{"id":52155,"date":"2019-11-26T15:01:59","date_gmt":"2019-11-26T04:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=52155"},"modified":"2019-11-29T09:06:18","modified_gmt":"2019-11-28T22:06:18","slug":"delicate-diplomacy-australia-needs-to-understand-its-neighbours-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/delicate-diplomacy-australia-needs-to-understand-its-neighbours-better\/","title":{"rendered":"Delicate diplomacy: Australia needs to understand its neighbours better"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Scott Morrison likes using the phrase \u2018delicate moment in time<\/a>\u2019 to describe the international dynamics Australia is now faced with. It\u2019s a time to build friendships on many fronts, as the government understands well. But the task is challenging\u2014even in the case of countries that we expect to be \u2018natural partners\u2019, such as India. The Australia\u2013India Roundtable<\/a> held in Melbourne this month highlighted the need for a sophisticated knowledge of the different players in our region\u2014something which Australia still has to develop.<\/p>\n

We won\u2019t neglect, of course, our long-term relationships. We will continue to remind the United States that Australia is the best of allies even if we have to cope with a fundamentally unreliable American leadership. It makes sense, as well, to go on reaffirming our commitment to ASEAN\u2014Southeast Asia is a part of the world in which we have been seriously involved over a long period. But democracy isn\u2019t faring well there, and many countries in the region are more positive about a rising China than we expected. The ASEAN approach to the emerging concept of the \u2018Indo-Pacific\u2019 is also quite different from that of the United States or Japan.<\/p>\n

The aspiration of developing closer coordination with Japan and India\u2014in quadrilateral meetings with the United States\u2014has received support from both sides of Australian politics. Alongside our vital US alliance, we have worked closely with Japan over many decades, including in the building of the APEC organisation.<\/p>\n

But the \u2018Quad\u2019 concept is perceived in many quarters, including in China, as an anti-China initiative. And in recent times\u2014as India\u2019s prominent strategic analyst, Shyam Saran, has noted<\/a>\u2014there have been signs that Japan is forging a more constructive relationship with the Middle Kingdom. A lack of trust in the US is likely to be an issue here. It may pay Australian analysts to recall Samuel Huntington\u2019s warning some decades ago that if Japan ever lost confidence in America\u2019s commitment to lead the Asian region it might surprise the world by quickly \u2018accommodating China\u2019.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s policy on the Quad is far from clear. In some quarters there\u2019s a call to strengthen the country\u2019s military and to forge more substantial cooperation with the US. A recent paper<\/a> from the Delhi Policy Group points out, however, that there\u2019s \u2018little consensus within India\u2019s policy discourse\u2019 on how to meet the China challenge. There\u2019s still a \u2018general aversion to adopting an openly confrontational policy\u2019 and an unwillingness to abandon the country\u2019s \u2018strategic independence and manoeuvrability\u2019.<\/p>\n

Similar caution is noted in an important new book, India\u2019s eastward engagement<\/em><\/a>, by S.D. Muni and Rahul Mishra. India, the authors assert, has been \u2018underplaying its participation in the \u201cQuad\u201d\u2019. It wasn\u2019t mentioned in Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s Shangri-La Dialogue speech of 2018\u2014which pleased the Chinese\u2014and India continues to favour a \u2018balanced approach to US\u2013China relationships\u2019, consistent with the emphasis on \u2018strategic autonomy\u2019 which has \u2018characterised India\u2019s foreign policy since its Independence\u2019.<\/p>\n

There can be no doubt that India and China have been clashing over significant issues, but their leaders continue to meet on a regular basis. India is also a member of the China-led regional institution, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation<\/a>. Modi\u2019s statements on the Indo-Pacific concept, one might add, seem closer to ASEAN\u2019s position than to the US\u2019s\u2014stressing inclusiveness rather than a strategy for countering China.<\/p>\n

Morrison has called India a \u2018natural partner for Australia\u2019. True, we could do much more together in the future, but Canberra\u2019s alliance-grounded view of the world contrasts sharply with New Delhi\u2019s commitment to \u2018strategic autonomy\u2019. We also differ in the scope of our relations with China. Australia has an immensely beneficial economic relationship with China, while India imports far more than it exports, and fears being swamped by Chinese products if trade between the two countries is freed up further. Adding in its territorial disputes with China, India ought to be more concerned than Australia about China\u2014yet while the Indian and Chinese leaders continue to talk, our government-to-government interaction seems frozen.<\/p>\n

Some commentators are surprised that our prime minister, despite being obviously troubled by certain Chinese policies, continues to stress that we have a comprehensive strategic partnership with China<\/a> and that a growing China has a right to change the way it engages with the world. In fact, in expressing such ambivalence Australia, like India, may be veering a little towards ASEAN thinking in this \u2018delicate moment in time\u2019.<\/p>\n

In domestic as well as foreign policy it\u2019s not obvious that Australia and India have shared values. India\u2019s handling of Kashmir and other sections of its huge Muslim community is attracting criticism in the liberal West, and the Modi government is also being accused of authoritarianism. At the Australia\u2013India Roundtable, we were told that if we bothered to learn about what people were thinking in the \u2018Indian heartland\u2019 we would take a more sympathetic view of what\u2019s happening. Such knowledge would seem vital in forging a deeper relationship with India, but where might we find it? Certainly not in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

The days when we believed the whole Asian region would gradually become democratic, and be set on a path of social development not unlike ours, are long gone. This has real significance for our educational institutions. We are now more engaged economically with the Asian region than ever\u2014and the countries around us are more prosperous than we could have imagined a few decades ago. However, differences in political culture are not disappearing but hardening. The aspiration towards common values is a distraction. A successful Australia will need to possess the knowledge base to deal with assertive Asian countries on their own terms.<\/p>\n

Here we face a crisis. A leading educator in Melbourne explained at the roundtable that if a student in this city of five million people wanted to gain in-depth knowledge of India it would simply not be possible.<\/p>\n

Thirty years ago, when the whole world seemed to be experiencing a convergence of social as well as economic systems, this might not have mattered. Today, to contemplate a real partnership with India without specific knowledge of the country\u2019s identity\u2014including views from its heartland\u2014is simply unrealistic. The same might be said about the other Asian countries with which we are deepening our relations.<\/p>\n

These delicate times therefore require an educational as well as a foreign policy strategy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott Morrison likes using the phrase \u2018delicate moment in time\u2019 to describe the international dynamics Australia is now faced with. It\u2019s a time to build friendships on many fronts, as the government understands well. 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