Australian Foreign Policy and East Timor
Professor Stephen FitzGerald
I was in China when the decision was made to commit Australian
troops. I saw the grabs on Chinese and regional television and I was relieved.
But concerned. I was relieved because it was right, principled, ethical, humanitarian,
and indeed imperative for us to have taken the decision we did. Much of the
region was also quietly appalled at what had been happening in East Timor.
I was concerned because of the immodest rhetoric issuing from Australia and
some chest-thumping bragging from some individuals about our leadership role.
While setting out on an essentially humanitarian mission, this seemed to say
"Look at me! Look what a good boy am I!" This was also the received communication
in Asian countries.
Australian Foreign Policy and East Timor
Professor Stephen FitzGerald was awarded the 1999 Sir Edward
"Weary" Dunlop Asia Medal on 1 December 1999 in recognition of a lifetime
contribution to Asia-Australia relations. Professor FitzGerald, who is Chairman
of The Asia-Australia Institute at The University of New South Wales, was
appointed Australia’s first Ambassador to the People’s Republic
of China in 1973 and was concurrently Australia’s Ambassador to North
Korea. His acceptance speech is extracted below:
I was in China when the decision was made to commit Australian
troops. I saw the grabs on Chinese and regional television and I was relieved.
But concerned. I was relieved because it was right, principled, ethical, humanitarian,
and indeed imperative for us to have taken the decision we did. Much of the
region was also quietly appalled at what had been happening in East Timor.
I was concerned because of the immodest rhetoric issuing from Australia and
some chest-thumping bragging from some individuals about our leadership role.
While setting out on an essentially humanitarian mission, this seemed to say
"Look at me! Look what a good boy am I!" This was also the received communication
in Asian countries.
But that's the fact of it, isn't it, you might say. Australia
was in the leadership role, wasn't it, and no one else would take it on! Well,
yes. But there were two things running. There was the decision and there was
what was broadcast around it. And for the latter, particularly, there
was a context. In the two years from the beginning of the Asian crisis there
had emerged in the Australian projection of itself in the region a new stridency
of self-righteousness, and a smugness about our 'fireproofed' or
'miracle' economy and, not to be outdone by the Americans, our own form of
triumphalism. Some Australian ambassadors had warned about this privately
at a meeting in Canberra earlier this year. and Dick Woolcott, is said to
have advised the Australian Government in mid-year that Australia even then
was seen negatively in Indonesia as 'boastful' about its role in East Timor
We had been properly quick and generous in our support for the three economies
most stricken by the Asian crisis, as we will be generous with East Timorese.
But before East Timor certain Australian leaders had begun to ooze this boastful
and parochial triumphalism, and to suggest that an economy in good shape had
somehow given us a right to leadership in the region at large.
I came back from China to a hyperbolic rhetoric and a political
atmosphere such as I had seldom seen in Australia, and I felt. if
you'll forgive me, weary . I had been reading David Walker's Anxious Nation
which deals with late nineteenth and early twentieth century Australian attitudes
and emotions about Asia, and it might almost have seemed that nothing had
charged. I found politicians and media in a state of extreme over-excitement,
defence specialists talking of political disintegration across Asia and calling
for massive increases in defence spending, and opposition politicians saying
that because of East Timor we must populate the north! In the public relations
management of the commitment of Australian troops there was even suggestive
reference to Vietnam, more appropriate to going to war than to going to enforce
peace.
Then came an explicit triumphalist 'leadership' message:
today East Timor, tomorrow the whole of East Asia. And sadly, in that message,
a familiar semantic ducking and weaving around the difficult intellectual
challenge of how, conceptually, we define and position ourselves in relation
to what Asian countries themselves are planning to do with this region - how
we define our position in a broad long-term strategic and grown-up foreign
policy sense. It was even said that to do so was not important! And there
was an old self-delusion that somehow we4, unilaterally, can define what kind
of relationship there will be between Asia and Australia, as though what Asians
might think about that doesn't exist or doesn't matter. And there was a coded
and not-so-coded message drawing a line between us and them, between being
Australian and being Asian.
Some may protest that the words did not say that precisely,
although some of the words were indeed very explicit. But Australians know
what message is there, and it is surely the one they were intended to pick
up. And so unfortunately do people in Asia. And the message says this. We
are about being. not becoming. It says we will do nothing in or with Asia
that requires adjustment on our part. It implies an absolute values and moral
superiority. It ignores a history of Australian attitudes in Asia associated
with White Australia. It suggests to Australians that with governments We
don't like in Asia there can be a stand-off which would defy the realities
of international relations and which could not be sustained without damage
to Australia's interests. It says we have a right to lead them, Asians, but
we are not one of them, and do not want to be. To quote "Gee, we were ourselves
in Asia over the last few weeks".
