{"id":48920,"date":"2019-07-08T06:00:10","date_gmt":"2019-07-07T20:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=48920"},"modified":"2019-07-07T16:07:46","modified_gmt":"2019-07-07T06:07:46","slug":"sunny-asian-century-versus-dark-indo-pacific","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/sunny-asian-century-versus-dark-indo-pacific\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunny Asian century versus dark Indo-Pacific"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Asia\u2019s rise is changing the world. This is a defining feature of the 21st century\u2014the Asian century. These developments have profound implications for people everywhere. Asia\u2019s extraordinary ascent has already changed the Australian economy, society and strategic environment…The Asian century is an Australian opportunity. As the global centre of gravity shifts to our region, the tyranny of distance is being replaced by the prospects of proximity. Australia is located in the right place at the right time\u2014in the Asian region in the Asian century.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u00a0Australia in the Asian century white paper<\/a><\/em>, 2012<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The sunny optimism of the \u2018Asian century\u2019 faces the dark forebodings of the \u2018Indo-Pacific\u2019.<\/p>\n

The two terms describe the same set of players and forces, but arrange them in different orders with different weightings.<\/p>\n

Asian century versus Indo-Pacific is crude simplification. Simplicity, though, has its uses. Journalists want headlines. Politicians need slogans and stories. The headline has the single merit of setting up this biggest of questions.<\/p>\n

Crudely, Asian century usage blends liberal internationalism with an optimistic view of Asia entering a new phase of deeper and broader engagement, privileging geoeconomics over geopolitics.<\/p>\n

The Indo-Pacific gives more weight to geopolitics, shifting the focus from economic bonanza to describe an arena for surging strategic rivalry<\/a>, now the label for a US strategy. Little wonder ASEAN\u2019s new Indo-Pacific outlook<\/a> seeks \u2018dialogue and cooperation instead of rivalry\u2019. Cooperation is what we desire, rivalry is what we\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n

Canberra\u2019s explanation for replacing Asia-Pacific with Indo-Pacific this decade was to broaden the frame of reference and factor in India. There was another compelling reason that was fudged in the telling: come up with a frame big enough to handle (or contain or engage or balance) the giant dragon in the room.<\/p>\n

When Australia\u2019s defenceniks started using the term Indo-Pacific six years ago, they emphasised it was merely a useful policy construct<\/a>\u2014a tool for understanding\u2014but not a force determinant. The US Indo-Pacific strategy<\/a> means the tool has been weaponised. US President Donald Trump weaponises the \u2018free and open Indo-Pacific\u2019 just as he weaponises globalisation<\/a>. Lots of stuff around here is loaded with explosives.<\/p>\n

Asian century versus Indo-Pacific also describes a Canberra fight: econocrats facing off against the defenceniks. The econocrats bleat that the security agencies are running the show. Or as the ever-vivid former prime minister Paul Keating<\/a> puts it, \u2018the nutters are in charge\u2019.<\/p>\n

Asian century had a brief starring moment during Julia Gillard\u2019s time as prime minister, cresting with the white paper in October 2012. Gillard needed some foreign policy not owned by her predecessor, Kevin Rudd, and Asian century was it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Asian century language came from Treasury and the quintessential Treasury man of his generation, Ken Henry, got to write the policy (although as Henry\u2019s draft blew out towards 500 pages<\/a>, the head of the Office of National Assessments, Allan Gyngell, was drafted to slash it to 300 pages and add a pinch of foreign policy coherence).<\/p>\n

While Gillard had most of Canberra doing Asian century duty, the Defence department defected to the Indo-Pacific. While it\u2019s only a few minutes\u2019 drive from the Russell Hill defence complex to the other side of the lake where parliament, the PM\u2019s department and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade reside, sometimes the Kings Avenue bridge marks a major conceptual chasm.<\/p>\n

Defence hated the Asian century tag because the headline dropped the US from the equation. That\u2019s conceptual\/construct poison for a department that sees anchoring America in Asia as a fundamental Oz interest.<\/p>\n

The 2013 defence white paper<\/a> gave minimal linguistic obeisance rather than<\/a> conceptual obedience to Gillard\u2019s vision: the document used the Indo-Pacific 58 times while mentioning the Asian century white paper 10 times.<\/p>\n

When the Liberal\u2013National coalition won the 2013 election, the Asian century usage<\/a> became Canberra cactus, too prickly to touch. Change the government, change the language. As Henry laments<\/a>, his paper \u2018has had no impact on policy, not even on the tenor of public policy debate in Australia\u2019.<\/p>\n

Political cleansing was delivered as policy vandalism when the prime minister\u2019s department deleted the Asian century white paper from its digital record (the polite term is archived<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Savour the irony that the Asian century paper is still available on the Defence site<\/a>. Defence understands the need to record the history of your victories. And it\u2019s a major win when your department hands Canberra the new construct for the region.<\/p>\n

Indo-Pacific has become the uniform usage in Canberra. The 2013 defence white paper marked the jump-off point, with further restatements in the 2016 defence white paper<\/a> and the 2017 foreign policy white paper<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Canberra agrees on the language, but the fundamentals of the argument rage. Australia\u2019s economic dependence on China keeps growing, as Greg Earl observes<\/a>: \u2018Short of a Chinese economic catastrophe, this is an integrated bilateral economic relationship that is not going to be wished away.\u2019<\/p>\n

Trace the debate through four contributions from one of our finest diplomatic minds, Peter Varghese.<\/p>\n

As DFAT secretary, Varghese gave a typically thoughtful speech<\/a> in 2013, in which he neatly laid out the Oz idea of Asia and the Indo-Pacific strategic framework\u2014a masterful exercise of diplomacy in the Gillard era.<\/p>\n

Consider Varghese\u2019s recent report to the government on an India economic strategy to 2035<\/a>, where 31 mentions of Indo-Pacific are swamped by 150 sightings of Asia.<\/p>\n

Varghese\u2019s third contribution (in a report on getting India into APEC<\/a>) offers these reasons for the Indo-Pacific construct:<\/p>\n