DOCSLIB.ORG

Living with the Dragon

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Living with the Dragon POLICY BRIEF June 2011 PROFESSOR ALAN DUPONT Living with the Dragon: Non-resident Senior Fellow, Lowy Institute for International Why Australia Needs a Policy China Strategy Michael Hintze Professor and Director, Centre for International Security What is the problem? Studies, University of Sydney If, metaphorically, Australia rode to prosperity on the back of a sheep in the last century, our skill in riding the Chinese dragon will determine our Tel: +61 2 9351 3092 prosperity in this century. Yet despite its obvious importance, Australia has [email protected] failed to grasp the full implications of China’s meteoric rise or the risk of conflict in the Western Pacific. Our approach to China is fragmented, superficial, overly focused on raw-material exports, conflicted, ambivalent and under-resourced. Getting China wrong will have seriously detrimental consequences for our future security and growth. What should be done? We need a coherent, national approach to China that matches means with ends and is informed by a clear appreciation of the drivers of Chinese strategic policy particularly in the Western Pacific, which is the most likely arena of confrontation between China and the United States. Kowtowing or muscling up to China are equally flawed strategies. Smart power and astute diplomacy are better ways of hedging against the prospect of a new hegemony in Asia. A well-conceived and implemented China strategy would help focus the Government’s mind on the broader significance of the Middle Kingdom’s re- emergence as a great power, close the gap between our actions and rhetoric, and ensure that our objectives are achievable and consistent with our wider foreign policy and national security interests. The strategy should be shaped by the answers to four key questions: What do we want from China? What LOWY INSTITUTE FOR capacity do we have to shape China’s policies? How can we maintain our INTERNATIONAL POLICY freedom of action while benefitting from China’s rise? What can we do to 31 Bligh Street ensure that the United States and China avoid a hegemonic conflict in Asia Sydney NSW 2000 and the Western Pacific that would be disastrous for regional order and Tel: +61 2 8238 9000 Fax: +61 2 8238 9005 economic growth? www.lowyinstitute.org The Lowy Institute for International Policy is an independent international policy think tank. Its mandate ranges across all the dimensions of international policy debate in Australia — economic, political and strategic — and it is not limited to a particular geographic region. Its two core tasks are to: • produce distinctive research and fresh policy options for Australia’s international policy and to contribute to the wider international debate. • promote discussion of Australia’s role in the world by providing an accessible and high- quality forum for discussion of Australian international relations through debates, seminars, lectures, dialogues and conferences. Lowy Institute Policy Briefs are designed to address a particular, current policy issue and to suggest solutions. They are deliberately prescriptive, specifically addressing two questions: What is the problem? What should be done? The views expressed in this paper are entirely the author’s own and not those of the Lowy Institute for International Policy. Policy Brief Living with the Dragon For the first time as a nation Australia Defence White Paper, which cannot seem to confronts a powerful, confident China which decide whether China, or the United States, is has evolved from a threat to a partner and is likely to emerge as the dominant regional state now our most important source of and singles out China for gratuitous advice international students and export market. In about its international behaviour.4 The White 2010, there were more than 150,000 Chinese Paper reflects a broader strategic ambivalence students at tertiary institutions in Australia about China. On the one hand we extol the compared with 15,000 ten years ago. benefits of an enhanced bilateral relationship Merchandise trade with China is growing so while on the other we embark on one of the rapidly that it will soon be larger than our largest military build-ups in Australia’s third, fourth and fifth next largest markets peacetime history, aimed squarely at a putative combined.1 This extraordinary rate of growth China threat.5 Small wonder that some Chinese in trade is unprecedented and accelerating. commentators are jaundiced about our Unfortunately, the full impact of this historic protestations of friendship and believe our transformation is only vaguely grasped in actions betray our rhetoric.6 Australia. An essential prerequisite to developing an Aside from a frank and open debate about informed China strategy is a better appreciation China we need to think strategically about the of the structural challenge to the international country that is more likely to determine our system of China’s rise and the drivers of its prosperity than any other in this century. One foreign and strategic policy.7 Neither is well of the outcomes of a national China debate understood in Australia, a failing which has should be a China strategy which clearly impeded the development of a coherent, articulates what we want from the relationship national approach to China and a vision for the as well as understanding what China seeks. future relationship beyond the important, but This strategy should aim to maximise the still narrow confines of our resources trade. benefits to both countries while ensuring that Above all we need to better understand the each understands the limits to a partnership dynamics of the rapidly evolving relationship which is founded on many shared interests but between