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Middle Power Or Awkward Partner? a Study of Australian Foreign Policy in Asia

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Middle Power Or Awkward Partner? a Study of Australian Foreign Policy in Asia Middle Power or Awkward Partner? A Study of Australian Foreign Policy in Asia A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Social and Political Sciences The University of Melbourne Allan Patience 2015 The support and confidence of great friends are great assets; but it is unprofitable for Australia to pay an unnecessarily high price. The present price of our American friendship is some suspicion and wariness towards Australia in Asia, with whom we have to live for a thousand years - Arthur Tange (1955). 1 CONTENTS Declaration 3 Abstract 4 Acknowledgements 5 Chapter 1: Introduction 6 Chapter 2: Middle Powers and Awkward Partners 47 Chapter 3: Australia’s Middle Power Imagining 89 Chapter 4: Could Australia ‘Relocate’ to Asia? 129 Chapter 5: Is Japan Australia’s ‘Best Friend in Asia’? 178 Chapter 6: Australian’s Relations with China 228 Chapter 7: Conclusion: Australia’s Middle Power Imagining in the ‘Asian Century’ 260 Bibliography 283 2 DECLARATION This is to certify: (1) That the thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD; (2) That due acknowledgement has been made in the text to other material used; (3) That the thesis is fewer than 100,000 words in length, exclusive of the bibliography. Signed: Allan Patience Date: 11 December, 2015 3 ABSTRACT This thesis provides a clarification of middle power theorizing in order to demonstrate how what is identified here as middle power imagining contributes to Australia’s awkward partnering in the Asia Pacific region. Australia’s characteristic assumption of a middle power identity is re-conceptualized as dependent middle power imagining. It is argued in the thesis that an analysis of the scholarship and commentary (the political science) on Australian foreign policy points to a new and more nuanced understanding of Australia’s relations with its major Asian neighbours than the conventional accounts have thus far provided. 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am especially grateful to Associate Professor Timothy Lynch and Professor Philomena Murray for their insightful, scrupulous and patient supervision. I thank Dr Derek McDougall, Dr David Mickler, and Mr Garry Woodard who commented on early drafts of several chapters, and Professor John Murphy who chaired my review committee. I happily acknowledge conversations with wise and good friends who have helped clarify my thinking about issues related to the thesis, especially John Ballard, Russell Heng, Lionel Orchard, Mitsuyo Sakamoto, and Sow Keat Tok. Every time I have an exchange of ideas with Lee Jones I come away with an immeasurably richer understanding of a wide range of International Relations and related issues. I warmly thank the librarians in the Baillieu, Giblin and Eunson, and Law Libraries, and the Eastern Resource Centre in the University of Melbourne, and the State Library of Victoria. Without exception, they have all been unfailingly courteous and efficient in locating obscure references and sources. I have benefitted from comments on two papers drawn from early drafts of chapters 2 and 3 that were anonymously reviewed for, respectively, the Australian Journal of International Affairs, and the Australian Journal of Politics and History. The relevant chapters in the thesis are revised and expanded versions of those publications. None of these good people is responsible for the errors, omissions, interpretations or judgments in the thesis. That awful responsibility is mine alone. The epigraph on page 1 is a quotation from a Briefing Paper (dated 22 June 1955) by A.H. Tange (Permanent Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, 1954-1965) prepared for External Affairs Minister, R. G. Casey. 5 Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION Introduction This thesis seeks to make a contribution to the growing scholarly examination of Australia’s assumption of middle power status in regional and global forums (Beeson 2011; Beeson and Higgott 2014; Carr 2014; Carr 2015a; Carr 2015b; Cooper 1997; Evans 2015; Leaver 2008; Leaver and Cox 1997; Potter 2015; Ravenhill 1998; Sussex 2011; Ungerer 2007a; Ungerer 2007b; Ungerer 2008a). It reveals how re-conceptualizing the type (or types) of middle power identity that states like Australia assume in contemporary international politics can point to possible resolutions of problems in their foreign policy making. The thesis draws from Stephen George’s account of Britain’s ‘awkward partner’ relationship with the European Union (George 1998) in order to analyze Australia’s relations with two major states in Asia: Japan and China. As Philomena Murray et al. have pointed out: In both the United Kingdom and Australia, the close security relationship with the United States, the Anglosphere’s cultural traditions and identity, and domestic politics all interact and produce the same problem of awkwardness in their engagement with regional processes (Murray et al. 2014, p. 296). The thesis contends that the prevailing middle power identity that