Rudd Pacific Plan Lost at Sea?

June 02, 2010

By Anthony Fensom

While the one-and-a-half track Sydney conference was well attended by regional experts, consensus was difficult to achieve.

The conference report concluded: ‘There was a broad, though not unanimous, view that APEC and the EAS could be the potential building blocks for an Asia Pacific community. If this approach were developed, in the case of APEC, it would be necessary to admit India and develop a security agenda; in the case of the EAS, it would be necessary to consider admitting the United States and Russia.’

There was also debate over the definition of ‘community’ and whether it entailed a customs union, an integrated economic system or a loose-knit grouping, but with common identity and purposes. It was argued that the APc should at its core comprise an annual leaders’ meeting, and that it should complement existing institutions and not replace them.

Yet critics hit out at the $800,000 cost of the two-day ‘talkfest’ as a waste of taxpayers’ money, arguing that regional players such as China, Indonesia and Singapore had been cool to the idea and that Rudd had failed to consult before launching his grand plan.

The mixed reaction to the APc has added to criticism that Australia’s foreign policy towards Asia has actually gone backwards under the supposedly ‘Asia-literate’ Rudd, hopes for whom were high with his fluency in Mandarin, diplomatic background and first-class honours in Asian studies.

‘Dysfunctional Diplomacy’

Rudd swept to victory in the November 2007 federal election on a platform of change. After 11 years of conservative government under Liberal Party leader John Howard, the new prime minister pledged to move Australia’s foreign policy focus from the ‘war against terror’ in distant Afghanistan and Iraq to the so-called ‘Arc of Instability’ in nearer South-East Asia.

Howard’s close ties to the United States had led him to commit 2000 Australian troops to fight alongside US forces in Iraq. He was reportedly criticised by then Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad for acting like a US ‘deputy general’ in South-East Asia, particularly for his threat to launch pre-emptive strikes on terrorist bases in the region.

However, the Howard government also had a number of successes in its Asia-Pacific foreign policy, including the achievement of an independent East Timor in the face of Indonesia’s belligerence; a strengthened US alliance, including the signing of a free trade agreement; an improved security relationship with Japan; and successful (though expensive) law and order interventions in the Solomon Islands and Nauru.

‘Howard was a realist and a pragmatist who saw the necessity of the US alliance as vital for Australian security, as it seems Rudd does now. Howard also saw good relations with Asia as important, however he didn’t see a great deal of utility in the regional architecture such as ASEAN or APEC,’ according to the University of Queensland’s David Martin-Jones, an expert in international relations in the Asia-Pacific region.