Security for Australia in the ‘Asia Pacific Century’ - part II

For example, a switch, early in 2010, in Australia’s habits of voting and speaking about the Israel-Palestine conflict, while measured in infinitesimal gradations, represents a welcome shift in this context. Canberra went from a “no” to an “abstain” in General Assembly votes on the Goldstone Report into war crimes allegations arising from Israel’s attack on Gaza. Also, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith criticised the Israelis over plans for new building in illegal settlements on Palestinian land.

China condemned Israel’s attack on Gaza but kept quiet over Sri Lanka; the US, where these crises happened either side of a change in the White House, played it the opposite way round. At the time, Australia was, by my reckoning, the only democracy that condemned neither (many others having been “covered” in statements put out on their behalf by such organisations as the EU, AU and OAS). If concern for human protection and human rights could be convincingly reasserted as the property of no single group of UN member states and simultaneously the responsibility of all, then the prospect of rebuilding such a consensus would gather strength.

But such a consensus depends on ending double standards and “exceptionalism”, and Australia could clearly signal that this is our intention and our interpretation of the mandate implicit in provisions for protecting non-combatants and their human rights such as the Responsibility to Protect. Hesham Youssef, Chief of the Cabinet to the Secretary General of the Arab League, made it clear during a recent visit that Canberra would get no Arab support for a Security Council seat while it is seen as an extension of Washington, especially on Palestinian issues.

Climate change policy presents another example of the urgency of our positive engagement with China. China was reported to have been instrumental in confining the Copenhagen climate summit to such a puny outcome. An eyewitness to the talks, Mark Lynas, told the London Guardian: “China, backed at times by India, then proceeded to take out all the numbers that mattered”. Beijing saw a “rich-country conspiracy”, according to Lynas, and moved decisively to snuff it out. It is, again, profoundly in Australia’s interests for effective action to counter climate change to be brought forward, not pushed back. We live on the driest inhabited continent, after all.

For China to feel as if its back is against the wall, encircled and denied, plays to its worst instincts and brings them out. That is to Australia’s disadvantage now, and risks plunging us into a dangerous stand-off, which would divert precious resources away from other more important uses. Set out on a more even-handed policy, and attend to Barry Desker’s caution about the need to consult in the region - not just in Washington - before making suggestions, and we could look forward to a more co-operative and productive relationship.

It may be in the interests of the US military-industrial complex, and its offshoot here, for an arms race to ensue in the Asia-Pacific; but it is not in the interests of Australians. We must be prepared to put down our sword and shake hands, then we can all come out from behind our shields. Who knows, we may then get our seat at the round table.