Fiji will not accept an Australian High Commissioner until the
Australian Government treats Fiji with equal respect, says Prime
Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama.
In an interview with New Zealand’s Radio Tarana, he said the Australian
Government does not treat Fiji with consideration and respect adding
that the same treatment extends to all Melanesian countries.
“On the surface, things might seem fine but we think quite honestly that
Australia always puts its interests first and tries to tell us all what
to do,” Bainimarama said.
“I’m not going to accept an Australian High Commissioner in Fiji until
the Australian Government stops trying to damage us.
“With Fiji, they’re still trying to damage our interests because we
didn’t do what they ordered to have an immediate election after 2006
that would have solved nothing.”
Instead of showing their support, Bainimarama said the Aust Govt chose
to punish Fiji and had been trying to damage Fiji’s reputation ever
since.
“Now obviously, there will come a time when the relationship is properly
restored and I guess that will be when we have the election next year.
“But I can tell you that if I win the election, we can rebuild the
relationship but it won’t be the same relationship.
“It won’t be Fiji kowtowing to Canberra.
We want a genuine partnership
with genuine friends’ governments that treat us as equals and with
respect.
“We might be small but our vote at the UN has the same weight as
Australia’s and anyone else who isn’t one of the five permanent members
of the Security Council.”
Hopeful for a good relationship with Australia, Bainimarama admits it
would not come till “there’s a change in the mindset of Australia’s
politicians.”
He highlighted the recent asylum seeker crisis as a “good example of
Canberra’s overbearing attitude.”
Australia
and New Zealand have effectively failed to leverage this increased aid
to engage more meaningfully with the Fijian government to the greater
advantage of all, not least the Fijian people.
Their stance smacks of political and diplomatic naivety’.
An article saying that Australia and perhaps New Zealand have played an
active role in influencing a continuing ban on lending to Fiji by
international financial institutions received much coverage in the
regional media and the blogosphere. It suggested the two ANZAC
nations used their influence on organisations like the World Bank and
Asian Development Bank to stymie financial assistance to the Fiji
Government after 2006. But while continuing to influence these two large
institutional banks, Australia stepped up its own development
assistance to Fiji, the article noted, accusing the Australian
establishment of hypocrisy.
Expectedly, both sides of the Fijian divide furiously commented on the
article while the financial institutions and Australian Government
sources issued the customary denials in customary bureaucratese, putting
their practiced skills of saying much without saying anything to
effective use.
The institutions denied they were influenced by politics in decision
making related to lending to governments but the language that was used
in communications around not being able to lend to Fiji since 2006 hints
at exactly the opposite.
Australia has clarified its boosting of
development assistance as being aimed at projects benefiting the people
directly as against lending to the Fijian Government to implement any
development schemes.
The denials appear strenuous. Though they seem to have softened their
public stance on Fiji over time, there is no doubt that the ANZAC
nations were vehement in their criticism in the early years following
2006 and worked actively to campaign worldwide to treat Fiji as a
pariah.
For instance, they tried to influence the United Nations to drop Fiji as
a supplier of personnel for peacekeeping forces in the world’s trouble
spots. But their clamour went unheeded. They canvassed the European
Community, again with limited success. They have also opposed Fiji’s
participation in regional trade deliberations like PACER Plus. They
refrained from engaging with the Fiji regime in the crucial early years
after December 2006, pursuing a rudderless isolationist tack that bore
no fruit and resulted in forcing Fiji to look north.
Islands Business
"
Americans have also stepped up pressure on the ANZAC nations to relook at their Fiji policy in light of China’s growing geopolitical muscle in the region. Everyone knows that Fiji is the pivot of geopolitical influence in the region. And the ANZAC nations’ isolationist policy has driven Fiji straight into the waiting arms of the Chinese.
"
It is this deepening engagement with the north, notably China, that ultimately got
them worried enough to change that stringently uncompromising
isolationist tack of the earlier years.
In recent years, both Australia and New Zealand, although not keen on
saying specifically they have softened their school masterly stance on
Fiji, have increased their engagement with the country at several
levels. Increased development assistance, which is referred to in the
said article, is one of them.
The article’s allusion to Australia’s hypocrisy is somewhat misplaced.
The hypocrisy is not that it is not stymieing the Fiji Government’s
access to international funding agencies for loans while scaling up
direct development assistance. Rather, the hypocrisy is about hiding
their mounting worry about the consequences they now face with their
stringent isolationist strategy of the immediate years following 2006.
As well as deeper engagement with China, which has undoubtedly worried
them, the Americans have also stepped up pressure on the ANZAC nations
to relook at their Fiji policy in light of China’s growing geopolitical
muscle in the region. Everyone knows that Fiji is the pivot of
geopolitical influence in the region. And the ANZAC nations’
isolationist policy has driven Fiji straight into the waiting arms of
the Chinese.
For instance, a World Bank infrastructure loan that was close to
finalisation just before December 2006 has been held in abeyance ever
since, affecting a crucial water supply project. But the Chinese
government stepped in and duly helped complete the project with a soft
loan.
The Chinese government has thereafter assisted by providing
financing for a number of other infrastructure projects such as roads
and ports around the country including on other islands.
Australia and New Zealand have effectively failed to leverage this
increased aid to engage more meaningfully with the Fiji Government to
the greater advantage of all, not least the Fijian people. Their stance
smacks of political and diplomatic naivety. They seem to have concluded
that helping people with aid while denying the government with vital
loans somehow vindicates their stand of opposing the December 2006 event
and the present state of affairs.
It is incredible that the
boffins in Canberra and Wellington could not have figured out that
whatever aid that lands in Fiji and helps development, ultimately is
credited to the government by the people, thereby making the government
look good anyway.
Such befuddled thinking accompanied by the
looming fear of the growing Chinese influence in the region and their
unwitting part in abetting it, as well as pressure from the United States
to toe its own line on conciliation on the Fiji issue in the interests
of regional geopolitical rebalancing has further confused policymaking.
On their part, the big financial institutions accused in the article of
complying with the wishes of the ANZAC nations in denying financial
assistance to the Fiji Government have expectedly denied such a thing
happened.
Their denial is enveloped in clever, circumlocutory corporate speak. But
it is a little more than the proverbial fig leaf.
In view of the
steps the Fiji Government is taking towards elections on September
14—under the watchful gaze of the international community—it is time
these institutions and their board member countries revise their
duplicitous policy that has led them nowhere so far. Fiji is too
geopolitically critical to remain friendless for too long.
The manner in which China and the Asian nations have rushed in to fill
the vacuum left by the ANZAC nations post-2006 is testimony to this.
Australia and New Zealand have undoubtedly realised this. It is time
they acknowledged it—they won’t publicly. But they can do so by stopping
any negative campaigning behind the scenes.
Pacific trade talks 'waste of time': PNG
Samisoni Pareti
Mon May 20, 2013
Officials from Papua New Guinea say they are considering withdrawing from free trade negotiations between Pacific Island countries and Australia and New Zealand.
