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ADDRESS BY DENNIS RICHARDSON
AUSTRALIAN AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES
AT THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
WASHINGTON DC
24 JANUARY 2006
Check against delivery
Thanks to Richard Bush and the Center for North East Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution for the invitation.
Brookings has a long and proud record of scholarship in East Asia.
Difficult not to be impressed by the sheer weight of foreign policy expertise within just a few blocks of the Australian Embassy.
We benefit greatly from it, and I’m here in part to give something back. I often say that one of the Embassy’s key functions is to be the Australian Government’s think-tank in Washington.
I want to say a few words about Australia and the region. Happy to take questions.
Australia
• Australia’s geography, history and national interests dictate that, while our most immediate interests and responsibilities will always be in our region - however that might be defined – we have global interests that require strong relationships with all centres of global power.
• As a people, Australians have always been outward-looking. A yearning for isolation has never been an element in our national psychology. Rather, a real fear of isolation has been strong in our psyche.
That we are outward-looking is hardly surprising when you consider:
- 23 per cent of Australians were born in another country (compared to the 12 per cent of Americans born overseas) and 40 per cent of Australians have one or both parents born overseas.
- 12 million Australian passports are on issue in a population of 20 million – indeed, about 1 million
Australians, or 5 per cent of our population, are overseas at any one time.
- As the world’s thirteenth largest economy, our economic interests are global.
- Taken as a single entity, the European Union is Australia’s largest trading partner.
- Our largest investment partner is the United States – you are the largest foreign investor in Australia, and we are the eighth largest foreign investor here in the United States.
- Our largest export markets and our fastest growing economic relationships are in East Asia.
Australia and East Asia
• For many years, Australia’s foreign policy has actively engaged in East Asia, as witnessed by our support for Indonesia’s independence in the 1940’s, despite the then views of US and UK governments, and our central role in the creation of the Colombo Plan (a sort of mini-Marshall Plan) in the early 1950’s.
• Whether it be the Cambodian Peace Process in the 1980’s, the formation of APEC in 1989, the response to the regional economic crisis in 1997-98, East Timor in 1999, or the response to the tsunami in 2004-05, Australia has been there, front and centre.
• But the nature of Australia’s engagement in East Asia has broadened considerably over the past thirty years.
- In 1974-75 not one country in East Asia outside of New Zealand was amongst Australia’s top ten source countries for new arrivals. But by 1984-85, Viet Nam, Hong Kong, Philippines, China, and Malaysia were so numbered. And the prominence of East Asian countries in immigration to Australia has continued.
- Today, East Asian countries constitute seven of the top twelve countries for tourism into Australia. The top five countries in 2004-05 were, in order – the UK, Japan, US, South Korea and China.
- East Asia is the overwhelming source of foreign students in Australia.
- And as an indicator of a rapidly expanding economic relationship, look at the top five source countries for short stay business visitors to Australia in 2004-05 – China (78,495), US (49,101), UK (27,183), Japan (19,847), India (18,018).
• If the nature of Australia’s interaction in East Asia has changed, so too has the region itself, both strategically and economically
- The end of the Cold War threw East Asia into greater relief as a region of strategic change. Interstate conflict in Europe is now difficult to conceive; not so in East Asia, in which are located two of the world’s most volatile flash-points – the Taiwan Strait and the Korean Peninsula. And one of the fronts in the war on terrorism resides in South East Asia.
- In terms of challenges posed by nation states and their interactions, America’s strategic fortunes in coming decades will be shaped more by developments in Asia and the Middle East than elsewhere. This is, I think, well understood here in Washington.
• Over the past fifteen years East Asia’s economic growth has averaged around 7 per cent a year. In 1960 East Asia made up around 11 per cent of global GDP. Today, it is around 21 per cent.
- As East Asian economies have become more important globally, they have also become more open. One of the great ironies being the beginnings of the opening by communist China of its economy before the economic reforms of democratic India.
