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The Future Summit 2004, Australian Davos Connection, was held in Sydney 6-8 May 2004. It provided a forum for Australia's new generation of leaders in the business, political, academic, cultural, civic and social domains to come together – in concert with a number of the nation's most established leaders and experts in many fields – to discuss the key issues, challenges and trends that are expected to have the greatest impact on the shaping of our future during the next decade.

 

Introduction to the Task Force Report on

Positioning Australia in the region and on the global map

 

Presentation by Professor Tony Milner
Dean of Asian Studies, Australian National University
Task Force Chair

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   Introduction to the Task Force Report  |   Task Force Report  | Members of the Task Force  

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The Task Force – which was a talented, experienced team – took a hard-headed approach to the positioning of Australia. The Task Force recognized Australia’s global horizons but, in the end, most members took the view that it is engagement with our region that defines Australia internationally.

There are signs right now – signs that have not been noticed by many Australians – that we are moving into a new phase of engagement activism. But whether or not this turns out to be the case, the Task Force discussion tends to support the view that we need to approach engagement today in a more strategic, more savvy way than we approached it a decade and more ago – I will return to the issue of acknowledging the priority of regional relations, and of how we might formulate engagement. As you can see, this is the issue that stands at the top of our policy direction list. (Policy Direction 1 was written up as ‘Engaging our complex region defines us’)

Our Task Force paper, as you will have noted, considers Australia’s positioning in the broad global context. But the policy options – the broad policy directions that are listed up here now – all focus on aspects of our regional engagement.

If you look through the Task Force paper, you will see that we followed the steps requested by the conference organisers. We began with the ‘Knowledge Background’ – presenting data on Australia’s global context (global in our trade and investment, global in our security concerns and so forth); data too on our regional relations (here you may be surprised by the amount of real substance in our current relations in the region); we also have data on the real distance between Australia and many Asian countries in terms of identity. It is a cultural distance that involves far more than who is in power at one time or another in the countries concerned.

Our ‘Knowledge Background’ highlights the United States Alliance, the rise of China, and the impact of globalization and democratization on international relations - in particular, the way international relations are no longer the preserve of elites but are influenced by non-government interaction, and accountable to demanding electorates.

The paper then lists the debates taking place today with respect to Australia’s international position: the issue of balance in relations with the United States on the one hand, and Asia on the other; issues over defence priorities, including the campaign against terrorism; the different points of view regarding whether we stress bilateral or multilateral relationships and what importance we give to intervening in weak and failing states in the Pacific.

In the next section of the Task Force paper we go on to list obstacles that influence Australia’s regional effectiveness – obstacles that, in one way or another, are taken account of in the final section of the paper: that is, the section on ‘policy options/directions’.

In considering the first option on the board here – the priority of regional engagement – the Task Force was in no doubt that Australia had global interests, global horizons. We can by no means have a region-only approach to foreign relations. In particular, members of the Task Force recognise the enormous value of, and wide spread support for, the United States Alliance. We acknowledge the critical importance of the US to the stability of the broad Asian region. But it is Australia’s regional relations, we tended to conclude, that define us. That is how Australia’s positioning is understood on the other side of the world. Ask any European ambassador in Canberra what makes Australia special! It is, as well, our regional capacities – our experience, our knowledge, our effectiveness with respect to the Asian region – that are key assets we bring to the US Alliance. Ask an Australian Foreign Minister when his words are listened to carefully in Washington! He is likely to be talking about the part of the world closest to Australia.

The stress on Australia’s regional priority is the overriding policy direction put forth in our paper – the first and last answer to the Summit’s question about the position of Australia.

With this in mind, let me stand back for a moment and place this priority in a broad, historical context. I am an historian, after all, and there are lessons we should take note of as we prepare to enter what looks to be a new phase of regional engagement.

The stress on the regional priority is nothing new, and it is not the monopoly of one side of Australian politics. A century ago Liberal Prime Minister Alfred Deakin warned Australians that they had “made their homes neither in Europe nor America”. Our fortunes, he said, would be linked to the Asian region “in the closest manner, in trade and in strife”.