Australia affects in international politics contributes more to its awkward partnering with states like Japan and China than it does to desirable outcomes in the country’s regional diplomacy generally. This points to a fundamental flaw in the making of the country’s foreign policy – a misplaced form of middle power imagining. This is not to argue, however, that Australia is the only awkward partner in Asia. In different ways and for different reasons Japan, China, North Korea, Malaysia – to name just a few – could be viewed as having 6 awkward relationships within their regions. The point, however, is that Australia’s awkwardness is problematic for its foreign policy in Asia for interesting reasons that should be of concern to the country’s foreign policy makers. As discussed in chapter 2, scholars of middle power theorizing routinely point to the lack of consensus about what the term middle power actually means. Cooper et al. (1994) argued that initiatives taken by countries like Australia and Canada (for example, in regard to the Cairns Group of agricultural exporting economies) appear to have brought them a degree of middle power kudos in regional and global forums. However, despite the evidence of conceptual opaqueness in middle power theorizing (discussed in chapter 2), it has become the orthodox consensus among foreign policy commentators in Australia that the country is recognized – even respected – as a middle power in regional and global forums. Does this mean that its diplomacy is expansive and ambitious, reflecting the self-confidence of a ‘big country with an ability to influence the balance of power in Asia’ (Fullilove 2014; see also Downer 2003)? Is it suggestive of a country engaging in subtle and sensitive diplomacy in the security and diplomatic interstices of Asia (Miller 1969; White 2012b; Wesley 2013)? These questions have guided the development of the thesis. Middle Power Imagining The thesis coins the term middle power imagining to point to the manner in which Australians are inclined to think about (imagine) their state’s standing in international affairs. Many would agree with the of Gareth Evans and Bruce Grant that Australia is ‘manifestly not a great power or even a major power; nor, however is it small or insignificant’ (Evans and Grant 1995, p. 344). As outlined in chapter 3, middle power imagining, then, is the manner in which growing numbers of foreign 7 policy observers in Australia have come to identify with what they firmly believe is their country’s international standing since World War II. There are alternatives to the conventional middle power imagining Australia assumes in regional and global politics. There is a view for example that the country should remain firmly grounded within the anglosphere. Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott expressed this view in these terms: ‘The bonds between the countries of the anglosphere arise from patterns of thinking originally shaped by Shakespeare and the King James Bible, constantly reinforced by reading each other’s books, watching the same movies and consuming the same international magazines’ (Abbott 2009, p. 159; see also Knopfelmacher 1982). Stefano Gulmanelli argues that conservative Australian leaders like John Howard believe that membership of the Anglosphere implies interests ‘shared with the UK and the US [that] provide the compass in defining Australia’s national interest and its projection into the world’ (Gulmanelli 2014, p. 593). Alternatively, it has been proposed that Australia is better understood within broader western European cultural traditions (Crowley 1968; Hirst 1993; Passmore 1992). This would suggest that the country’s cultural ‘relocation’ into Asia – to utilize Higgott and Nossal’s (1997) term – conjures up unrealistic, even potentially anti-social and conflicting demands that could corrode the country’s time-honoured traditions and stifle the development of more pragmatic economic and strategic links with the region. Samuel Huntington, the American realist scholar, counseled Australia against becoming ‘torn’ between its British-European-American cultural and strategic affiliations and the geo-politics of the Asia Pacific region. Any prevarication about its commitment to Western civilizational values and its contingent alliance with the 8 United States (with the ‘West’) could imperil Australia’s security in an increasingly anarchical and dangerous world (Huntington 1996, pp. 151-154). Each of these factors in Australia’s historical development contains a grain of truth. Each has been influential in various combinations with other factors in the evolution of the country’s relations with the world beyond its borders and in the foreign policy debates within its borders. It has also been argued that Australia’s historical ties with Britain, its commitment to the Commonwealth, and its on-going alliance with the United States have benefitted the country throughout the Cold War years and since (Abbott 2009, pp. 156-161; Partington 1991). Nor, however, have these relationships been without cost. It is argued in the thesis that a worrying indicator of that cost is Australia’s awkwardness in the Asia Pacific region.
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