China and the United States, the states fewer shared values, even though the values gap with the greatest capacity to shape Australia’s between Australia and China is less profound security environment. than it was thirty years ago.2 Foreign Minister and China hand, Kevin Rudd, What does history tell us about China’s has provided some much needed clarity on the future behaviour? long-term importance of China to Australia in his recent speeches.3 But the Gillard History tells us that a rising great power like Government, as a whole, has yet to formulate a China inevitably challenges the existing China strategy and the signals we send to international order and by definition the place Beijing are, all too often, conflicted and and power of the previously dominant state. confusing. A prime example is the 2009 Over the past 500 years, six of the seven Page 3 Policy Brief Living with the Dragon hegemonic challenges to the existing order have foreshadowing how a powerful China might led to serious conflict.8 We also know that seek to assert its hegemony over the region. strong economic and trade links between Reversing the losses and humiliations suffered aspiring and incumbent hegemons do not, of as a consequence of Western colonialism may themselves, reduce the risk of conflict, as appeal to Chinese nationalism and promise a Britain and Germany demonstrated a century measure of historical redemption. But China’s ago when their deepening economic revanchism has done little to build confidence interdependence failed to prevent them from that a Pax Sinica would be demonstrably fairer, going to war in 1914. So it would be a mistake more stable and peaceful than Pax Americana. to believe that strengthening ties between China and the United States make military conflict between them unthinkable. A Chinese Monroe Doctrine? A second insight concerns the nature of the History aside, liberal hopes that the Middle Chinese state. Some liberals argue that the Kingdom’s rise would be essentially benign unique character, cultural identity and have been dampened by Beijing’s more assertive historical experience of China makes it recent behaviour, especially in the Western intrinsically less aggressive than other nations – Pacific, bringing an abrupt end to China’s that the Middle Kingdom is an exceptional fifteen-year charm offensive. Of greatest state and marches to a different foreign policy concern is Beijing’s evident determination to tune.9 However, the proposition that China has aggressively defend its claims to disputed historically been a less aggressive or islands, waters and resources in the East and expansionist state than its Western or Eastern South China Seas, its continuing hard line on counterparts does not withstand scrutiny. Like US arms sales to Taiwan and differences with all powerful polities, and in common with the the United States over freedom of navigation. United States, China has a long tradition of China’s relations with the other major Asian territorial expansionism and of subduing or powers – Japan and India – have become coercing neighbouring people and states. increasingly testy and Australia’s Southeast Although different in character from European Asian neighbours are fearful that China will colonialism, the end game of China’s tributary pay only lip service to regional egalitarianism state system was, nevertheless, the imposition as it becomes more powerful, economically and of a Chinese suzerain over neighbouring people militarily. China’s tolerance of North Korea’s and polities, a point not lost today on fellow provocative actions also worries other regional Asians. states. While Beijing regards ‘reunification’ with At the heart of anxieties about China’s future Taiwan and the pacification of Tibet as an military intentions is the People’s Liberation internal matter
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Radical Islamist Groups in the Modern Age
    WORKING PAPER NO. 376 RADICAL ISLAMIST GROUPS IN THE MODERN AGE: A CASE STUDY OF HIZBULLAH Lieutenant-Colonel Rodger Shanahan Canberra June 2003 National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Shanahan, Rodger, 1964-. Radical Islamist Groups in the Modern Age: A Case Study of Hizbullah Bibliography. ISBN 0 7315 5435 3. 1. Hizballah (Lebanon). 2. Islamic fundamentalism - Lebanon. 3. Islam and politics - Lebanon. 4. Terrorism - Religious aspects - Islam. I. Title. (Series : Working paper (Australian National University. Strategic and Defence Studies Centre) ; no.376). 322.42095692 Strategic and Defence Studies Centre The aim of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, which is located in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies in the Australian National University, is to advance the study of strategic problems, especially those relating to the general region of Asia and the Pacific. The centre gives particular attention to Australia’s strategic neighbourhood of Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific. Participation in the centre’s activities is not limited to members of the university, but includes other interested professional, diplomatic and parliamentary groups. Research includes military, political, economic, scientific and technological aspects of strategic developments. Strategy, for the purpose of the centre, is defined in the broadest sense of embracing not only the control and application of military force, but also the peaceful settlement of disputes that could cause violence. This is the leading academic body in Australia specialising in these studies. Centre members give frequent lectures and seminars for other departments within the ANU and other universities and Australian service training institutions are heavily dependent upon SDSC assistance with the strategic studies sections of their courses.
