Pecking orders
If hierarchies count in diplomatic communication, what are we to make of the duelling lists that Foreign Minister Penny Wong reeled off in a speech this week about why Asia matters to Australia.
The speech began with an unremarkable recitation of how medium sized, trade-exposed countries need to rely more on law and norms rather than power and size to make their way in the world.
Then it defaulted to an also otherwise conventional but sometimes reordered approach:
“As an important power, but not a superpower, the short answer to how we make that happen is by prioritising our alliance with the United States, upholding the rules and a deep focus on partnering with the region.”
What was interesting was that Wong then detailed eight foreign policy achievements from the past six weeks alone, as if to point out that she has been getting on with cementing a legacy ahead of an election when the government’s domestic agenda seems stalemated, from arguments about census questions to sparring with the Reserve Bank of Australia over interest rates.
But Wong’s list reversed the previous hierarchy, starting with the Pacific police initiative and only ending with the US alliance manifested in the tabling of the AUKUS Treaty text in the parliament. Given that it is quite an output, it is worth fleshing out what was also listed in between: entry into force of the Tuvalu Falepili Union; the Indo-Pacific Broadcasting Strategy; the Civil Society Partnerships Fund; the Quad Cable Connectivity and Resilience Centre; the ASEAN-Australia Centre establishment; and the Defence Cooperation Agreement with Indonesia.
Wong has been stepping up the rhetoric about current and historic insular or Asia-sceptic policies from the conservative side of politics recently.
It is the Indonesia agreement which makes the hierarchy reversal interesting, because Wong spent much of the speech lauding the 1940s Labor government role in the creation of independent Indonesia and then Indonesia’s long tradition of a non-aligned foreign policy. While she was less hyperbolic than Defence Minister Richard Marles about the historic importance of the defence agreement, she nevertheless went on to try to place the deal into some sort of continuum with support for independence and then Indonesia’s belief in the virtues of non-alignment. As Wong put it:
“It says that even though we will make our own sovereign choices in our national interests, we can assure our sovereignty better by working with our neighbours who face the same challenges … It will be the success of these partnerships that determines whether our great leaders who foresaw Australia’s interests in the region and in Indonesian independence will have their wisdom fully realised by this generation.”
From prime ministers Ben Chifley to Paul Keating, and even the latest footnote for Marles, Labor has every right to be proud of its record of engagement with Indonesia.
But ostentatiously praising Indonesian non-alignment while elevating the US alliance above partnering with the region in a speech like this about Asian integration can hardly go unnoticed in Jakarta when Indonesians weigh up partnership options.
Not so hasty
Wong’s attempt to inject a successful regional work program into a troubled broader government agenda raises questions about whether Labor can make foreign policy a positive for a looming election. Opinion polls suggest the forthcoming contest may result in a minority government with less capacity for independent action.
Labor scored the double at the 2022 election, by blaming the previous conservative government for losing the Pacific to China while the same conservatives lost support at home from middle-class Chinese background voters who were alarmed by the then government’s general anti-China tone.
Wong has been stepping up the rhetoric about current and historic insular or Asia-sceptic policies from the conservative side of politics recently, in something of a shift from the always debateable convention that foreign policy should be more bipartisan than domestic policy and rarely matters in elections.
But there seems to have been generational change from those burnt by the Asian financial crisis.
This time it was a sharp dig at Liberal Party icon and former prime minister Robert Menzies who in 1947 described Labor’s support for Indonesian independence as “the very ecstasy of suicide.” As Wong put it: “Myopia and relentless negativity appears to be transmitted from one Liberal leader to another. The integrity and vision of Chifley, (former foreign minister Herbert) Evatt and others now looks so obvious.” Touche.
You can’t blame Wong for scoring points when some of her domestic colleagues are misfiring ahead of an election. But the response from Coalition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie at the same conference where Wong spoke was more illuminating.
A former special forces captain, Hastie would be an interesting bellwether in a future coalition government as defence minister. He was an early anti-China backbencher to the point he was denied a visa to the country, but nevertheless comes from the state which benefits most from selling iron ore to China.
This week he lined up firmly behind Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s new more conciliatory policy that any future Coalition government will have to work productively with China. Hastie even regrets not being able to visit the country that will no doubt pre-occupy his thoughts more than most if he ever makes it to government.
And as for scoring points, the one-time China hardliner now says Wong should be careful trying to “weaponise history” because her party used to be full of people who opposed Asian migration.
Back to business
Wong may have been expecting a sceptical audience when she used The Australian Financial Review/Asia Society Australia Asian Business Summit to really step up her now yearlong criticism of Australian business for not increasing its exposure to
Asia. As she said:
“We have a good foundation in our free trade agreements across the region, but Australia's trade and investment has simply not kept pace – and we need to turn this around. I feel like I say this over and over again and people look at me and nod and move on.”
Wong’s growing frustration, which we have regularly noted here and here, is the latest iteration of a long history of government’s questioning why Australian business hasn’t taken up various government initiatives to underpin trade and investment in Asia as a form of ballast for diplomatic relations. And with an election looming it also hints at a government anxiously trying to set up a list of successes in a field where change is by its nature slow.
What was striking about this week’s latest conference on this topic was the extent that the business participants were quite reflective about Australia’s somewhat narrow trade base and low investment exposure in Asia. They, of course, were the more dedicated advocates of Asian engagement in the broader constellation of Australian business.
Can Labor make foreign policy a positive for a looming election?
But there seems to have been generational change from those burnt by the Asian financial crisis so soon after the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation group and Keating era of business enthusiasm.
There also seems to be a bit more preparedness for sharing experiences on the ground in the region across a wider range of countries and business sectors.
And the maturing of the Asian diaspora in Australia with the Australian-educated children of the diaspora sometimes returning to their families’ countries of origin as businesspeople is another fundamental change.
Home truths
Perhaps fortified by speaking out about business failures to a receptive audience, Wong embarked on another bit of in-tray clearing at the conference which was notable for a politician ahead of an election. She pointed out to the host newspaper – which has recently closed its Southeast Asia bureau for the second time this century – that business interest in the region would be helped if the national business newspaper did more reporting there.
Telling the media organisation hosting the conference you are speaking at that it has let down all-of-nation statecraft by winding back its Asian reporting – that requires a bit more political courage than attacking Menzies.