PNG's Trade Minister, Richard Maru, on Monday told a meeting of trade ministers from the Melanesian Spearhead Group that his country was considering withdrawing from Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) negotiations.
PNG's Trade Minister, Richard Maru "
My country is not interested in PACER Plus, our focus is the MSG Trade Agreement[...]
Our feelings at the moment is that PACER Plus would be one sided in favour of Australia and New Zealand[...]
We are frustrated with them. We can't export our taro there, they wont accept our greens[...]
[PACER Plus negotiations]are a complete waste of time.
"
"My country is not interested in PACER Plus, our focus is the MSG Trade Agreement," Minister Maru told a press conference convened at the end of the meeting at the Sofitel Fiji Resort and Spa in Nadi.
Fifteen countries are involved in the PACER negotiations, with the aim of helping Pacific Islands Forum countries benefit from enhanced regional trade and economic integration.
Asked whether PNG would withdraw immediately from PACER Plus negotiation talks, Mr Maru said the matter is under serious review by PNG's government.
"Our feelings at the moment is that PACER Plus would be one sided in favour of Australia and New Zealand," he said.
"We are frustrated with them. We can't export our taro there, they wont accept our greens.There's nothing to be gained from a trade agreement at the moment. We cannot justify the huge amount of resources we expend on such negotiations. They are a complete waste of time."
Asked for Fiji's position on PNG's stand, the country's Minister for Trade and Attorney General, Mr Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum, said Fiji sees a lot of merit in PNG's position.
He said Melanesian countries need to consolidate their trading capacities first before they look at free trade pacts with their bigger neighbours.
Papua New Guinea's Minister for Trade Richard Maru, Solomon Islands High Commissioner to Fiji Patterson Oti and Vanuatu's Minister for Trade Marcellino Pipite give their governments views on PACER and PACER Plus negotiations. (Video posted below)
Attendees to Pacific Defence Ministers meeting in Tonga (Image: Matangi Tonga)
On May 1st 2013, Defence
Minister's of Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and
representatives from US, UK, France and Chile met for a regional Defence summit in Tonga, a tiny monarchy in the South Pacific.
This inaugural meeting in Nukualofa, discussed aspects of defence and security issues, including
maritime security, peacekeeping and disaster relief in the region.
Some bilateral meetings were also
conducted between the attendees. One notable agreement of particular
interest, which eventually panned out, is the Defence Agreement,
signed by Tonga's Prime Minister, Lord Tui'vakano and New Zealand's
Defence Minister, Dr Jonathan Coleman.
The Tonga-NZ Visiting Forces
Agreement gave clearance on a temporary basis, for the New Zealand
Defence Force to stay in Tonga and increase joint operations. Among
the objectives, was to improve inter-operability links with the Tonga
Defence Service.
French Ambassador to Tonga- arriving in Nukualofa (Image: Matangi Tonga)
Australia Defence Secretary, Steven
Smith confirmed some assistance to Tonga Defence Services (TDS) in
the form of military equipment and support, amid
the looming shadow of budgetary constraints in the Australian
Treasury:
“Australia would support the
reinvigoration of Tonga’s dedicated sealift capability through the
provision of a new Landing Craft. This Landing Craft will enable
Tonga to transfer stores, people, and equipment to its outer
islands, and will be essential in helping the TDS provide rapid
relief in the event of natural disasters. [...]refurbishment of
the TDS Naval Base at Masefield, and the reconstruction of TDS
Headquarters facilities on the islands of Ha’apai and Vava’u
[...]comprehensive support to Tonga’s maritime security through the
Pacific Patrol Boat Program. Tongan Navy’s three patrol boats will
receive ongoing advisory, training, maintenance, and operational
support[…] Australia will maintain its extensive program of
training and education support, including through continued officer
training at the Australian Defence College and Australian Defence
Force Academy, scholarships, single-service courses, and joint
training.”
This military assistance and the
Defence agreement between Australia, New Zealand, nascent member of
NATO global partnership (PDF) and Tonga, a contributor to the
(ISAF)International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, only
underscores what many observers of NATO had long foreshadowed.
Richard Longworth opinion piece
“Beyond NATO” in the American Review magazine highlighted
the new global security frameworks:
“Ever since the Cold War ended 20
years ago, NATO has been an alliance without a mission, making
itself useful in places like Libya and Afghanistan without the
overarching challenge that the Soviet Union provided. The
search for that new mandate continues, and the emphasis on
partners, including Australia, indicates where NATO may be
looking. If the Chicago summit is any guide, NATO is becoming more
of a global alliance and less of a European bloc […] As the
world’s most successful military alliance, NATO remains a useful
umbrella and will no doubt be called upon to bless American forays
far from Europe […] This is where the partners come in. The United
States will try to get the formal authority of NATO for
out-of-area missions, but it will mostly ask the partners to
join in the real fighting.”
Rick Rozoff, a longtime observer of NATO, outlined the Pacific dimension:
“ The North Atlantic Alliance in
fact has a Pacific strategy. Most of the most recent additions to
NATO’s Troop Contributing Countries in Afghanistan have come from
Asia-Pacific nations: Malaysia, Mongolia, Singapore, South Korea and
Tonga. Japan has dispatched military personnel, medics, as well.
Australia and New Zealand have had troops, including special forces,
engaged in combat operations in Afghanistan for years. With 1,550
soldiers assigned to the International Security Assistance Force,
Australia is the largest troop provider to that NATO operation of
any non-NATO country. “
A report (PDF) from the think tank, Atlantic Council, also
envisions a Pacific footing for NATO:
“A
new Pacific Peace Partnership would bind NATO to important US allies
with shared values and common interests [...] Such a relationship
would further the important goal of multilateralizing the US
alliance system while permitting NATO to strengthen interoperability
with like-minded, capable allies and increase collaboration on
shared challenges of borderless scope, like cybersecurity.
Furthermore, closer European linkages with key US Pacific partners
will help ensure that European allies retain the capacity to shape
security in a region toward which the global balance of power is
rapidly tilting. It would be better for NATO proactively to build
stronger links with like-minded and capable Pacific partners rather
than be caught flat- footed in a future contingency.”
G77 Summit attendees (Image: MoI)
An hour or so flight Northwest from Tonga is Fiji-which laid out the welcome mat to a multi-nation summit of a different
sort. The diametrical opposing diplomatic approaches
taken by the NATO global partners and the G77, to the Pacific region could not be more of a contrast.
President Evo Morales about to drink a bilo of Yaqona (Image: MoI)
Fiji hosts the G77 and Bolivian President, Evo Morales, is in
attendance as chief guest. The G77 being a political-economic bloc,
has its core values inextricably linked with South-South cooperation, in which
technical and economic development is one of the UN organization''s
guiding principle.
President Morales presence in Fiji,
is entirely unique because it appears to be the first Head of State
from the South American continent and one of an indigenous
extraction, to visit the region.
