Last Updated:2023-04-19
Penny Wong and Paul Keating have crossed swords again. Rhett Wymannone
For the foreign minister’s National Press Club speech this week, we needto thank the interventions of former prime minister Paul Keating. Australiais at last having the foreign policy debate it has needed to have for a longtime.
Whatever one’s views on Keating’s interventions, he has achieved his primary objective, which was to cut through the wilful silence aroundAustralia and the region as we seek to navigate the greatest geopoliticalcontest since the end of the Cold War. If nothing else, Keating is themaster of the cut-through.
Remember the “banana republic”, the “recession we had to have”, and“snapping the stick of inflation”, all of which helped to reposition publicdiscourse and open the way for sound policy development. As Keatingwould say, he now has “the dogs barking”. He has achieved his primaryobjective.
It is entirely predictable that some sections of the media have reduced theweighty issues of national security raised by Keating to matters ofpersonality. While Keating’s style grates with some and amuses others,the deeper cause of the strong reaction is the substance of what he hasto say. He is questioning the easy bipartisan assumption on whichAustralia’s security policy is based: “all the way with the USA”.
Apparently, Keating’s message is already having some resonance in LaborParty branches. This may in part explain the urgency with which PennyWong has sought to put the sword to Keating. The problem for Wong isthat the government’s political difficulties will not disappear.
AUKUS will not strengthen Australia’s security for a decade or more evenon the most optimistic assumptions; it will do nothing to alter materiallythe strategic balance in the region in favour of the US as China continuesto invest heavily in its military and its capacity to do so expands withcontinued economic growth; and the region, except for Japan for themoment, does not see the security challenges in Manichean terms, asWong does.
China is already a dominant influence in the region,
and the region isresponding to it and being shaped by that reality.
The foreign minister’s speech is an admirable account of an activistforeign policy agenda by the government, especially about the Pacific. Itdisplays a welcome new tone, spirit and energy for Australian foreignpolicy, something that has been missing for the past decade. Itsweakness, however, is that it is premised on the idea of a “strategicequilibrium” being attainable in this region.
The speech is asking us to look away from the reality of great powerrivalry, arguing that not to do so denies “agency” to smaller states. Asleight of hand is at work. Great power rivalry between the US and Chinais driving our policies and those of our regional neighbours. But it is takingAustralia in a different direction from our regional neighbours. This is theuncomfortable truth that the foreign minister is keen to avoid, and thatKeating has sought to highlight.
As the dominant power, the US has now for some time made no secret ofthe fact that it is determined to resist China’s rise. The Trumpadministration embarked on an explicit policy of containment which hasbeen continued and ramped up under Joe Biden. The US is practising itsown trade coercion against China, ranging from semiconductors to criticalminerals, while circling the wagons with its allies. Australia has been anenthusiastic participant.
As the dominant power, the US has now for some time made no secret ofthe fact that it is determined to resist China’s rise. The Trumpadministration embarked on an explicit policy of containment which hasbeen continued and ramped up under Joe Biden. The US is practising itsown trade coercion against China, ranging from semiconductors to criticalminerals, while circling the wagons with its allies. Australia has been anenthusiastic participant.
So, in this sense, there is nothing new in the foreign minister’s speech. It isa restatement that we join with the US in seeking to contain China; acontinuation of the Coalition’s foreign policy of the past decade. This is inessence what Keating was saying in his rebuttal.
As former Singaporean foreign secretary Kishore Mahbubani wroterecently, Australia and ASEAN have “drifted further apart in theirmanagement of geopolitical challenges”. Past weeks have seen visits bythe Malaysian and Singaporean prime ministers to Beijing. The Malaysianprime minister also proposed during his visit a yuan-denominated regionaldevelopment bank, explicitly to promote China’s currency as analternative to the US dollar in regional financial architecture.
The idea itself may come to nothing, but the sentiment it reflects needs tobe taken seriously. How will Australia respond to this and any number ofideas that bring to the fore the binary choice that Wong is so keen todeny?
Straw man argument
It is disappointing that in such a well-argued speech, the foreign ministerfelt the need to reach for a straw man when she said “some imply weshould attach ourselves to what they anticipate will be a hegemonicChina”. This would be an entirely wrong – and perhaps wilfully so –mischaracterisation of Keating’s position.
China is already a dominant influence in the region, and the region isresponding to it and being shaped by that reality, whether the foreignminister recognises that or not. The US is contesting that, but some suchas Keating and Hugh White question whether the US has the stayingpower – and, if it does, could it prevail over China?
It is risky to base our foreign policy, as Wong seems to be doing, on theindispensability of the US to the Asia-Pacific region, as desirable as that may be.
The questions Keating has raised still need to be answered. They require amore informed understanding of the contemporary reality of China:realistic calculations of threat and deterrence; a greater alignment instrategic thinking with ASEAN; a frank assessment of the reliability of theUS as a guarantor of Australia’s security; and Australia’s politicalwillingness to follow the US into war. Let the conversation begin.
