{"id":44905,"date":"2019-01-21T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-01-20T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=44905"},"modified":"2022-06-24T16:59:51","modified_gmt":"2022-06-24T06:59:51","slug":"the-1996-1997-cabinet-papers-hopes-and-hazards-for-australia-and-india-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-1996-1997-cabinet-papers-hopes-and-hazards-for-australia-and-india-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1996\u20131997 cabinet papers: hopes and hazards for Australia and India (part\u00a02)"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

An odd element of Australia\u2013India relations for two decades has been Canberra\u2019s reluctance to push for India to join Asia\u2019s most important economic group, APEC.<\/p>\n

The strangeness is heightened by the obvious synergy between Australia\u2019s language of support for India\u2019s economic liberalisation and its expanding role in Asia, plus our championing of APEC\u2019s free-trade vision.<\/p>\n

The APEC blank spot has become even odder as Australia\u2019s working construct of \u2018our\u2019 region has shifted decisively from the Asia\u2013Pacific to the Indo-Pacific.<\/p>\n

Oz diplomats always argue it\u2019s not Australia\u2019s fault. China uses its right to veto new membership proposals and ASEAN isn\u2019t that keen on India joining a club that gives an exclusively East Asian expression to the idea of Asia.<\/p>\n

The Canberra origins of the APEC oddity are explained in the 1996 and 1997 cabinet papers<\/a> released by the National Archives of Australia. My previous post<\/a> discussed an October 1996 submission by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The submission went to the new National Security Committee of cabinet. The NSC was created by John Howard when he took office in 1996 and it\u2019s one of his enduring contributions to the way Canberra deals with international policy and strategy.<\/p>\n

The NSC is both emblem and tool of Australia\u2019s increasingly presidential foreign policy, centred on the prime minister. And in these early months of the NSC\u2019s existence, the PM\u2019s department was asserting its prerogatives.<\/p>\n

DFAT and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet had a stoush over Indian membership of APEC and where India stood in Australia\u2019s foreign policy firmament.<\/p>\n

Howard\u2019s government was in its first year in office, but attitudes to APEC in PM&C still had deep roots in the era of his predecessor, Paul Keating. Keating had been proud of creating APEC\u2019s leaders\u2019 summit and was extremely reluctant to let new players into the exclusive group.<\/p>\n

DFAT recommended that Australia \u2018acknowledge India\u2019s substantial interests in the East Asia\/Pacific region and agree that Australia should support India\u2019s involvement in Asia Pacific regional institutions where that would not be likely to adversely affect regional cooperation\u2019. The submission noted that Australia had just supported India joining the ASEAN Regional Forum.<\/p>\n

DFAT then recommended that cabinet give \u2018public acknowledgment of the strength of India\u2019s claims for eventual APEC membership should the APEC moratorium eventually be lifted, and agree that we should continue to encourage India to liberalise its economy consistent with APEC\u2019s goal of free trade and investment by 2020\u2019.<\/p>\n

The PM\u2019s department went to war with DFAT in its comment to cabinet, arguing that it was up to India to do much more work. Expanding relations with India would \u2018depend foremost on continued economic reforms in India, which are not assured\u2019. And PM&C argued for a tough view of the differences between the regional ambitions of Australia and India:<\/p>\n

We note that India\u2019s aspirations to play a greater role in the Asia-Pacific region have the potential to cut across Australia\u2019s economic and strategic interests. While India\u2019s trade and investment links with the region are growing, it is still poorly integrated into the Asia-Pacific economy and will remain so for some years. India\u2019s immediate security preoccupations and its nationalistic outlook will be a stumbling block to its efforts to engage the region more broadly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In language straight from the Keating APEC handbook, PM&C argued that cabinet should reject the DFAT recommendation:<\/p>\n

India does not have a strong claim to membership of APEC, and Australia\u2019s position needs more careful consideration in the context of our overall policy on APEC membership. India is still highly protectionist and is actively opposing consideration of new trade liberalisation issues (such as trade and investment) in the WTO. India would be a drag on the pace of liberalisation in APEC if it were a member. Without publicly opposing India\u2019s membership of APEC, Australia should not encourage its membership hopes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

PM&C won. The NSC decided that \u2018Australia should neither promote Indian membership of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum nor be seen to be vetoing it\u2019.<\/p>\n

By the time of the leaders\u2019 summit the following year, it was all about the veto.<\/p>\n

In Vancouver in 1997, India was one of 11 countries expressing interest in joining APEC. Only three were accepted\u2014Russia, Vietnam and Peru\u2014and forum membership grew to 21 countries.<\/p>\n

The key decision for India was that the APEC leaders announced a 10-year moratorium before any further expansion would be considered.<\/p>\n

Closing the APEC door for a decade was a decision that came out of the day-long leaders\u2019 retreat. Howard said he \u2018very strongly\u2019 supported the 10-year freeze. At the end of the Vancouver summit, Australia\u2019s prime minister was modest about his own role in ensuring that the moratorium was a decision announced from the leaders\u2019 talks: \u2018Well, it came up earlier in discussion and one of the leaders reminded the meeting at the end that it should be included.\u2019<\/p>\n

Two decades on, APEC still has 21 members and India is still waiting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An odd element of Australia\u2013India relations for two decades has been Canberra\u2019s reluctance to push for India to join Asia\u2019s most important economic group, APEC. The strangeness is heightened by the obvious synergy between Australia\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":44906,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,3309,571,69,509],"class_list":["post-44905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australia","tag-australia-india-relations","tag-cabinet","tag-india","tag-john-howard"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe 1996\u20131997 cabinet papers: hopes and hazards for Australia and India (part\u00a02) | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-1996-1997-cabinet-papers-hopes-and-hazards-for-australia-and-india-part-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The 1996\u20131997 cabinet papers: hopes and hazards for Australia and India (part\u00a02) | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An odd element of Australia\u2013India relations for two decades has been Canberra\u2019s reluctance to push for India to join Asia\u2019s most important economic group, APEC. 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