In addition, President Morales
celebrated anti-imperial stances (a non-nonsense characteristic,
that is devoid in most spineless Pacific island leaders) and whose well grounded assessments of United States foreign
policies have been widely documented:
“Bolivian president Evo Morales
criticised US government early today, labelling Obama’s foreign
policy as interventionist and authoritarian[...]The empire is no
solution, capitalism is no solution for humanity either […] that’s
why social movements have to think about new policies to save
humanity from imperialism and capitalism.”
President Evo Morales inspects the guard of honor in Fiji. (Image: Moi)
Morales' latest action was capped off
last week by expelling the USAID from Bolivia, allegedly for
interfering in the country's domestic politics. Bolivia also has
some international disagreements with Chile, regarding maritime
access to the Pacific ocean. It is certainly not missed by some acute
observers, that Chile was also attending the recent Defense Ministers
meeting in Tonga.
All things considered, the South
Pacific region is rapidly undergoing a re-configuration of the
geo-political order. What can be determined of this New Zealand's
deployment of troops in Tonga coupled with Australia's garrison of US
marines in Darwin?
Undoubtedly, the pre-positioning of
military resources in the South Pacific region, dove tails with the
overall objective of a global Full Spectrum Dominance of the US and
it has become increasingly clear, the magnitude and scope of the
'Great Game' in the Pacific region at large.
(l-r) G77 Chair, Voreqe Bainimarama, President Evo Morales, G77 Executive Secretary (Image : MoI)
Somare proposes Fiji to lead MSG humanitarian and response force
By Online Editor
4:12 pm GMT+12, 19/03/2013, Fiji
Fiji has been urged to lead an MSG-led regional humanitarian and response force, to be activated in times of natural disaster.
The force is more needed now, given that Melanesian Spearhead (MSG) countries are situated in an area prone to natural disaster, observed Sir Michael Somare, the former Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea.
He was in Suva this week to launch the Silver Jubilee celebrations of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), which is being celebrated in all the member countries capitals.
Speaking at the launch Monday, Sir Michael said given success of regional co-operative arrangement under the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) and the Bougainville regional Peacekeeping force and Kumul force deployment to Vanuatu, the idea is ‘so far-fetched.’
“This must be seriously considered by our governments. If the wider Forum region is still harbouring some reservation to this proposal then MSG can take a lead.
I note the MSG is progressing this matter through the proposed Humanitarian and Emergency Response Force, said Sir Michael.
The MSG countries – Fiji, FLNKS of New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu – are situated in an area prone to natural disasters.
“Timely response by individual countries is often lacking due to capacity constraints.
This is further compounded by resource limitations thus exacting unnecessary suffering on our peoples.
“More often than not, the devastation itself renders individual governments responses inadequate, said the PNG leader.
The MSG 25th Jubilee celebrations have the theme “Celebrating Melanesian Solidarity and Growth.
(Posted below) Video of FBC TV news segment covering the summary of Sir Michael Somare's speech at the MSG celebrations, including brief excerpts from the Solomon Islands High Commissioner to Fiji, Patterson Oti and Fiji's former Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka.
Dr Roman Grynberg The last three years have certainly been amongst the most difficult in the history of the Pacific Islands Forum. Following the coup by Frank Bainimarama in 2006, the Forum excluded Fiji from its meetings and created an isolation that has officially
continued but has crumbled as more and more of Fiji’s neighbours have
been showing a willingness to deal with the incumbent administration in
Suva.
This isolation of the government in Suva by the Forum was pushed
wholeheartedly by Australia and New Zealand and initially supported in a
very grudging way by the Pacific islands states. Some like Samoa were
ardent supporters of the Forum’s ‘cordon sanitarie’ around Bainimarama’s
administration. Samoa left their man, former Samoan ambassador and
current Secretary-General of the Forum Tuiloma Neroni Slade, to
implement a policy conceived in Canberra and supported by Apia and
Wellington.
The only problem was sitting in Suva it was a difficult for Tuiloma to
do his masters’ bidding when increasingly Bainimarama was able to
undermine the apparent but weak Forum solidarity regarding democracy,
especially in Melanesia as well as amongst the smaller neighbours like
Tuvalu which, while totally financially dependent on Canberra, were
logistically totally dependent upon Fiji.
In tandem with the Forum’s failing Fiji policy, the last three years
have seen the accelerating loss of any faith in the Forum as an
institution that could conceivably represent any interest other than
that of Australia and New Zealand and those governments totally
financially dependent upon them. The first great loss was conceived as a means of dealing with the
islands during the PACER Plus negotiations. The Forum Secretariat
recognised that it could not help the islands in their negotiations for a
trade agreement with Australia and New Zealand.
The formal reason given was that it could not take sides but the real
reason was that the islands no longer trusted the Forum. In fact, the
Forum always seemed to take sides—not in favour of the islands but in
favour of Canberra and Wellington.
All substantial economic documents the organisation produced was given
to Canberra and Wellington first and they were allowed to change
documents before any islands state saw them. It was for this reason that
the islands created the Office of the Chief Trade Adviser in Port Vila
to provide advice during the negotiations that was not controlled by
Canberra.
Last year, under pressure from Papua New Guinea, a special leaders summit occurred in Port Moresby which essentially agreed to the creation of a Pacific ACP Secretariat in PNG, taking away a further function
from the increasingly emasculated Forum Secretariat. In large part, this was driven by PNG’s commercial interests in
dominating the Pacific ACP group agenda but was also supported by those
countries which felt, quite correctly, that excluding Fiji from ACP
meetings at the Forum, relegating officials to SPC meetings and
excluding Bainimarama and his ministers was a step too far.
Fiji, while subject to sanctions by both the Forum and Commonwealth,
had not been excluded from the ACP councils or formally sanctioned by
the European Union. As a result, the Forum’s decision to not include
Fiji in ACP meetings that occur under the auspices of the Forum and not
provide ministers with services was seen as too much.
Roman Grynberg "
In tandem with the Forum’s failing Fiji policy, the last three years have seen the accelerating loss of any faith in the Forum as an institution that could conceivably represent any interest other than that of Australia and New Zealand and those governments totally financially dependent upon them.
The first great loss was conceived as a means of dealing with the islands during the PACER Plus negotiations. The Forum Secretariat recognised that it could not help the islands in their negotiations for a trade agreement with Australia and New Zealand [...]
Tuiloma has overseen the dismantling of the trade and economic functions of the Forum. He has done his masters’ bidding on Fiji and they will be most pleased with him.
But as a superannuated septuagenarian who will trot off into the sunset, how will his legacy look? Not good unless he does something in the next two years with the only remaining economic instrument left in the Forum’s purview—the Pacific Plan.
"
Prior to the Port Moresby meeting, PIFS, clearly sensing that its
position had become untenable, tried to circulate a paper saying it
would support Fiji but it was clearly too late. The Forum has tried to
loudly protest the decision to create a Pacific ACP office, further
hollowing out its economic functions.
There are, of course, several problems with the Pacific ACP leaders’
decision. The first is that who will fund the organisation? Certainly,
based on all the precedents—it will not be the islands who love creating
organisations with highly paid directors but not paying for it
themselves.
Can PNG provide any real assurances that if the EU does fund such a
body that there will be something resembling good financial governance?
