Since the late 1990s, Australian governments have been considering how to make their neighbourhood, the Indo-Pacific, a stable and peaceful region. Australia has articulated the need for a balance of power, between a rising China on the one hand and the liberal democracies of the region on the other.
Australia has been particularly concerned about the risk of the Indo-Pacific being dominated by China – it could impose a kind of Asian Monroe doctrine on the region. In this environment, China would not only be able to subjugate Hong Kong, assert its sovereignty over the whole of the South China Sea, and incorporate Taiwan into the People’s Republic of China. But beyond that, countries of the region would be required – to use an ancient Chinese concept – to pay tribute to China, and China would decide the terms of engagement between the nations of the region.
To try and contain China, in the last couple decades, Australia has worked to consolidate relations between the United States and western allies in the region. Originally, ‘the Quad’ emerged from the trilateral ‘strategic dialogue’ between Australia, Japan and the United States which was designed to draw Australia and Japan as allies of the United States closer together, and to begin to coordinate their foreign policies. At Japan’s insistence, India was brought in.
The Chinese leadership have come to realise their wolf warrior diplomacy is damaging to China’s own interests.
Japan’s former ambassador to Australia, Yamagami Shingo, said last week that the Quad is ‘languishing’. He wrote in a piece for the Australian: ‘International attention and resources have been redirected away from the Indo-Pacific, towards the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Moreover, all four members of the Quad have become preoccupied with domestic politics.’
For the Australian vision of a power balance in the Indo-Pacific region to work, the United States has to be constantly and heavily engaged. In the mid 2000s, the Australian government invited the United States to use defence facilities in northern Australia for its marines. This proposal was consolidated a few years later by President Obama. More recently, Australia promoted what has become known as the Aukus agreement which also includes the United Kingdom. This is not just about building nuclear submarines. This agreement involves collaboration between the three partners in advanced defence technology such as cyber technologies, AI, hypersonic missiles and so on.
This enthusiasm for building the architecture to consolidate the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific all sounds very good. The real question, though, as Shingo alludes, is whether any current government has the will or the staying power to make these this architecture work. All of the Quad governments have their preoccupations and understandably, given they are democracies, their leaders have to focus every few years on elections. No one can blame them for that. This is the job of ambassadors.
The danger is that countries of the Quad will succumb to political opportunism and veer away from their core commitment to balancing power in the Pacific. The Biden administration has, for example, shown a distinct lack of staying power on a number of occasions. Remember the disgraceful and damaging withdrawal from Afghanistan? Most recently, in the face of the vagaries of public opinion, the Americans have started to waiver in its support for Israel.
The same is happening in Australia. The current Australian government is one which takes positions on the basis of its assessment of the political climate. It follows media trends and polls rather than explaining to the public the necessity sometimes to take positions which are not very popular. In the teeth of opposition from the anti-Semitic left, the Australian government has started to waiver in its support for Israel.
This Australian government has understandably seen the need to stabilise its relationship with China. Under the previous administration, Australia stood up valiantly and courageously to the coercion of the Communist party in Beijing. It did not waiver, despite China imposing a series of relatively painful economic sanctions on Australian exports. This has been one of the contributory factors to the change in Beijing diplomatic tactics. The Chinese leadership have come to realise their wolf warrior diplomacy is damaging to China’s own interests. They have realised they need to find a way of establishing a better way to work with liberal democracies like Australia.
Correctly, the Australian government has been prepared to engage with a more emollient China. To her credit, the Australian Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, has made it clear face-to-face and publicly with the Chinese foreign minister that Australia maintains the view that the South China Sea is an international waterway, that Hong Kong is supposed to be autonomous, that Australia expects China to adhere to international norms of human rights and that any assault on Taiwan would be catastrophic for China. The Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, unfortunately has not been so robust with the Chinese leadership. He has fallen for the temptation of telling the Chinese what they want to hear.
The former Japanese ambassador, Shingo, has every right to be concerned about the staying power of the Quad and the key, pro-American governments in the Indo-Pacific. Western countries aren’t very resilient. Will the West continue to support Ukraine? It’s astonishing that so many western governments including, critically, the US government (but also the British and Australians) have wavered in their support of Israel as it looks to dismantle a terror group. If there is a genuine security breakdown in the Indo-Pacific, such as a blockade by China of Taiwan, how determined will the Americans, the Australians and the Japanese governments be to break that blockade and restore order?
This should not be a question that we need to ask. Decisive leadership in the United States particularly, but also in Japan, Australia and India should be such that anybody in Beijing who was thinking of straying into foreign policy adventurism would realise it was never worthwhile. But with weak western leadership, the likes of Xi Jinping might just think it’s worth giving it a try.
Comments