    [Show full text]
  • Grand Strategy, National Security and the Australia Defence Force
    = äçïó=áåëíáíìíÉ=éÉêëéÉÅíáîÉë dê~åÇ=píê~íÉÖóI=k~íáçå~ä=pÉÅìêáíó= ~åÇ=íÜÉ=^ìëíê~äá~å=aÉÑÉåÅÉ=cçêÅÉ= aê=^ä~å=aìéçåí= j~ó=OMMR= = The Lowy Institute for International Policy is an independent international policy think tank based in Sydney, Australia. Its mandate ranges across all the dimensions of international policy debate in Australia – economic, political and strategic – and it is not limited to a particular geographic region. Its two core tasks are to: • produce distinctive research and fresh policy options for Australia’s international policy and to contribute to the wider international debate. • promote discussion of Australia’s role in the world by providing an accessible and high quality forum for discussion of Australian international relations through debates, seminars, lectures, dialogues and conferences. Lowy Institute Perspectives are occasional papers and speeches on international events and policy. The views expressed in this paper are the author’s own and not those of the Lowy Institute for International Policy. Grand Strategy, National Security and the Australian Defence Force Alan Dupont Is it an oxymoron to talk about a grand strategy for Australia? After all, we have rarely articulated a national strategy and certainly never a grand one. For much of our history a filial attachment to the national designs of Britain and later the United States, constrained our capacity to think for ourselves. Fortunately that era has long past. Since the late 1960s governments of all political persuasions have given considerable thought
    [Show full text]
  • New Cold War: De-Risking US-China Conflict
    JUNE 2020 New Cold War: De-risking US-China conflict BY ALAN DUPONT RESEARCH FELLOW, HINRICH FOUNDATION Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4 Structure of this report 5 RECOMMENDATIONS 6 CHAPTER 1: THE TRADE WAR 10 Origins of the trade war 10 Leveling the playing field 11 Box: Why the Doha Round failed 12 Beijing’s perspective and strategy 14 The phase one trade deal 16 Box: Trade deal doubts 17 Implications for international trade 18 Structural tensions 19 Box: China’s challenge to WTO rules 20 Geopolitical Implications 20 CHAPTER 2: THE TECH WAR 23 Box: Digital exchanges more valuable than trade 24 China’s techno-mercantilism 24 US fears of a cyber “Pearl Harbour” 25 The view from Beijing 26 Reconciliation, separation or divorce? 27 Impact of the coronavirus 29 Box: Calls for hard decoupling 30 Box: The costs of decoupling 31 ‘Balkanising’ the internet 31 Huawei: national champion or ‘stalking horse’ for China? 34 Speed versus security 36 China’s response 36 Artificial intelligence, quantum computing and semiconductors 37 Winning the tech war 38 Box: Security implications for 5G 40 CHAPTER 3: THE FOOTHILLS OF A NEW COLD WAR 41 Why a Cold War? 41 Competing strategic ambitions 42 US military decline 43 China’s military build-up 43 Political warfare and ‘unrestricted’ war 44 The Pence indictment 45 Beijing returns fire 47 Cold War parallels 48 Box: Was the Cold War avoidable? 50 The historical record 50 Box: The Quingguo and Rosencrance case studies 52 HINRICH FOUNDATION REPORT - NEW COLD WAR: DE-RISKING US-CHINA CONFLICT Copyright © Alan Dupont and Hinrich Foundation.