And perhaps most importantly, tucked away quietly in Port Moresby, will
it be anything other than a tool for the PNG government and private
sector to advance their interests.
The islands’ decision to move the ACP leaders meeting to PNG will
almost certainly mean that ACP work will also migrate from the Forum. It
may be one decision the other islands will come to regret in the coming
years as PNG expands its oil and gas driven power and influence in the
region.
Tuiloma has just begun his last three-year term and will become in
effect a lame duck late next year when his heir apparent, the
‘eternal-Secretary-General-in-waiting’ and former Fiji Foreign Minister,
Kaliopate Tavola will probably be anointed. Tuiloma has overseen the dismantling of the trade and economic
functions of the Forum. He has done his masters’ bidding on Fiji and
they will be most pleased with him.
But as a superannuated septuagenarian who will trot off into the
sunset, how will his legacy look? Not good unless he does something in
the next two years with the only remaining economic instrument left in
the Forum’s purview—the Pacific Plan.
In theory and on superficial reading, the Pacific Plan constituted the
most serious effort ever by political leaders in the Pacific to address
the fundamental inability of most of the government administrations in
the region to deal with a complex range of issues by virtue of their
small size. There were numerous objectives but essentially it was a political
attempt to pool resources and deal with the absence of economies of
scale in the islands.
The Pacific Plan was a rather typical top-down attempt at reform. It
was initiated not by an islands leader but by then New Zealand Prime
Minister Helen Clark who remained the driving force behind it throughout
2003/2004. An eminent persons group was formed, special leaders summit was called
and islands states sagaciously nodded approval for the Pacific Plan in
2004. Having received an endorsement for her ‘big idea’, Clark could
‘tick the box’ and move on to bigger things.
The only problem was that neither Clark’s officials and certainly not
their Australian counterparts took the Pacific Plan seriously. What
evolved was a classic and cynical bureaucratic response to what was
perceived as an imposed, alien and unnecessary political process.ANZ and regional officials basically took the regional aid programmes
that they were already implementing and renamed them the Pacific Plan.
There was also little or no support from the islands as it soon became
evident that the Plan was merely window dressing, a renaming of whatever
Australia and New Zealand bureaucrats were, in any case, planning to
do. Thus the Pacific Plan, became the walking dead, a political zombie from
a previous decade that continues to live in name only. It failed
because it had no obvious island champions nor any real roots in the
islands.
Now the Pacific Plan is being reviewed by former PNG Prime Minister Sir
Mekere Morauta and if the normal course of such reviews proceed, then
what will emerge are eminently sensible but with minor technocratic
adjustments. Many of the proposals for the real pooling of resources have never
happened and will never be implemented until political leaders at the
Forum stop allowing their bureaucrats to dictate the direction and pace
of integration, ie until they actually lead.
Tuiloma could use the review of the Forum to address the real political
issues that underlie the failure of the Pacific Plan to make any
concrete change in the way Pacific Islands deal with their problems
which are structural in nature. This would give Tuiloma’s tenure as
Secretary-General a real legacy that matters to the future of the
islands.
special meeting in Port
Moresby on Wednesday has ended Fiji’s exclusion from the deliberations
of the Pacific group of the European Union’s ACP (Asia Caribbean
Pacific) association.
That mightn’t sound like the biggest news story around, but it was front-page news in Suva.
It scarcely rated a mention in Australian newspapers but it was bad
news for Canberra, whatever the government might try to make of our
neighbours’ action.
The Pacific Island states agreed to shift the secretariat functions
on trade negotiations for the Pacific ACP group from the Pacific Islands
Forum to Papua New Guinea. The decision weakens both the Pacific
Islands Forum and the influence that Canberra has long enjoyed through
it. Since early 2009, Australia and New Zealand have used their
influence in the Forum to extend Fiji’s exclusion from important
regional affairs like the Pacific ACP meetings, manoeuvring to deem
Fiji’s suspension from the Forum to include joint activities with the
Forum, even where the corresponding body had imposed no such sanctions
on Fiji.
We need to be careful to avoid looking like the South Pacific is an
afterthought to Australia’s broader strategy. While Canberra continues
to talk of the ‘Asian Century’, the Pacific Islanders are certain that
it is an ‘Asia–Pacific Century’.
Our Pacific Island neighbours know that their place in evolving
global geo-politics depends on effective relations with Asia. That’s why
they’re extending and expanding these relationships while strengthening
compatible traditional arrangements. The ACP group has been important
for trade and aid relations with all the EU member states’ former
dependencies. It has become critical as the EU and the ACP states adjust
to changing global economic conditions.
Richard Herr
"
Our Pacific Island neighbours know that their place in evolving global geo-politics depends on effective relations with Asia [...]
The Forum does vital work for the region and is much valued for that but it is verging on a crisis of legitimacy. By entangling sanctions and its wider program of work, it has overplayed its hand politically.
"
Australia is a foundation member of the Forum but isn’t a member of the ACP; a point unlined by the Fiji Sun in its editorial
on the Port Moresby decision. Managing elements of these ties for the
Pacific group through the Forum had been a significant gesture of faith
in the Forum as well as a useful connection for Canberra. But Australia was outflanked when PNG took the Forum Secretariat out
of the regional game by offering to host and to pay for the Pacific ACP
group’s secretarial functions on trade negotiations.
Fijian Interim
Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama wasn’t alone in seeing the PNG gesture
as working to build up the Melanesian Spearhead Group’s (MSG) influence
within the region at the expense of the Forum. This plays to Fiji’s
advantage, which is why it has been active in promoting the MSG (which
includes neither Australia nor New Zealand) over the Forum. This play
was made possible by the ill-advised use of the Forum as a vehicle for
sanctions. The MSG member states—Fiji, PNG, Solomon Islands and
Vanuatu—comprise the largest and most significantly resource rich part
of the Pacific Islands region. It is by far the area of most interest to
Asia.
Others have lined up to support this move. Solomons’ Prime Minister
Gordon Darcy Lilo described the decision in Port Moresby to establish a
Pacific ACP secretariat in Papua New Guinea as a major breakthrough.
This is part of a trend. Since the Bainimarama coup in December 2006,
various Australian governments have also watched impotently as
Australia’s Pacific Island neighbours have moved away from the Forum
towards the Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS) group, which
has taken on the role of regional leadership at the United Nations.
These states, all members of the Forum, have done so on the same grounds
as the Pacific ACP leadership. Like the MSG, PSIDS excludes Australia
and New Zealand and has been accepted by many UN member states as the
more authentic face of the Pacific Islands.
The Forum does vital work for the region and is much valued for that
but it is verging on a crisis of legitimacy. By entangling sanctions and
its wider program of work, it has overplayed its hand politically.
Virtually all the blame of this can be laid at the doorstep of Canberra
and Wellington. For example, the failure to readmit Fiji at this year’s
Forum Leaders Meeting was a serious error of judgment. Foreign Minister Bob Carr’s view of ‘too soon’ contrasts glaringly with President Obama’s recent remarks in Myanmar.