The government has said there has been a change in our foreign
policy -or hasn't, it depends on who you listened to when. But on two points
there is agreement. and these are that we won't have any truck with people
like Suharto and we won't put ourselves in a supplicant position to Asian
governments on anything. The government's critics also say there's been a
change in foreign policy, and some have suggested it has set our relations
with Asia back 30 years. I don't agree, on either. I do not believe any politician
who tells you there will be a stand-off with any unsavoury leader or government
in the region, except in Myanmar which is a pariah state and even there we
have been playing footsie. I don't believe we will see any material change
in the way government approaches relations with Asia in practice, at what
might be defined as 'more or less similar levels of engagement'.
But what about Asians' policies towards us? Hasn't there
been damage there? Yes. But neither our role in East Timor nor statements
in that context by certain Australian leaders has set our relations back 30
years, even with Indonesia. Set back, yes. But the cumulative efforts of tens
of thousands of Australians and Asians have put in place a fabric of networks
across the region, which will sustain our relations with Asian countries through
difficult times, at these 'more or less similar, levels of engagement - these
are educational and academic networks, and business, in the arts and the media
and sport and through many thousands of NG0s, and official and military. Thirty
years ago we had almost none of this. Regional countries, for their part,
including Indonesia, also have interests in maintaining stable relationships
with us, again. at these 'more or less similar levels of engagement.
So it is frivolous for any Australian leader to have cast
even subliminal messages into public discussion which say to Australians that
we won't court and don't need- special relationships and that from now on
Asia policy and relations with Asian countries, from our side, will be a whole
new ball game. It's not. And it's frivolous also for critics to say we've
been set back 30 years.
But the broadcast rhetoric of recent weeks reflects, as it
also at the same time has encouraged, a politically and ethically compromised
situation for us in Asia. And here's the real damage. The appalling and tragic
situation in East Timor presented Australia with a contingent opportunity,
of another kind - we might say of a "Weary' Dunlop kind - and we blew it!
In the region, Australia had been travelling well. Gareth Evans had been a
wonderfully effective builder in regional relations and so also is Alexander
Downer. The Asian crisis had brought realism to the appraisal of weight and
worth in regional affairs, and Australia's economic vitality had put paid
to the Lee Kuan Yew-led proposition that Australia couldn't be part of the
region because of our growth rate. We were positioned in regional affairs
in a way we had not hitherto achieved; positioned to move beyond the 'more
or less similar levels of engagement.'
The broader opportunity for us around the East Timor situation
was therefore not to grab the trumpet and the drum but to turn down the volume,
and say, quietly: we have a moral position which we'll strongly and unreservedly
express. But we're a neighbour, we're here to help, in whatever
way is appropriate and acceptable, and if that's not in the lead, that's fine.
And to have gone effectively about the difficult behind-the-scenes diplomacy,
which we did, and the even tougher on-the-ground task, which we have done.
This would have left us in an enhanced an unassailable position
of political and moral strength in the region at large - and removed much
if not most of the ground from under our critics, even in Indonesia. It would
have set us up, almost without political baggage, and without having to go
cap in hand to anyone, for acceptance into regional formations from which
we have been, or might in future be, excluded. It was a strategic opportunity.
And we blew it. And the way we blew it will now inhibit our prospects for
moving beyond 'present levels of engagement', because we are damaged in Southeast
Asia and in some quarters also in China, Japan and Korea, and the damage will
take some time to repair.
On the domestic front there was a similar opportunity,
similarly mis-played. Here the opportunity was to use what we had to
do in East Timor to send a different set of messages to the Australian people,
to say, in a quiet "Weary" Dunlop way: this is what it means to be a neighbour
in Asia; this is not about the white man's burden or natives running
amok who have to be saved from themselves; it's not about difference, but
about being the same, about solidarity with Asians as neighbors. as people,
with good values. not just East Timorese but Indonesians and everyone else;
and saying this is what our future together with Asia means, taking the economic
gains, sharing the social and human losses; accepting the responsibility you
have when you belong to a community. We rarely have such opportunities to
dramatize domestically an argument in foreign policy. Here was an opportunity
to educate, to bring people along in the complexities and uncertainties that
confront us in a globalising and regionalising world, and not to traffic in
simplifications for domestic advantage; an opportunity to lead, in a political
and ethical way. And we blew this too. How sad that is for Australia.