A survey of the last century would provide much evidence of our regional preoccupation – an anxious preoccupation in many instances – and, just as one would expect, when an economic boom spread across the region in the 1980s and 1990s, Australian engagement became enormously positive, optimistic and vigorous.

We tended to make certain assumptions then, however, that we should be wary of today. We assumed cultures would change almost as fast as economies. We talked of value and institutional convergence, along with economic globalization: we saw democracy, multiculturalism and the English language spreading everywhere. Some spoke of the end of history – that is, they predicted the complete triumph of Western Liberal institutions and values. The world, it seemed, was becoming more and more like us, or at least like the United States. In these circumstances, engagement with Asia seemed to be relatively easy. We had high hopes, for instance, that the inclusive regionalism of APEC – a regionalism that would include Australia and the United States as well as Asian states – would triumph.

As it turned out, and as this audience will know well, the progress of the Asian region was by no means so predictable as we assumed, by no means so problem free, by no means so history free. The 1997/8 Economic Crisis was devastating for many of the so-called ‘miracle economies’ of Asia, and, in the following months and years there was unmistakable evidence of the continued potency of historical forces – historical forces that promote separatist movements, rivalry and suspicion between different states, trans-border terrorism, and Asia-only regionalism. The last, of course, includes the ASEAN + 3 process, that seeks to bring together different countries of Southeast Asia with China, Japan and Korea, but which does not welcome Australia.

I say that the problems of the region became obvious to anyone in the late 1990s. But it is quite wrong to think our optimistic, convergence assumptions were appropriate even before the Economic Crisis. In fact, if you look back closely at the 1990s and 1980s - to that optimistic period – then you see that history never really had come to an end. The ethnic, religious, separatist and other forces were at work and Dr Mahathir was not the only person in the region who was suspicious of Australia. He was not the only person who considered we were in terms of identity obvious outsiders. Even in this optimistic period there were Asia-only regional events in which we were not welcome. But in our enthusiasm for the miracle economies and our hopes for the coming convergence of values and cultures, we paid too little attention to the obstacles likely to affect Asian engagement. We were therefore not prepared for the Economic Crisis, for the brutality accompanying East Timor’s independence, the outbreak of trans-regional terrorism and the strengthening of the Asia-only regionalism.

Another area which we neglected in the optimistic engagement of the 1980s and early 1990s was our own Australian domestic community. If you looked closely there were polls taken, and group interviews, that indicated a developing anxiety in Australia about the rapidity of change, including confusion about what was meant by Asian engagement. In retrospect, we can see that in these years our leaders should have taken far more trouble to explain what effective relations with our region might involve – to explain and to reassure. Their failure to do so helped to promote Hansonism.

We need to think carefully about these lessons of the past because at the present time, as we take stock of Australia’s international positioning, there are signs that we are in the throes of a new high-momentum phase of regional engagement. Whether or not this is the case, we will need to keep in mind the lessons of the past in the way we position ourselves.

This new phase of engagement activism has not been heralded. For many here I think it may seem as if the new engagement activism has almost crept up behind us. Many will be surprised at the scale of our educational training in the region, the size of our trade, the amount of security cooperation going on – details listed on the first page of our report. The Chinese President’s visit here last year did get quite a lot of media coverage, as did our great gas contract with that country. The important bilateral trade agreements with Singapore and Thailand got much less notice, and there has been very little attention (as Paul Kelly has complained) to the apparent turnabout in ASEAN regarding a possible regional trade agreement with Australia. This current engagement activism, as Warwick Smith, or Howard Dick, or Andrew McIntyre are likely to explain, is multi-layered. It goes well beyond government-to-government relations. It is a further reminder of how far so-called international relations involve inter-society interactions in business, professional areas, education, tourism and so forth.

The actual substance of our regional relations, therefore, adds to the imperatives that lead the Task Force to place so high a premium on regional relations in positioning Australia.