Obama didn’t say that his visit was ‘too soon’, but that it was
intended to strengthen the return to democracy in a country that
reportedly still has hundreds of political prisoners.
The Pacific ACP decision is a direct consequence of Canberra’s
timidity and hesitancy with regard to Fiji. This continues to work
against our own regional interests and those of our neighbours, at a
serious cost to our place amongst them in the Forum.
Richard Herris an honorary research associate at the University of Tasmania’s School of Government.
‘Many of the Pacific Islands countries have already cast
their lot with China and by extension most things that China has to
offer, including telecommunication technologies. If the standoff between
the west and China on the issue of telecommunications security
continues, it could quite easily lead to a trade war or even worse, if
wiser counsels don’t prevail. On its part, China will have to be
forthcoming on opening its doors to western scrutiny’
Political observers in recent years have often discussed the
possibility of the Pacific region turning into the next battleground of
the superpowers. The obvious reasons for their speculation are the race
to increase the superpowers’ influence in a bid to establish
geopolitical hegemony in the world’s largest single geographic feature
and to gain access to the substantial natural resources that lie within
the sovereign boundaries of islands nations—big and small—that dot the
region.
In the past few years especially, the world’s superpowers have made
announcements about their plans for the Pacific islands region with
greater vigour and frequency and followed them up with firm action. For
instance, the United States has followed the People’s Republic of
China’s many initiatives to build up its diplomatic presence in the
islands with bigger embassies and more personnel, as well as new
assistance programmes.
Given these developments, some regional developments, particularly such
as those in Fiji, have changed the complexion of geopolitics in the
region with the Pacific islands’ long-time allies New Zealand and
Australia having serious competition from around the world for the
attention of islands leaders over the past few years. This is borne out
by the fact that there has been a lengthening beeline of countries from
around the world at successive annual forums of Pacific Islands leaders
over the past few years. Earlier this year, international geopolitical analysts and experts even
said that the next arms race might well take place in the Pacific, what
with the United States waking up to the fact that China had made great
progress in extending its circle of influence around the islands region
while it was busy waging pointless wars in the Middle East for more than
a decade.
The conspiracy-minded among analysts find the Pacific an excellent
place for the superpowers to kick-start an arms race with a view to
reviving their global financial crisis-ravaged economies. The Pacific
also seems attractive for believers of this line of reasoning because of
the relatively low potential for collateral damage.
While all these scenarios lurk on the edge of possibility, it is
equally possible that the next big conflict might be triggered by
completely different factors: trade and technology, for example. And
even then, the Pacific Islands region might still have to bare the brunt
of the pain. A taste of how this might pan out began to unfold earlier
this year and reached fever pitch last month in several countries around
the world but most notably in the United States and Australia.
At the centre of the controversy is Chinese telecommunications giant,
Huawei, which has a presence in nearly a hundred countries around the
world including many of the Pacific Islands. While it is not primarily a
telecommunications service provider, it has grown to become one of the
world’s biggest suppliers of information and communication technology
(ICT) hardware and systems in the world.
Islands Business: We Say "[S]ome regional developments, particularly such as those in Fiji, have changed the complexion of geopolitics in the region with the Pacific islands’ long-time allies New Zealand and Australia having serious competition from around the world for the attention of islands leaders over the past few years
"
The United States House Intelligence Committee has classified Huawei as
a security threat because of a number of reasons ranging from the fact
that it was formed by a former Chinese military official to rumours that
it is actually financed by soft loans from the Chinese government to
the tune of some US$30 billion. There is even belief in some quarters
that it is an arm of the Chinese government. There are fears that
Huawei’s equipment, when plugged into a country’s network, can transmit
sensitive data back to its masters in China.
While there is no evidence this has happened, the fears have spread to a
number of nations where Huawei either has already bid or is in the
process of bidding for billions of dollars worth of projects to
establish and upgrade broadband networks. These range from Canada, the
United Kingdom, several countries in Europe and Australia, which also
has said it would bar Huawei from bidding for its nation-wide fast
broadband network.
One of the few western nations that so far has not made any noises is
New Zealand where the company has had a far deeper presence than
Australia. Much of the hardware used by cellphone companies in New
Zealand is Huawei’s. The company has also bid and partnered with an
indigenous business group to provide a link between Australia and New
Zealand—which will be up in the air if Australia sticks to its guns and
prevents Huawei or its constituents from tapping into its network in
Australia.
A couple of months back, Pacific Fibre—co-promoted by New Zealand
millionaire and founder of well-known auction website TradeMe—which
sought to connect Australia, New Zealand and the western United States
fell over, citing its inability to raise some $400 million to complete
the project. Such a figure is not an insurmountable one in international
ICT projects of this scale.
Speculation is now rife that the reason for the falling over could well
have been the refusal by both Australia and the United States to
terminate the undersea cable at both ends because of the heavy
involvement of Chinese companies in the project. This raises the question whether countries that align themselves with
Chinese technology companies, especially in the ICT space, will be
disadvantaged because of the paranoia—justified or not—of several
western countries ranging from the United States to Australia. Most
Pacific Islands nations like New Zealand have opened their arms to cheap
technologies that Huawei and companies like it offer. That is one of
the reasons why telecommunications and data tariffs have continually
fallen in New Zealand and many countries of the region.
Will these mean they will have difficulty in aligning with western
economies? Simplistic as it might look, the problem has the potential to
blow into a crisis, especially if the security threat perception
escalates for any reason. In any case, cyber attacks on government
websites as well as utility networks have been on the increase and there
has been general agreement in the western world that such attacks can
be traced to Chinese sources. Some sources have gone to the extent of
contending that these may even be sponsored by the Chinese state. Many
of the Pacific Islands countries have already cast their lot with China
and by extension most things that China has to offer including
telecommunication technologies. If the standoff between the west and
China on the issue of telecommunications security continues, it could
quite easily lead to a trade war or even worse, if wiser counsels don’t
prevail. On its part, China will have to be forthcoming on opening its
doors to western scrutiny.
So whether it is for geopolitical hegemony, the race for natural
resources or the tug of war over communications technology, the Pacific
and Pacific Islanders will soon find themselves at the epicenter of
developments. And there is little they or their leaders can do about it.
A four-day top level Chinese delegation by visited Fiji late last month
in an effort to strengthen relations with the small Pacific island state
and to counter efforts by the Obama administration to undermine
Beijing’s influence in the region. (Read more)
Traditionally, the South Pacific islands have been considered
strategically insignificant. However, the need for resources, and the
geopolitical shift towards Asia-Pacific have prompted nations to realize
that these small island states control large resource-rich ocean areas
and are increasingly geostrategic.
“Five
trillion dollars of commerce rides on the (Asia-Pacific) sea lanes each
year, and you people are sitting right in the middle of it.”
(USPACOM chief Admiral Samuel Locklear, Pacific Island Forum, Cook Islands, 2012.)