    [Show full text]
  • Full Report for Australia's Maritime Strategy
    The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia Australia’s Maritime Strategy Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade June 2004 Canberra Chairman’s Foreword The rise of non-state actors, failing states, terrorism and the threat of weapons of mass destruction have caused nations to review their national security objectives and strategies. Australia is not alone in this challenge. At the same time, Australia must plan and prepare against conventional threats to its security. It is essential, therefore, that Australia’s defence and national security strategies are modern and flexible enough to deal with all contingencies. The inquiry into Australia’s maritime strategy has provided an opportunity to examine the relevance and effectiveness of our defence objectives and strategies. Maritime strategies are significant in military planning because they provide the means to apply power flexibly over a range of contingencies and areas. Modern maritime strategy involves air, sea and land forces operating jointly to influence events in the littoral together with traditional blue water maritime concepts of sea denial and sea control. The role and influence of maritime strategies are therefore a significant feature of credible military strategies. The inquiry found that there was the need for a comprehensive national security strategy (NSS) which would articulate all the elements that the Australian Government has at its disposal to address issues of national security. A national security strategy would address more than just issues of defence. It would address Australia’s key interests such as economic, business, diplomatic, trade and environmental. The NSS should indicate where our military strategy fits within this ‘grand strategy.’ Australia’s interests are not just limited to our territory but stretch throughout the region and globally.
    [Show full text]
  • National Asset: 50 Years of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre~ANU Press
    A NATIONAL ASSET 50 YEARS OF THE STRATEGIC AND DEFENCE STUDIES CENTRE A NATIONAL ASSET 50 YEARS OF THE STRATEGIC AND DEFENCE STUDIES CENTRE EDITED BY DESMOND BALL AND ANDREW CARR Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at press.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Title: A national asset : 50 years of the Strategic & Defence Studies Centre (SDSC) / editors: Desmond Ball, Andrew Carr. ISBN: 9781760460563 (paperback) 9781760460570 (ebook) Subjects: Australian National University. Strategic and Defence Studies Centre--History. Military research--Australia--History. Other Creators/Contributors: Ball, Desmond, 1947- editor. Carr, Andrew, editor. Dewey Number: 355.070994 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design and layout by ANU Press. This edition © 2016 ANU Press Contents About the Book . vii Contributors . ix Foreword: From 1966 to a Different Lens on Peacemaking . xi Preface . xv Acronyms and Abbreviations . xix List of Plates . xxi 1 . Strategic Thought and Security Preoccupations in Australia . 1 Coral Bell 2 . Strategic Studies in a Changing World . 17 T.B. Millar 3 . Strategic Studies in Australia . 39 J.D.B. Miller 4 . From Childhood to Maturity: The SDSC, 1972–82 . 49 Robert O’Neill 5 . Reflections on the SDSC’s Middle Decades . 73 Desmond Ball 6 . SDSC in the Nineties: A Difficult Transition . 101 Paul Dibb 7 .
    [Show full text]
  • Full Spectrum Defence: Re-Thinking the Fundamentals of Australian Defence Strategy
    Full spectrum defence: Re-thinking the fundamentals of Alan Dupont March 2015 Australian defence strategy FULL SPECTRUM DEFENCE: RE-THINKING THE FUNDAMENTALS OF AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE STRATEGY The Lowy Institute for International Policy is an independent policy think tank. Its mandate ranges across all the dimensions of international policy debate in Australia – economic, political and strategic – and it is not limited to a particular geographic region. Its two core tasks are to: • produce distinctive research and fresh policy options for Australia’s international policy and to contribute to the wider international debate. • promote discussion of Australia’s role in the world by providing an accessible and high-quality forum for discussion of Australian international relations through debates, seminars, lectures, dialogues and conferences. Lowy Institute Analyses are short papers analysing recent international trends and events and their policy implications. The views expressed in this paper are entirely the author’s own and not those of the Lowy Institute for International Policy. FULL SPECTRUM DEFENCE: RE-THINKING THE FUNDAMENTALS OF AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE STRATEGY EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Australia’s inability to clearly and succinctly define its defence strategy is a perennial failing that will have serious policy and operational consequences if not addressed. Australia’s recent defence white papers are part of the problem: they lack coherence, their messaging is poor, and many of their underlying assumptions and planning practices are questionable. The forthcoming defence white paper provides the first real opportunity for the Abbott government to carry out a much-needed reset of Australia’s defence and military strategies. In place of a maritime strategy, Australia needs to adopt a “full spectrum” approach to defence that can provide protection against military threats from outer space and cyber space, as well as the conventional domains of land, sea and air.