• In a landmark address in April 2005, the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, said:
“Australia approaches our rapidly-changing region with clear assumptions and strategies – and a sense of optimism.
We recognize Australia’s diversity – taking account of how differences in power, institutions and aspirations shape regional politics.
We seek to engage most substantially with those countries with which our primary strategic and economic interests reside.
We believe that what matters most for our regional engagement is the substance of relations between countries, more so than any formal architecture of diplomatic exchange.
We recognize that advancing our security and prosperity in the region requires a balance of principle and pragmatism.
And we adopt a flexible approach to this task – one that combines bilateral, regional and multilateral instruments and that elevates results over process.”
• The balance of principle and pragmatism is evident in Australia’s approach to major regional issues and to its key bilateral relationships.
Regional Architecture
• As the region has become more confident, it has become more interested in finding its own paths to regional cooperation. There has been a proliferation of interest in East Asian regional architecture
• It is true that regional architecture in East Asia can appear somewhat messy, is still developing, and does not sit easily with those who aspire to neatness and order.
• But where we are today can only be properly appreciated within the framework of history. Fifty years ago the embryo of what is today’s European Union was stirring. In East Asia, China was led by Mao Tse Tung, the Korean War had not long ended, and the developing situation in Indo-China would lead to the Viet Nam War of the 60’s and 70’s.
• There was no indigenous regional architecture. That would not come until the late 60’s, with the formation of ASEAN. And ASEAN’s Regional Forum, which remains central in its own right, proved a key in addressing post-Viet Nam War issues, such as the outflow of refugees.
• As we all know, the first meeting of APEC Foreign Ministers’ took place in Canberra in late 1989, with a first Heads of Government Meeting in Seattle in 1993. 2005 saw the first meeting of the East Asia Summit. In addition to APEC and the EAS, there are ad hoc arrangements addressing specific issues, such as the Asia Pacific Partnership for Climate and Development, the core group which responded to the tsunami disaster, and most significantly, the Six Party Talks in which the US is central.
• It is difficult to believe that, somewhere down the track, there will not be further change to existing regional architecture.
• But the pace of change in regional architecture cannot be forced, nor can models be readily copied from other experiences in different regional and historical settings.
Australia and Japan
• Australia has no greater friend in Asia than Japan – our largest export market for almost forty years and a strategic partner for regional peace and prosperity.
• Australia signed its groundbreaking Commerce Agreement with Japan in 1957, the first such agreement signed by Japan post-War. It was controversial at the time, coming as it did just twelve years after the cessation of hostilities. But it proved far-sighted, opening up an extraordinary resources trade that fed Japan’s so-called “miracle economy”.
• With the end of the Cold War, Australia has actively encouraged Japan to play a greater security role regionally and globally. We have done so on the basis that Japan’s post-war outlook has been unambiguously peaceful and democratic, safely anchored in the US Alliance and a commitment to global multilateral institutions. We have welcomed and encouraged Japan’s important out-of-area security responsibilities in recent years, including in East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq. It is a welcome sign of a more confident Japan assuming its rightful place in the world and in our region.
• The Trilateral Strategic Dialogue between Japan, Australia and the US has added a new dimension still to the relationship.
• It is fashionable to talk about the rise of China, and stress the importance of the US-China relationship to the strategic future of the region. I agree. But, in saying that, we should not take for granted or ignore the significance of the US-Japan relationship, which is equally fundamental. Certainly, any negative shift in US-Japan relations – of which we see no sign – and which heightened Japanese strategic anxieties, would negatively affect the entire system of regional security in East Asia. A Japan with a developing sense of isolation is something we must avoid.
Australia and China
• China’s rise looms large in everyone’s thinking. In Australia, the public debate about China has a different tone to some aspects of the debate here in the United States. I suspect that one reason for this is that China’s rise has been factored in at a national psychological level in Australia over quite some time. Indeed, a major study commissioned by the Australian Government in the mid-late 80’s and headed by the eminent economist Ross Garnaut was entitled “Australia and the Northeast Asian Ascendancy”. The study was published in 1989, almost two decades ago.