From August 27 - 31, leaders from countries as far afield as India, China and the U.S. converged on the tiny Aitutaki Island in the South Pacific to meet members of the 16-country Pacific Island Forum. The need for
resources and geopolitical rebalancing has raised the profile of the
region so much that, for the first time, a U.S. Secretary of State,
Hillary Clinton, attended the Forum — a clear demonstration that the
U.S. is serious about its Pacific “pivot” to Asia.
The reason is
China. In March last year, Clinton told the U.S. Senate’s Foreign
Relations Committee about the region: “Let’s just talk straight
realpolitik. We are in a competition with China. China is in there every
day in every way, trying to figure out how it’s going to come in behind
us, come in under us.”
Last weekend, U.S. Defence Secretary Leon
Panetta passed by New Zealand reinforcing Clinton’s Forum debut, and
China’s Secretary of National People’s Congress, Wu Bangguo returned
from Fiji after inking several economic cooperation pacts with the
military government there including Chinese assistance for cultural and
educational development and teaching the Chinese language in the Fijian
national curriculum.
According to Wu, Sino-Fijian trade was worth $ 172
million last year, up from 34% in the year prior.
India’s
delegation to the Forum was high profile, led by Minister of State for
External Affairs E Ahamed. Apart from resources, and strategic
positioning, the Pacific also controls a relatively large number of
votes in international fora, and India is keen to secure support for its
bid for a seat for the United Nation’s Security Council.
But one
of India’s strongest allies in the region wasn’t invited – Fiji. A key
item on the Forum’s agenda was whether or not to readmit Fiji. Fiji has
been central to Indian interests in the region. Following the 2006 coup,
at the urging of Australia and New Zealand, sanctions were brought
against Fiji and, whilst also suspended from the Forum in 2009. When
India attempted to assist, it was warded off by Canberra. Consequently,
the Fijian regime fell in deep with the remaining alternative active
player in the region, China, one of the biggest investors in the region
thereby receiving generous economic and military cooperation from
Beijing.
The sanctions are of PIF-origin, and as China is not a member
of the Forum, it is not bound to obey. These sanctions, issued by
Australia, New Zealand, and the EU, resulted in the reduction of their
aid assistance, a restriction on visas or transit for any member of the
Fijian regime, and of course on trade.
The welfare of the more
than 300,000 Fijian Indians in Fiji, and more amongst the Pacific
states, is a core interest for India: a united, stable region decreases
complications for region’s bloc support for India.
Fiji’s
continued suspension is fragmenting the region. Isolated, Fiji
shepherded a more consolidated, mineral-rich, Melanesian Spearhead Group
(MSG)- though created in 1983 it remained docile within the Forum
until, following Fiji’s lead, it was formalised in 2007 taking on a
“Look North” foreign policy cline.
This sub-regional grouping includes
the majority ethnic Melanesian nations of Fiji, Solomon Islands, Papua
New Guinea and Vanuatu, and is backed by China (which has built the MSG
secretariat in Vanuatu). In response, last year, as relations continued
to deteriorate, New Zealand by proxy, helped create a competing
“Polynesian Leaders Group.” comprised of majority ethically Polynesian
nations.
This use of racial politics – the attempt to pit against
each other the normally friendly Melanesians and Polynesians – was
spurred and sponsored by Australia and New Zealand because it seemed to
suit their short-term political goals. Instead, it is creating regional
instability, something that ultimately benefits China. China itself is
also bringing volatility to the region, with increasing cases of crime
and drug and human trafficking linked to Chinese nationals.
Australia
and New Zealand can reverse this trend. Just before and since after
this year's Forum, both country’s leaders have started echoing
reintegration of Fiji into regional bloc, lifting sanctions, and also
even further to incentivize positive developments that will lead to
elections in 2014, as promised by the Bainimarama government. The
U.S. understands the implications and, before the Forum, expressed its
expectation that Fiji be reinstated into the Forum. In spite of wide
support, Australia and New Zealand blocked the move.
This raises
questions about the priorities of some policy makers in Australia and
New Zealand. They cite two reasons for the continued marginalisation of
Fiji:
If Fiji relations are normalised, it may grow as a
more important regional political and economic hub (given its central
location even now most of the regional organisations’ headquarters are
located in Suva), challenging Canberra and Wellington’s role as the
go-to places for Pacific investment and regional insight.
While
most in Wellington and Canberra undoubtedly value their strong
relationship with the West, some policy-makers seem to be tempering that
with a desire to have stronger economic and—as a result increasingly
political–ties with China.
The second point is raising the
most concerns in global capitals. Recently, former Australian Prime
Minister Paul Keating called on the U.S. to “share” the Pacific with
China. And New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Bill English declared that
“Australia is a province of China, and New Zealand is a suburb of
Australia.”
While Australia’s stated reason for the exclusion of
Fiji from the Forum is its abolition of democracy, some influential
figures in Canberra seem to have no problem engaging with even more
autocratic governments that, unlike Fiji, have no plans to reintroduce
democracy. In August, for example, Keating justified engagement with
China by writing: “If we are pressed into the notion only democratic
governments are legitimate, our future is limited to action within some
confederation of democracies.”
Australian and New Zealand foreign
policy is going through an internal civil war, with one side willing to
sacrifice values and the trust of its traditional allies for the
perception of economic gain from China (Wikileaks exposed that Australia pushed Nauru to derecognise Taiwan in favour of Beijing), and the other solidly part of the West.
Myopic
and petty regional policies of Fiji’s marginalisation threw the door
wide open for, and only benefits, China. Challenges to the region are
heightening and so apparent, the U.S. now has to intervene directly to
try to reinvigorate a West-friendly Pacific. Clinton declared the
region “strategically and economically vital and becoming more so,” yet
“big enough for all of us.” But her presence was signal intent to
counter Chinese inroads. Beijing already assumes it has neutered
Australia (and, presumably, doesn’t even bother about New Zealand).
An
editorial in the state-run People’s Daily—on 30th
August in response to the US’s aircraft carrier presence at the
Forum—stated that, in the Pacific, “The U.S. may have evaluated that
Australia alone is no longer enough to hold China at bay.”
For
all the inroads created by inept policies in Fiji, Wu is reported to
have taken a swipe at sanctions imposed on Fiji, and with a symbolic
gesture, as guarantor of Fijian national interests, will oppose
countries that are trying to “bully” Fiji. It effectively means China
does not owe Australia and New Zealand any favours for misplacing their
cards. Secondly, as China thinks its interests are linked with those of
the island countries, this gives China opportunities for wide
justification to intervene in South Pacific security – especially given
the expectation afforded to it as a global power.
The divisive
politics on show at the Forum need to stop. A first step, something that
India can assist with, is welcoming Fiji back to the family, and
helping it through its democratisation.
Tevita
Motulalo is a Researcher at Gateway House: Indian Council on Global
Relations. He is the former Editor of the Tonga Chronicle. He is
currently pursuing a Master's Degree in geopolitics at Manipal
University.
Related: The visit to Fiji of H.E. Wu Bangguo - Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress of the Peoples Republic of China
(video posted below)
U. S think tank, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) hosted a discussion with Assistant Secretary of State, Kurt M. Campbell, which covered for the most part, the Post Forum Dialogue at the 2012 Pacific Islands Forum.