    [Show full text]
  • Australia and East Timor Crisis of 1999
    Crisis PoliCymaking Crisis PoliCymaking australia and the east timor Crisis of 1999 DaviD Connery THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY E P R E S S E P R E S S Published by ANU E Press The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at: http://epress.anu.edu.au/policymaking_citation.html National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Connery, David. Title: Crisis policymaking [electronic resource] : Australia and the East Timor crisis of 1999 / David Connery. ISBN: 9781921666568 (pbk.) 9781921666575 (eBook : pdf) Series: Canberra papers on strategy and defence ; no. 176. Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Subjects: Australia--Politics and government. Australia--Foreign relations--Timor-Leste. Timor-Leste--Foreign relations--Australia. Dewey Number: 320.60994 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. The Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence series is a collection of publications arising principally from research undertaken at the SDSC. Canberra Papers have been peer reviewed since 2006. All Canberra Papers are available for sale: visit the SDSC website at <http://rspas. anu.edu.au/sdsc/canberra_papers.php> for abstracts and prices. Electronic copies (in pdf format) of most SDSC Working Papers published since 2002 may be downloaded for free from the SDSC website at <http://rspas.anu.edu.au/sdsc/working_papers.php>. The entire Working Papers series is also available on a ‘print on demand’ basis.
    [Show full text]
  • East Asia's Maritime Disputes: Fishing in Troubled Waters
    Alan Dupont and Christopher G. Baker East Asia’s Maritime Disputes: Fishing in Troubled Waters Few doubt that China’s rise is this era’s principal driver of strategic change, just as the United States’ equally influential ascendancy shaped the last. But earlier optimism that the Middle Kingdom’s re-emergence as a major power would be largely benign is fading as evidence mounts that Beijing is determined to press its territorial and resource claims in the vitally important seas of the Western Pacific. In barely the blink of a geopolitical eye, China’s once lauded charm offensive has given way to exactly the kind of coercive behavior its critics have long predicted.1 In a 3,000-mile maritime arc running from the East China Sea to the southern reaches of the South China Sea, Beijing is at loggerheads with many of its neighbors, including erstwhile friends, over several linked territorial and resource disputes. If not wisely managed, these disputes could bring East Asia’s long peace to a premature and bloody end. The need to protect vital maritime trade routes and secure energy resources that lie under the East and South China Seas goes some way to explaining China’s assertive approach to off-shore territorial disputes, including its claim to most of the South China Sea.2 But conventional narratives have largely ignored the significance of valuable marine living resources in catalyzing the dangerous mix of conflicts in the Western Pacific and the role of China’s fishing and paramilitary fleets (the various Chinese fleets responsible for fisheries protection, customs, maritime surveillance, law enforcement, and border Alan Dupont is Professor of International Security at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and can be reached at [email protected].
    [Show full text]
  • Security Trends in the Asia-Pacific Region
    WORKING PAPER NO. 380 SECURITY TRENDS IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION: AN EMERGING COMPLEX ARMS RACE Desmond Ball Canberra November 2003 National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Ball, Desmond, 1947- Security Trends in the Asia-Pacific Region: An Emerging Complex Arms Race ISBN 0 7315 5445 0. 1. National Security - Pacific Area. 2. National Security - Asia. 3. Arms race - Asia. 4. Arms race - Pacific Area. 5. Asia - Military policy. 6. Pacific Area - Military policy. I. The Australian National University . Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. II. Title. (Series: Working paper (The Australian National University. Strategic and Defence Studies Centre); no. 380). 327.174 Strategic and Defence Studies Centre The aim of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, which is located in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies in The Australian National University, is to advance the study of strategic problems, especially those relating to the general region of Asia and the Pacific. The centre gives particular attention to Australia’s strategic neighbourhood of Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific. Participation in the centre’s activities is not limited to members of the university, but includes other interested professional, diplomatic and parliamentary groups. Research includes military, political, economic, scientific and technological aspects of strategic developments. Strategy, for the purpose of the centre, is defined in the broadest sense of embracing not only the control and application of military force, but also the peaceful settlement of disputes that could cause violence. This is the leading academic body in Australia specialising in these studies. Centre members give frequent lectures and seminars for other departments within The Australian National University and other universities and Australian service training institutions are heavily dependent upon SDSC assistance with the strategic studies sections of their courses.