As the second policy option listed here suggests – the statement that ‘Defence planning must support regional priorities’ – the actual substance of our security involvement in the region, and what the United States and others around the world see as our security responsibilities in the region, has its own specific set of implications. I think Hugh White, Ellie Wainwright or Ross Cottrill will address these – but we certainly reflected on just what was going to be involved in defence planning, and police and intelligence resources, if Australia is going to continue to be faced by the need to take initiatives in the Pacific (for example, in PNG). These needs, as even a non-specialist like me can see, will be quite different from those involved in US Alliance expeditions.

The third policy position up here – ‘Profile a Realistic Asian Engagement for a New Era’ – really confronts the issue of heralding Asian engagement. Whether or not we are entering a new phase of activism, the Task Force felt there is an urgent need now to profile Asian engagement.

This profiling, a number of us felt, was necessary for both international and domestic audiences. It also provides the opportunity to formulate a new, more politically strategic, more savvy approach to engagement; a different approach from that which I have suggested was influential a decade and more ago.

One of the reasons we require a greater profiling we thought, was that there has for too long been a gap between fact and rhetoric. Despite the real substance of our Asian interaction, we have given the impression of being preoccupied with the United States. For the regional community, and for our own domestic constituency, it is time to spell out more systematically a view that priorities regional engagement, while factoring in the vital United States relationship, conveying how a first-rate rather than a second-rate American Alliance can actually assist the priority we give to regional effectiveness. Our Prime Minister might well wish to present a formulation of engagement that conveys the image of a now more confident Australia, with much to give as well as gain – seeking partnerships and reciprocalities. He may favor a formulation that presents Australia’s uniqueness in the region – in particular our powerful heritage of European Liberal values – as an asset to Asian engagement. Just how to formulate our engagement, of course, will be a matter of political debate. But to profile it more strongly in some way or another is certainly necessary at present – when we continue to be involved in an unpopular war in Iraq – in order to correct some strong, false impressions which are influential in parts of this region.

With respect to the need to profile engagement for domestic purposes, especially if we are entering a new phase of activism, we should remember the lesson of the 1980s and early 1990s, when government did not give sufficient attention to explaining and reassuring.

The new profiling of engagement should in particular be frank about the difficulties we face in this complex region; it should be frank about Australia’s limited capacity to solve regional problems – to deal, for instance, with a possible crisis in West Papua.

In thinking about the leadership required here, I recall when Indonesian President Wahid made a state visit to Australia, both our Prime Minister and Opposition leader spoke effectively to the Australian public. The Prime Minister, for instance, reminded his “fellow Australians” of the “scale and size of our northern neighbour” and of the “fundamental value of the relationship to Australia”. He explained that Indonesia’s transition to democracy is “one of the most momentous changes in the post-Cold War period”. We may need to encourage Australians to be patient again over the next few months, especially if General Wiranto’s fortunes continue to rise.

When the Task Force talked about profiling Asian engagement for the domestic community, however, I should say that we were not merely talking about ensuring a sober, realistic Australian electorate. We also saw the opportunity to present regional engagement in a way that might serve to unite Australian’s, especially young Australian’s, around a national purpose. Our Task Force report suggests some ways in which this national purpose might be invoked. Jenny McGregor, for instance, might expand upon just how critical it is that Asia knowledge be embedded throughout our education system – embedded in the sense of making clear that Asia-awareness is part of being an Australian citizen.

The fourth option spelt out in our Task Force paper is concerned with identifying effective pathways into this complex region. The tone of our discussion here too was hard-headed. We recognized again that Asian relations are often going to be tougher than the optimists of the 80s and 90s envisaged. In particular, we acknowledge the ongoing difficulty presented by Asia-only regionalism – by the difficulty of gaining acceptance into ASEAN + 3 and other regional processes. We noted that both Labor and Coalition governments have faced frustration in seeking to participate in such Asia-only regionalism, and our Task Force attempted an audit of the different strategies which do assist us to work our way into the region.

