Prime Minister Turnbull\u2019s keynote address to the recent Shangri-La Dialogue<\/a> turned upon one critical question: what kind of peace does Australia hope to see in the 21st century Indo-Pacific? That\u2019s not a small question. Turnbull\u2019s answer\u2014born, he noted, \u2018from ambition not anxiety\u2019\u2014made the case for an enduring, liberal, rules-based regional order. That\u2019s Australian strategic policy in its upbeat mode. In that mode, Australia has a grand strategic \u2018vision\u2019; it\u2019s an order-builder; and an optimist. The keynote was an invitation to other regional states to join Australia on a quest for closer cooperation and a renewal of the regional order-building project.<\/p>\nThe difficulty, of course, as Turnbull\u2019s address readily acknowledges, is that a successful, rules-based liberal order requires \u2018the disciplining of power\u2019. \u2018This is a world where big fish neither eat nor intimidate the small\u2019. That was easier to do when the dominant power was the US, because the whole concept of the disciplining of power is central to American political culture. But in a region awash with power transition, sustaining that discipline is about to become considerably more difficult. Rising powers, such as China and India, seek greater strategic influence\u2014\u2018a return to the natural order of things\u2019, as Turnbull puts it. For such powers, the temptation runs more towards the flexing of newly-built muscles than towards discipline and restraint. Still, Turnbull has to argue the case. Continuing power discipline is more than just sound logic; it\u2019s the long pole in the tent of regional stability as multipolarity emerges and unipolarity wanes.<\/p>\n
The prime minister\u2019s address is somewhat thinner on what regional security might look like without that discipline\u2014or even on the extent to which discipline is itself a product of power-balancing\u2014although he does allude to the option that regional states might ally and partner more fully with each other as well as with the US. True, they might. But the spoke-to-spoke relationships that have emerged in Asia over recent years provide only weak testimony to the speed and ease with which such deeply important strategic cooperation might develop. So far, at least, spoke-to-spoke cooperation has been marked by rhetorical boldness but strategic trivialism.<\/p>\n
So, to whom is Turnbull\u2019s message about discipline directed? The obvious\u2014but incomplete\u2014answer is \u2018China\u2019. China\u2019s depicted as the country most needing to build a \u2018reservoir of trust and cooperation\u2019 with its neighbours. Curbing North Korea\u2019s recklessness is even spelt out as an immediate contribution that China could make to enhance regional security. And Turnbull implicitly suggests that, until it builds that reservoir, it won\u2019t be seen as a regional leader because \u2018the burden of collective leadership\u2019 is best shared with \u2018trusted partners and friends\u2019. At various points in the speech, too, there are specific phrases\u2014such as the importance of unchallenged freedom of navigation in Australia\u2019s vision of the ideal world\u2014which seem clearly directed at Beijing.<\/p>\n
But Turnbull\u2019s main theme is actually about the arrival of a multipolar Asia. Other power centres in Asia are also identified, specifically, Japan, India and Indonesia. A sensible reading of Turnbull\u2019s keynote would suggest that the point about the disciplining of power also applies to them. So the speech can be seen as a reminder\u2014sotto voce<\/em>\u2014to Tokyo that Japan\u2019s re-emergence as a strategic power will be watched closely by regional countries. Similarly, it sounds a note of caution to New Delhi, that\u2014beyond its immediate neighbourhood\u2014India\u2019s role as a regional leader is largely untested. And it underlines a concern\u2014albeit one with deep resonances in Canberra\u2014over the future trajectory of a more powerful Indonesia.<\/p>\nIn Australia\u2019s most optimistic vision, all the emerging Asian great powers find within themselves the capacity for disciplined leadership. That\u2019s possible, of course. But Asian culture is typically hierarchical, not egalitarian. None of those powers enjoys a domestic political culture which takes it as a self-evident truth \u2018that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness\u2019.<\/p>\n
Any way we slice it, the regional strategic environment\u2019s becoming more complex. Alongside the emergence of a multipolar Asia, ASEAN\u2014\u2018the region\u2019s strategic convenor\u2019\u2014faces its own challenges. The growth of power in the immediate vicinity of the organisation\u2019s Southeast Asian hub seems likely to test even the current levels of inclusiveness and integration between the ten members, let alone ASEAN\u2019s capacity to take on a bigger agenda. So the prime minister\u2019s putting his shoulder to the wheel of a \u2018strong, unified ASEAN\u2019, which supports and maintains the rule of law, and champions liberal economic values, sets the organisation a daunting task.<\/p>\n
Anyone reading between the lines of Turnbull\u2019s address must come away from it with a greater sense of the enormity of the task that now lies before the region. Can we sustain the liberal, rules-based order in Asia? Every hegemon aspires to create a regime which outlives its own influence, and in principle that aspiration is achievable\u2014if new inputs to the existing order can be found at a rate which exceeds the hegemon\u2019s loss of relative power and influence. America\u2019s inheritance of the Western \u2018project\u2019 from Britain provides proof of concept. But it will be a neat trick if we can pull that off in Asia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prime Minister Turnbull\u2019s keynote address to the recent Shangri-La Dialogue turned upon one critical question: what kind of peace does Australia hope to see in the 21st century Indo-Pacific? That\u2019s not a small question. Turnbull\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":32508,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[56,1464,1650,358],"class_list":["post-32507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-indo-pacific","tag-malcolm-turnbull","tag-rules-based-order","tag-shangri-la-dialogue"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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