Prime Ministerial self-righteousness

Should, or when, the post-1945 system of UN and international financial and trade institutions disintegrate because the Group of 20 fails to solve the problems of Wall Street, Australia is in danger of being left forgotten, isolated and vulnerable.

China, Japan, Korea and the ten ASEAN nations, with a population totalling more than 2 billion and administrative and commercial classes that might usefully be characterised as Confucian, are already prepared and likely to emerge as the centre of global finance, productivity, education and technology. Although, after some angst, Prime Minister Howard had Australia included in the East Asian summit, Prime Minister Rudd has kept Australians largely ignorant of these developments.

Australians are also largely ignorant of the work done by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to render the NATO effort in Afghanistan tragic, if not bitterly laughable, and by BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) to link Latin America with a dynamic emerging Eurasian Community that marginalises the United States and Western Europe.

China is at the centre of these developments and is happy to leave Australia out. It is also planning and building very fast train networks likely to consolidate these political developments and render marginal Australian mineral supplies. With time, Australian supplies will have higher transport and other costs than those yet to be explored, exploited and transported by train from previously neglected parts of Eurasia.

In The Sydney Morning Herald of May 19, 2010, the past Singaporean Ambassador to the United Nations, Kishore Mahbubani, in an article headed “Western slant on China skews shape of things to come”, reminded that China has distinct and proven values of civilisation and will not become like the West, does not need Liberal Democracy to avoid collapse and can rise to a leading position peacefully. The Rudd Government has been insensitive to these realities.

In fact, with its emphasis on education, technology and financial discipline and on an “harmonious world”, it could be argued that China already has decisive leverage in all global marketplaces, achieved while America and Australia have been preoccupied with the West’s War of Terror.

A Coalition successor to the Rudd government would inherit many challenges that have been neglected by its predecessor and that are unprecedented in Australia’s history. This is a history that has always been defined by the dominance of Anglo-American power and influence. At least, one might hope it would not be cursed with the same degree of self-righteousness.