During the Q & A segment, at approx [16.20 min mark], a representative from the Fiji Embassy at Washington D.C, took exception to the remarks made by Campbell alluding that "Fiji had no clear path to democracy" and corrected the erroneous statements .
The Fiji Embassy representative highlighted quintessential progress with respect to the Road map, Electoral processes and the Constitutional Commission, that were not duly recognized by Fiji's metropolitan neighbors- in effect, poisoning the well during the Trilateral meet at the Post-Forum dialogue, resulting in the misrepresentation of facts, by Secretary Campbell.
While in Fiji I was fortunate to meet Pio Tikoduadua, Permanent Secretary – Office of the Prime Minister. Again access was easy to obtain and certainly without the high levels of security that New Zealand politicians have around them. For a country that supposedly is under military control I certainly was left wondering just where are all the troops that need to go back to the barracks.
We discussed the “smart sanctions” and the impact on Fiji.
Contrary to the intention of the “smart sanctions” in forcing Fiji to return to the democracy that we want for them, they have in fact helped Fiji to find their won way forward. Trade and Tourism has in fact grown despite the sanctions.
The sanctions though have caused a deep resentment of the New Zealand and Australian governments. Mainly because the effects have been at a deeply personal level and have affected the health of people. They believe that the sanctions have failed the foreign policy goals of New Zealand and in fact have strengthened Fiji internationally and economically.
Here is a short summary [video posted below] of the pertinent points:
Pio Tikoduadua was openly dismissive of Phil Goff and his comments about Fiji prior to the South Pacific Forum. New Zealand’s neo-colonial attitude is not appreciated and the Fijian people and government find it insulting and condescending.
The discussion around the independence of the judiciary and the effect of the sanctions on recruiting judges and officials. Tikoduadua believes that New Zealand’s and Australia’s belief that their judges and lawyers are the only ones that somehow qualified to work in Fiji is quaint and condescending and without merit.
The discussion over the Constitutional Reform process in Fiji was refreshing and one that perhaps New Zealand can learn from. There are no limits to the constitutional discussion and as I drove around Fiji there were constant advertisements encouraging people to participate and have their say about the Constitutional framework.
Which then led into a discussion about the three constitutions that Fiji has suffered under, all that were “cooked up” by politicians and the processes ignored the people of Fiji.
The collusion of politicians and the Great Council of Chiefs to produce a constitution that created racial separatism that could only have caused problems. For these reasons they believe that Fiji needs to create its own Constitution.
The full audio [posted below]of the interview is below:
by: Richard Herr and Anthony Bergin August 03, 201212:00AM
FOREIGN Minister Bob Carr's announcement this week that Australia
and Fiji are to restore full diplomatic relations and that travel
restrictions on Suva will be eased has engendered some passionate
debate.
Some analysts explained that Australia's turn around on its policy settings on Fiji was to preserve our leadership role in the
neighbourhood. Others dismissed any suggestion that Carr's move was a cave-in to Suva that might risk our regional hegemony. Fiji's
move away from its traditional friends isn't much different from the
rest of world adjusting to China's rise in the Asian Century.
But
that didn't stop some arguing that Canberra's shift from it's hard line
stance on Fiji was driven by urgent pleas from Washington that
Australia re-engage to stop Fiji's slide away from Western influence,
especially in the direction of China.
Richard Herr & Anthony Bergin "
[...] Canberra's shift from it's hard line stance on Fiji was driven by urgent pleas from Washington that Australia re-engage to stop Fiji's slide away from Western influence[...]
Using the Pacific Islands Forum against Fiji was tantamount to cutting off our nose to spite our public face in the Pacific Islands.
"
Our trade unions and other
groups have long supported a strong exile and expatriate lobby in
demanding that Australia not have any truck with an illegitimate and
"interim" government in Suva.
But now that Australia has decided to reattach the high
commissioner's brass plate to the chancery in Suva, serious thought
ought to be given to how to use the more elevated relationship.
The
Fiji government hasn't deviated one jot from its roadmap for elections
in 2014 since Prime Minister Bainimarama announced it in July 2009. Keeping
travel sanctions won't assist restoring parliamentary democracy to
Fiji: they have simply resulted in capable Fijians being deterred from
contributing to good governance in their own country and been partly
responsible for Suva looking beyond its traditional friends to keep the
country afloat.
Life goes on in Fiji with or without sanctions.
But while they are there, they are perceived by Suva as a calculated
insult against the Fiji government that ensures that Suva looks to other
partners.
Following Foreign Minister Carr's very positive
announcement this week we should move to restore relations between our
military and Fiji's armed forces. We need to build trust with
Fiji's military, who will continue be somewhere between the background
and the foreground depending on the constitution.
We should open
Duntroon, the Defence Academy and Staff Colleges to Fijian Defence force
members. After all, we built on military connections with Jakarta when
Indonesia was in transition to democracy.
We need to re-engage
with Fiji not out of fear of Suva's Asian connections but to ensure
balance in these new relationships. This balance is especially important
for our regional relationships with the Pacific Islands.
Fiji is
vital to any effective regional system. Using the Pacific Islands Forum
against Fiji was tantamount to cutting off our nose to spite our public
face in the Pacific Islands.
The Pacific Islands Forum is in
serious difficulties due to having been sidelined by the imbroglio over
Fiji. The regional torch is being carried by other arrangements, such as
the Melanesian Spearhead Group, where our voice isn't present or
welcome.
If the Forum is to prosper then Fiji should be brought back into a leadership role.
Richard
Herr and Anthony Bergin are the co-authors of Our Near Abroad:Australia
and Pacific islands regionalism, Australian Strategic Policy Institute Source:The Australian
If you follow this blog you read in May about the 'thaw" reported today on Stuff.
No sign yet of our democracy working to ask how to avoid such bipartisan stupidity again.
Presumably the lack of leaks from demoralised MFAT folk, blaming
their political masters, means they were equally if not more culpable.
The most worrying sign of our vulnerability to bad judgment on
matters foreign is in the continuing lack of MSM exploration of why
this debacle went unchallenged. I suspect a shared chattering class
eagerness to treat good intentions as sufficient for policy formation.
Unelected Australian Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, was interviewed by
Radio Australia regarding the upcoming meeting with his New Zealand,
Fiji counterparts in Sydney on July 3oth 2012. In the interview, Carr was
hesitant to acknowledge Fiji's progress towards democracy and would relax sanctions once irreversible
progress towards democracy has been attained. The interviewer alluded that Carr wanted a more accelerated pace in Fiji's efforts.
It appears a scripted good cop-bad cop scenario has been mapped out.
New Zealand is acting out the good cop- recently investigating a
conspiracy to assassinate Fiji's Prime Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama,
involving the fugitive and nemesis Roko Ului Mara, raided the home of
a former SDL politician in New Zealand and softened the travel sanctions.
Playing the 'bad cop' -Bob Carr, the Australian Foreign Minister's new
tact- shift the proverbial goal posts towards the Utopian end
of the democracy spectrum.