We missed these opportunities because in the rhetoric and
the explications and the direct and implied messages the fundamentals of the
Australian project in Asia were absent. The idea of Asians as people, for
example. We rightly focussed on humanitarian issues for East Timorese, but
good friends in Indonesia question why so often we use the generic term 'the
Indonesians' in our criticisms of what has been done in East Timor. And beyond
Indonesia. some of our messages had such strong undertones of demarcation,
disparagement and suggestion that Asians need offend detractors and
supporters alike.
Also absent was a sense that at the very top there is understanding
and effective management of the processes of our engagement with Asia, even
intellectual curiosity about our region. And I don't know where this idea
of Australian leadership in Asia has come from, but it's got some currency
around the Australian leadership, and its even been spoken of as our 'natural'
role in the region. The objection to the idea, of course, apart
from its unpleasant supremacist connotations, is that it is so utterly unrealistic.
Who stands up to follow?
Absent too was a weight of educated public opinion
in support of broader foreign policy objectives in the region; and the encouragement
of populist anti-foreign sentiment will now make it harder in future to get
that support when it is needed for other purposes.
And disturbingly absent was a sense of a well thought out
broad policy and strategic framework for our regional decisions and actions.
No definition was given of where in future we might or might not repeat the
East Timor exercise or why. No foreign policy framework of objectives, relationships
or rationales was set around the foreshadowed increased spending on defence.
No statement has been given to the Australian public of the damage done to
our relations with the wider region or what this might mean. We have
been given no set of alternative scenarios for Asia's future or where we see
ourselves in them.
The root problem is that we do not have a foreign policy
in East Asia. The Prime Minister said as much when he said it wasn't important
to define whether we want to be part of Asia or how. This, of course, depends
on what you imagine Asia to be. If this were back in the time of colonial
Asia, that might be acceptable, just. But here we come to the question
of the parameters of government thinking and public discussion on the region,
which do not allow the full exploration of the national Interest in Asia.
We seem to know what we are not for. The Prime Minister has said we are not
for special relationships. But special relationships are about doing what
is necessary in order to have influence, in order to get what we want. Are
we not for influence? Without special relationships how would we get it?
But if we had it, what would we want? Because there is a
real-world, real-time Asia beyond the imagining of government or opposition.
Neither government nor opposition has even said publicly what it thinks about
where we stand in relation to one of the most important developments in the
region this century. This is the now possible, indeed likely, formation
of an East Asian community, ultimately somewhat akin to Europe. This has been
gestating in East Asia while we have been rivetted on East Timor. Key regional
presidents and prime ministers are involved: no longer just Dr Mahathir. Within
the last three months previously unthinkable have found a place on the regional
agenda; a monetary fund, a common currency, a common market and even an East
Asian EU. The proposal is to join Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia in one
formation, without America. An East Asia Vision Group is already at work on
the policy domains. ASEAN and its three Northeast Asian partners are already
working on the institutional framework There is even implied a tacit acceptance
of leadership roles for China and Japan This is far beyond Mahathir and the
EAEC. And its not going to go away.
And this is what the big debate in Australian foreign policy
needs to be about. Elsewhere in the region this is a big issue. But the parameters
of the discussion here do not encompass such an odd idea because that’s
not the way we imagine the region. We are not thinking laterally. We have
not looked at the region from a non-Australian point of view. We don't have
a position.
This leads to one of three conclusions. One is that Australian
leaders think it's not important, which would be astonishing. One is that
they know it's important but want Australia to remain outside it, because
to be in it would mean a bit of necessary humble pie and a really close engagement
with Asians which they might find unrelaxing or uncomfortable; but they're
not prepared to discuss it, because that would mean opening up discussion
of the very serious implications for us of not being in it. And one is that
they think we ought to be trying to be in it; but that would mean admitting
to the Australian public that in present circumstances this is a remote possibility
because of the damage done to our position in the region through the broadcast
rhetoric of self-promotion and domestically motivated distancing from Asia
in recent months.
This is what that has cost us. And it's not an ordinary cost,
to day-to-day affairs. It's a heavy cost But the Australian project in Asia
has so far taken us more than 30 years, for our kids. If it's now going to
take another 30 years, then let’s get on with it.
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