    [Show full text]
  • The Taiwan Test: How to Keep Democracy Alive in Asia Dr Mark Harrison, Natasha Kassam and Dr Alan Dupont with Rowan Callick OBE FAIIA
    The Taiwan Test: How to Keep Democracy Alive in Asia Dr Mark Harrison, Natasha Kassam and Dr Alan Dupont with Rowan Callick OBE FAIIA Wednesday 30 June 2021: 5pm for 5:30pm-7pm AEST Dyason House, 124 Jolimont Road, East Melbourne, VIC 3002 For those with an interest in the Indo-Pacific, the political uncertainty and tension surrounding Taiwan – officially the Republic of China – is cause for constant debate. While Cross-Strait relations and the competing narratives between the mainland China and Taiwan continue to burgeon, analysts and observers describe the issues surrounding Taiwan, chiefly its political independence and national security as becoming increasingly “hotter”. President Tsai-Ing Wen and her ruling Democratic Progressive Party have openly opposed the militarisation of the island’s surrounds and have called upon allies, like Australia and the US, to ensure Taiwan’s sovereignty remains intact. As a neighbouring democracy, what exactly is Australia’s Taiwan policy? How is it managed alongside chilling relations with China? As tensions escalate, what do experts see as the next flashpoint in the region? AIIA Victoria invites you to join a panel discussion with Dr Mark Harrison, Natasha Kassam, Dr Alan Dupont and moderated by Rowan Callick. Dr Mark Harrison is Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Tasmania in the Politics and International Relations Program in the School of Social Sciences. He is also an Adjunct Director of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University. His academic work examines contemporary culture and politics in the Chinese-speaking world, using a distinctive theoretically informed style and with a particular interest in Taiwan.
    [Show full text]
  • MITIGATING the NEW COLD WAR: Managing US-China Trade, Tech and Geopolitical Conflict
    MITIGATING THE NEW COLD WAR: Managing US-China trade, tech and geopolitical conflict Alan Dupont Analysis Paper 8 May 2020 MITIGATING THE NEW COLD WAR: Managing US-China trade, tech and geopolitical conflict Alan Dupont Analysis Paper 8 Related Works Rowan Callick, The China Challenge (28 July 2019, OP171) Wolfgang Kasper, Does Western Civilisation Have a Future? (19 February 2019, PP17) Contents Executive Summary ...............................................................................................1 Recommendations .................................................................................................2 Chapter 1: The Trade War .......................................................................................4 Endnotes .................................................................................................... 11 Chapter 2: The Tech War ...................................................................................... 15 Endnotes .................................................................................................... 24 Chapter 3: The Foothills of a New Cold War ............................................................. 30 Endnotes .................................................................................................... 36 Chapter 4: Mitigating the New Cold War ................................................................. 40 Endnotes .................................................................................................... 48 Acknowledgments This report has benefited
    [Show full text]
  • Perspectives
    perspectives Will this be the Pacific Century? Alan Dupont S e p t e m b e r 2 0 0 7 The Lowy Institute for International Policy is an independent international policy think tank based in Sydney, Australia. Its mandate ranges across all the dimensions of international policy debate in Australia – economic, political and strategic – and it is not limited to a particular geographic region. Its two core tasks are to: • produce distinctive research and fresh policy options for Australia’s international policy and to contribute to the wider international debate. • promote discussion of Australia’s role in the world by providing an accessible and high quality forum for discussion of Australian international relations through debates, seminars, lectures, dialogues and conferences. Lowy Institute Perspectives are occasional papers and speeches on international events and policy. The views expressed in this paper are the author’s own and not those of the Lowy Institute for International Policy. Will this be the Pacific Century? Professor Alan Dupont Presentation to the Fifth Pacific Armies’ Chiefs’ Conference (PACC V), Sydney, 6 August 2007 There is no longer any doubt that the regional security environment is undergoing its most profound transformation since the early days of the Cold War. Defending the nation from hostile states, separatism and other internal threats defined the Asia­Pacific security agenda in the second half of the 20 th century. Combating the scourge of international terrorism, preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction and strengthening state capacity against a host of emerging non­military challenges have become today’s strategic priorities for governments of virtually all political persuasion.
    [Show full text]