We saw the advantages of the months and months of work that have led to bilateral trade-agreements with Singapore and Thailand. Members of the Task Force insisted that multilateral advances are always more beneficial than bilateral ones, but I think we all agreed that the bilateral negotiations at least acknowledge the complexity of the region, and offer the opportunity of a step-by-step, society-by-society process of gaining momentum for multilateralism. There is talk at present of a possible free trade agreement to add to the Singapore and Thai ones. The recent encouragement form ASEAN also suggests the bilateral strategy may slowly be achieving results.

The Task Force also identified the role of Track II initiatives, and all types of private sector activities, in gaining entry into the business and the conversation of the region. The conversation is important in Asia, just as it is known to have been important in the creation of modern Europe as a region. Australia needs to take every opportunity to build up networking; to hear as well as to express views; to learn about the problems, aspirations and style of interaction among Asian societies. Our participation in APEC and the ASEAN Regional Forum offer opportunities here; but we also gain much from already being active in the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, the different leadership dialogues, the Myer and St James Ethics-led processes and so forth. These Track II initiatives offer real possibilities for participating in the shaping of our region.

Another pathway on which our Task Force focused was the strategy of cooperating to advance regional ‘public goods’. Peter Hartcher was eloquent on this issue – it is a matter of assessing just what Australia has to offer. As our paper suggests, we have great assets in medicine, scientific research, sports and so forth. Our defence, intelligence and police capacities have also proven to be assets in working for public goods. In fact the campaign against terrorism, for all its danger and serious purpose, has offered real opportunities for deepening engagement. Our police, as is widely acknowledged, worked so effectively with their Indonesian counterparts after the Bali bombing, that they have been critical in the rebuilding of Indonesian-Australian relations.

When the Task Force turned next to Australia’s ‘soft-power’ capacity – to our cultural and economic influence, our image, our brand – we came back again to the issue of how we are defined and perceived. To assess our soft-power requirements we need to have a good, hard look at how Australia is perceived in the region. We need to be aware of the baggage we bring with memories of the White Australia policy, and perhaps with our insistence on keeping a Head of State who is based on the other side of the world. We need to recognize that like Japan, for instance, we have public relations problems.

Our report points to the various practical ways in which we might work on our image problem. Dick Woolcott yesterday mentioned the desire to see an Australia Council modeled to some extent on the British Council. On the Task Force we also discussed the way that, despite our great export success in the education business, we still need to attract the elite of the region to Australia.

Despite the name, soft-power is concerned with hard realities. In some ways investment in soft-power is as vital to our security (as well as our economic prospects) as the investment most of us now accept is necessary for our intelligence, policing and defence capability.

The final policy direction discussed in the Task Force – the need to gauge regional dynamics – looks obvious enough. But we wanted to underline in particular three points.

First, we stress that the region is dynamic – that not only China but India is growing rapidly in importance; and (against many predictions) Japan’s economy is also reviving and its military power remains enormous in regional terms. How ASEAN responds to great economic and strategic shifts will also be critical.

Secondly, Australia will have a particular perspective on these developments. We have our own interests, own opportunities. What the so-called rise of China means for Australia, for example, may not be the same as what it means for the United States. The point is again obvious enough, that it leads to the third observation: that Australia cannot depend on international expertise on individual Asian states. We need our own detailed knowledge not merely of broad regional issues, but of the drivers operating in each specific Asian society. Especially in the week when our Prime Minister has been talking about his government’s decision to bring about a major expansion in our intelligence capabilities, the point should be hammered home that Australia needs to be armed to the teeth with Asian expertise.

Detailed regional knowledge, and, as I have said, a degree of hard-headed self awareness, ought to be key ingredients in a new formulation of Asian engagement – a formulation that recognizes the complexities and the difficulty of the region, a savvy regional engagement.

To end where I began, we need a reformulation of regional engagement designed for a new phase of activism. The formulation should invoke what might be considered a less naïve approach, but it must certainly continue to recognize that engagement with the Asian region will always define Australia as a nation.

 

 

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