for Australia’s relationship with this great and powerful friend. The fact that Kim Beazley is our ambassador in Washington is a significant plus in this regard.
The Prime Minister will be encouraged to focus on the common interests that are high on Obama’s priority list for the remainder of his first term.
This probably means that climate change, carbon taxes and emission trading schemes will not be a major theme of the discussions. The same goes for the delays on the delivery of our new J-35 fighters: not even a President can work that sort of miracle. Nor does Obama have much scope to intensify his nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament agenda: the make-up of the new Congress and the bruising ratification process experienced by the innocuous New START agreement has seen to that.
China, on the other hand, will be a major theme on several fronts. Obama’s top priority is to get the US economy firing again and to reduce unemployment. A second term depends more on this than anything else. China plays into this issue primarily via the yuan/dollar exchange rate but there are also issues like Chinese trade practices (especially protection of intellectual property rights). Australia is doing very nicely because of strong Chinese demand for raw materials, but there will be sufficient common ground on fundamentals to sustain a productive exchange.
As American recovery from the economic crisis inches forward, keeping the world economy open is a major priority. Australia will sensibly press for progress on trade liberalisation through early completion of the Doha Round of trade negotiations and try to maintain momentum on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) for regional trade liberalisation, although hope for any major breakthrough this year on TPP may be fading.
Another broad issue with a major China angle will be US engagement with East Asia and the stresses accumulating within the arrangements that the US has maintained for over 50 years. Last year was particularly eventful with missteps and over-reach on the part of China (especially over the South China Sea and the DPRK) contrasting with firm, measured and pro-active actions by the US. But, like a single over in a test match, a good score card for 2010 is a tactical gain, not a basis on which to forecast the outcome of the game. This is a vitally important agenda for Australia. We need to be as thoroughly acquainted with the US strategy toward East Asia as we can possibly get. And we need to equip ourselves, starting with the prime minister, to take every opportunity to be as influential as possible in shaping that strategy.
Apart from the perennial issue of the DPRK — or the DPRK/China to be more realistic — a particular issue that is ripe for a conversation between the leaders is the East Asia Summit. Some deft and courageous diplomacy on the part of several states, including Australia, has delivered a leaders forum that includes all of East Asia plus India, Russia and the US. It would be in Australia’s interests for the EAS to evolve into the region’s pre-eminent multilateral forum. An EAS that all the major players endow with the authority to tackle the bigger issues clouding the region’s future can by no means be taken for granted and devising a strategy to encourage such an outcome would be time well spent.
Afghanistan will be an important and inescapable topic. The US has set itself up for another major assessment and policy recalibration by July of this year that is likely to have major consequences for Australian policy settings. The political ferment in the Arab world and its potential implications for key interests which we share with the US — for example, the price of oil, the virulence of international terrorism, Iran’s external posture, and perhaps even the fearful tangle we are dealing with in Afghanistan/Pakistan — is a further topic that will inevitably be on the agenda.
Even tailoring our agenda to capture Obama’s priorities provides a rich and consequential set of issues. We can reasonably expect, that the Gillard-Obama meeting on 7 March will be both successful and yield a mutual interest in having more such meetings.
Ron Huisken is a senior fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, at the Australian National University in Canberra.
In my opinion, Ron Huisken’s arguments are detrimental to international security in Asia Pacific region. There is a clear objective at the core of Ron Huisken’s writing: to contain China. He does this in three main arguments. First, he creates a context of “all against one” by painting a negative image of China’s action in the South China Sea and accused China of supporting North Korea ‘s action. The China-U.S. Summit was able to clear China as the responsible behind North Korea’s behavior and why at this specific time.
Second, he intends to deny China of the sea line of communication in the South China Sea. Unlike the Atlantic Theatre, the Pacific theatre requires a strong China capability to keep the region in balance. Especially, in the current post-Cold war strategic landscape where conflicts occur across the globe, the U.S. needs a strong Pacific region allies to maintain the pacific region stability.
Lastly, Ron Huisken wants to bind China’s hand to multilateral institution in the area of China’s national security, core interests, and sphere of influence. As witnessed in the case of Iraq, it’s not the multilateral institution, but the Hegemon who called the shot when it involves core interests in the intrinsic region.
In conclusion, similar to the burgeoning anti-China scholars, Ron Huisken writes with neither theoretical nor empirical evidences to back up his assertion other than his bias. Lacking of theoretical framework of analysis, he can only provide descriptive of the events that there are rains in the Middle East, South Asia, Northeast Asia, but fail to explain why it rains. The complexity of world politics in the Asia Pacific region demands coordinated cooperation between major powers. The coordination requires solid theoretical analysis, rigorous methodology, present-day intelligence, and communication.
It’s time that China and the U.S., together, rise to their leadership responsibilities.
I’m delighted that my piece attracted such a thoughtful response. I cannot deny the absence of theoretical and/or empirical evidence for the points I choose to make. Nor would I be silly enough to claim absolute objectivity even if I had the space to support my contentions. That said, Ms Wong’s comments suggest that we might not be as far apart as she believes. Specifically, the apparent assertion in the second paragraph that China should inherit the task of maintaining order and stability in the Pacific theatre (and be granted its wishes in the South China Sea to assist it in performing this function) so that the US is free to deal with conflicts in the rest of the world. There is no shortage of analysts who argue that this is indeed China’s strategic ambition although China’s leaders strenuously denied it. But this is geostrategic business of the first order. It affects the fundamental interests of every state in the region but, so far, we lack an authoritative multilateral forum to
consider such matters and at least take the edge off the alternative of a raw test of strength between the US and China.