{"id":72869,"date":"2022-05-30T06:00:37","date_gmt":"2022-05-29T20:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=72869"},"modified":"2022-05-29T18:59:03","modified_gmt":"2022-05-29T08:59:03","slug":"australias-voice-and-the-china-duel-in-the-south-pacific","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/australias-voice-and-the-china-duel-in-the-south-pacific\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s voice and the China duel in the South Pacific"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Australia and the South Pacific need to talk.<\/p>\n

The immediate conversation is about the duelling trips to the islands by China\u2019s foreign minister, Wang Yi, and Australia\u2019s new foreign minister, Penny Wong.<\/p>\n

Starting with Fiji, Wong has pledged a series of island visits to recover Australia\u2019s status as the partner of choice in the Pacific.<\/p>\n

Wong has a strong hand. Australia would have to play this hand incredibly badly to lose its primary role.<\/p>\n

What we share with the islands is a potent combination of interests, institutions and values, framed by geography. Yet Australia and China have moved beyond en garde. <\/em>The diplomatic duel is launched. The foreign ministers probe, parry and promise. China thrusts with strategic intent.<\/p>\n

In the quest to recover stuff we\u2019ve mislaid or undervalued, Australia\u2019s polity slowly awakes to the need to remake<\/a> and rebuild<\/a> our media voice<\/a> in the South Pacific.<\/p>\n

We haven\u2019t \u2018lost\u2019 the islands, but in the past decade we did lose much of our broadcasting voice. The China duel didn\u2019t cause the voice fade. We lost a lot of ground because we just vacated the ground, by the absent-minded trashing<\/a> of Australia\u2019s international broadcasting.<\/p>\n

Australia degraded a key foreign policy instrument, comfortable in our South Pacific pre-eminence. The trouble with having such a strong hand in the islands is taking too much for granted\u2014what Canberra wise owl Nick Warner laments as \u2018Australia\u2019s long Pacific stupor\u2019<\/a>. The budget of our Indo-Pacific media voice has been cut by two-thirds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Domestic politics has damaged what the Australian Broadcasting Corporation should deliver internationally for Australia. \u2018All Governments Loathe the ABC Equally, but Some Loathe It More Equally than Others,\u2019 Mathew Ricketson and Patrick Mullins state (their capitalisation) in Who needs the ABC?<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, governments loathe the ABC. So they should. Aunty is a unique and powerful voice, defined by its independence. The reality the polity gropes towards is to peer beyond the domestic fights to see the foreign policy needs wonderfully served by the ABC, to understand hard news and free media as the sharp edge of Australia\u2019s soft power.<\/a><\/p>\n

The new Labor government is starting the job with its Indo-Pacific broadcasting strategy<\/a>, promising the ABC an extra $8 million a year for international programs, plus a review of whether shortwave radio broadcasts should be restored.<\/p>\n

The need to cast aside the domestic argy-bargy about Aunty, to empower our international voice, is the underlying consensus of Strengthening Australia\u2019s relationships in the Pacific<\/a>,<\/em> the report by the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, presented in the final days of the previous parliament.<\/p>\n

The bipartisan report calls for an expansion of our \u2018media and broadcasting footprint\u2019 in a more contested South Pacific to \u2018retain our role as a trusted and accessible source of information for these countries\u2019, and for the consideration of:<\/p>\n