Bob Carr and Henry Kissinger, in San Francisco, California.
The planned meeting in Sydney was to update the Australian Foreign
Minister on Fiji's progress towards democracy; since Carr was too busy in secret talks with his handlers at the controversial Bohemian Grove as outlined in a posting in his own blog.
The irony of the unelected Bob Carr discussing Fiji's democracy, meeting with a U.S Presidential contender,
co-mingling with Henry Kissinger, Condoleeza Rice and other neo-conservative stalwarts of
the same ilk is astonishing.
The question is worth asking -what was secretly discussed in Bohemian Grove, that involved Fiji, Pacific geopolitics and other world affairs, that is presently changing with break neck speed?
Bob Carr's recent remarks on Radio Australia, dismissed any proposals for Australia to become a broker in the South China Sea dispute; may just have been policy skulduggery, handed down to him at Monte Rio, Sonoma County. Is Australia's Foreign Policy formulated in the Bohemian Grove? Carr's response to a blog comment in his blog is self explanatory, "I don't write
the rules. But have a job to do for Australia".
Over the past two weeks, American military commanders and strategic
analysts, undoubtedly acting in close consultation with the Obama
administration, have publicly criticized the size of Australia’s defense
budget.
The criticisms amount to an open intervention into
Australian politics, seeking to pressure the minority Labor government
to boost military spending in order to ensure that Australian forces can
serve as a credible partner in the US preparations for a confrontation
with China in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Labor government has
already clearly aligned itself with the US. In 2009, it released a Defense White Paper, which named China as a potential threat for the
first time, and announced that Australia would spend over $100 billion
on new ships, aircraft and other military hardware during the next two
decades.
That alignment was intensified after Julia Gillard was
installed as prime minister in mid-2010. The Obama administration
tacitly backed the ousting of her predecessor, Kevin Rudd, in an
inner-party political coup as he was regarded as being insufficiently in
tune with Washington’s confrontational approach to China.
WSWS
"
Obama administration’s concentration of US military power in the Asia-Pacific
“is not an opportunity for a free ride by anybody—not Japan, not Australia, or anybody else."
In
November 2011, Gillard and President Barack Obama announced agreements
to develop key staging bases for US air, sea and marine operations in
northern and western Australia, requiring major upgrades to ports and
airbases. Earlier this year, plans were unveiled to develop the Cocos
Islands in the Indian Ocean as a base for US drone aircraft, also
necessitating hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure
development.
The US-Australia agreements form one component of
the US “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific. The Obama administration has sought
to cement alliances, strategic partnerships and basing arrangements with
a number of countries in Asia, with the intention of encircling China.Washington
is now sending a blunt message to Canberra that having committed to the
US, it must meet the cost of ramping up the size and capabilities of
its armed forces.
On July 13, the head of US Pacific Command,
Admiral Samuel Locklear, told journalists after meeting Gillard in
Canberra that he was “concerned” that Australian military spending was
well below the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) standard of 2
percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Locklear stated: “There are
many nations that don’t meet that from time to time, and so it’s not for
me to comment on how the Australian people decide to do it, but I would
hope that in the security environment that we are in that there is a
long-term view of defense planning that has the proper level of
resources behind it.”
Locklear’s comments were the first public
US reaction to the Labor government’s decision, revealed in its May
budget, to cut $5.5 billion from defence spending over the next four
years, as part of its efforts to meet the demands of the financial
markets to return the budget to surplus. He focused on one of the most
expensive planned Australian defence acquisitions—a new fleet of 12
submarines that could significantly contribute to US-led operations to
block China’s access to the crucial sea-lanes between the Indian and
Pacific Oceans. The fleet could cost as much as $30 billion.
The
US admiral declared: “If you’re going to build a submarine force, you
can take years to figure out how to make that cost effective and get
what you need out of it… I would hope that as the Australians work
through that, that they recognize and contemplate this.” The US
ambassador in Canberra, Jeffrey Bleich, had stated in February that the
US would be prepared to sell or lease Australia a fleet of American
nuclear submarines to ensure that the Australian Navy had a war-fighting
capability that Washington viewed as “crucial to security.” In May,
however, the Labor government made no decision about how the new
submarines would be financed. Instead, it deferred the acquisition for
two years, pending another review of possible options. It also deferred
for several years the purchase of some F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.
According
to Australian media reports, Admiral Locklear’s criticisms of
Australian military spending were repeated on July 17 during a
Washington meeting between Duncan Lewis, the head of the Australian
Defence Department, and his Pentagon counterparts. The issue was
publicly canvassed the next day by Richard Armitage, an assistant
secretary of state under the Bush administration and prominent strategic
analyst.
Armitage bluntly told the annual Australian American
Leadership Dialogue in Washington on July 18: “Australia’s defense
budget is inadequate. It’s about Australia’s ability to work as an ally
of the US. I would say you’ve got to look at 2 percent of GDP.” In an
interview with the Australian, he said the Obama
administration’s concentration of US military power in the Asia-Pacific
“is not an opportunity for a free ride by anybody—not Japan, not
Australia, or anybody else.”
In an indication of the White House’s involvement, the Australian observed: “Armitage is willing to say what is widely said off the record in Washington.”
Opposition
Liberal leader Tony Abbott, in Washington for the Leadership Dialogue
and to cultivate support for his party from the US establishment,
endorsed these criticisms when addressing the right-wing think-tank, the
Heritage Foundation. Abbott condemned Labor’s spending cuts, which
reduced defence from 1.8 percent of GDP in last year’s budget to 1.56
percent, saying this was the lowest level since 1938. “That is quite a
concern,” he declared, “as we do not live in a benign environment, we do
not live in benign times.”
Several Australian commentators
echoed US demands last weekend endorsing the call for the military
budget to be increased to at least 2 percent of GDP. That figure would
amount to more than $30 billion a year or $6 billion more than the
current allocation.
Sydney Morning Herald political
editor Peter Hartcher, focused on increased Chinese military spending
and growing tensions over the conflicting territorial claims between
China and other states in the South China and East China Seas. “It is a
time of rising risk of war, even if only by accident,” he wrote. Australian
foreign editor Greg Sheridan wrote that Washington had interpreted the
Australian budget cuts as “an ominous erosion of capacity in the US
alliance system within Asia” in conditions where regional tensions could
lead to conflict.
Right-wing pundit Piers Akerman declared in the Sunday Telegraph:
“The US is saying bluntly that Australia is not pulling its weight on
defense and that the implications of letting down the side in this
manner are enormous and long-ranging.”
The US intervention over
the Australian defense budget demonstrates that Washington’s
confrontational stance against China, embraced by the Gillard
government, necessarily means a stepped-up assault on the social and
democratic rights of the working class, as well as the danger of a
catastrophic war.
Amid the worsening global economic crisis,
greater military spending can be paid for only by drastic austerity
cutbacks to social programs and infrastructure, particularly in
health care, education and welfare. If Gillard baulks, the next
intervention from Washington may well be behind-the-scenes support for
ousting her as prime minister.