• Australia welcomes China’s constructive approach to a range of security matters in recent years – from the war on terror to the Korean Peninsula. And in the context of our one China policy, we continue to urge a restrained and peaceful resolution of issues across the Taiwan Straits.
• Australia relations with China and the United States are of a different character. We are friends with both. We are allies with one.
• Paul Wolfowitz was once quoted as saying, of his transition from working on Middle East issues to East Asian issues, “I felt that I was going from a part of the world where people only know how to create problems to a part of the world where people solve problems”. That comments fits very well with our perception in Australia that East Asia is a region where leaders are interested in getting things done.
• We see China very much in those terms. Its leaders are pragmatic, have become less ideological over time, and are very clearly focused on internal issues. Those issues are very serious: corruption, financial solvency, resource imbalances, environmental and health challenges, and so on.
• It is legitimate and necessary to ask questions about, and to scrutinise closely, the reality and intent behind China’s military modernisation. As the Australian Government noted in its recently released National Security Update, “the pace and scale of China’s defence modernization may create the potential for misunderstandings, particularly with the development of new military capabilities that extend the strike capability and sustainability of its forces. It is important that the development of China’s military capability is transparent and that its capability decisions remain consistent with its legitimate security needs”.
• But of all the policy decisions that China’s leaders could make that could affect the wider region, its internal policy decisions rank very highly. How China manages its economy and politics matters greatly to others.
• The question for Australia is not whether China’s growth is innately good or bad. Australia made up its mind long ago that it was a good thing. China’s growth is unambiguously good for Asia and the United States. Think of the consequences for US interests if China’s growth were to fail.
• The question, rather, is to what extent China’s rise will change the system in which it rises. Can it play by the rules or will it change the rules?
• We in Australia want China to play by the rules, just as Australia, Japan, or others do, and we have every reason to believe that it will do so.
• I think Bob Zoellick’s approach to China gets the balance right. His approach does not seek to label China as a problem or otherwise, but is instead an invitation to a genuine two-way conversation with China.
• That conversation has to include some tough questions about China’s actions and intentions. But the important thing is that it is a dialogue.
Australia and Indonesia
• When we think of democracies in East Asia we think of Australia and Japan. We note the political transitions in a range of countries such as the Republic of Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. All too often there is an insufficient reference to Indonesia.
• No sensible discussion about East Asia can or should exclude Indonesia. Think of its significance: the world’s fourth most populous country, the world’s third largest democracy, and the world’s largest Muslim nation. By any measure, it is pivotal. Even more so in the context of the global dimensions of terrorism and democracy, and the challenges terrorism poses not only to our own societies, but to those in countries such as Indonesia. For Australia, for the region and, I would argue the US, Indonesia is critical.
• We welcome Indonesia’s direction in recent years, especially under President Yudhoyono. We also welcome the significantly increased US engagement with Indonesia over the past twelve months. We believe, for instance, it was a proper recognition of real change when the United States recently restored military-to-military ties with Indonesia.
The United States
• Active United States involvement in East Asia is central to the region’s peace and prosperity. All countries in the region benefit enormously from the security and trade which the United States brings to
the table.
• Unlike Europe, East Asia is still subject to profound and enduring great power competition. Without the United States’ strategic involvement in East Asia issues involving China and Japan could take on a different dimension.
• Without the United States ensuring maritime security in the Western Pacific – critical for the thirsty giants of North East Asia – would be very difficult.
• Without the United States North Korea’s nuclear activities could lead to a cycle of proliferation throughout the region, possibly destroying any chance of a harmonious region this century.
• For what it’s worth, from where I sit, the United States takes a far more sophisticated diplomatic approach in East Asia than is often assumed. Too often, commentators feed off the fire and brimstone from particular places rather than the measured and thoughtful approaches by the Administration itself. China is not eating the United States lunch in East Asia and it would be a mistake to allow that emotion to drive policy.