‘Managing major-power relations, particularly in the context of the rise of China and India, will be crucial for our collective future. This will place a premium on wise statecraft, particularly the effective management of relations between the United States, Japan, China, and India’, Rudd argued.
‘We need mechanisms that help us to cope with strategic shocks and discontinuities. We need a body that brings together the leaders of the key nations in the Asia-Pacific region, including Indonesia, India, China, Japan, the US and other nations, with a mandate to engage across the breadth of the security, economic and political challenges we will face in the future. Absent such a body [there is a concern about] the possibility of strategic drift within our region or, even worse, strategic polarisation, polarisation which….. serves nobody’s interest.’
With a ‘pan-regional mandate,’ the proposed Asia Pacific Community would encourage ‘a culture of cooperation and collaboration on security, including a culture of military transparency’.
Prime Minister Rudd was generous in his praise of Singapore’s contribution to Southeast Asian prosperity and regional stability over the past 43 years. Lee Kuan Yew was there to receive this message as well as the message that Rudd made no apology for pressing ahead with APC.
Significantly, in his Singapore address, Rudd identified the strategic role of the Asian five within the G20 process (the Asian G7 if you rightly include Australia and the Chair of ASEAN, who was invited to London meeting) as a pointer to the major players from our part of the world in that and other processes.
So where does this leave Singapore, nervous about the possibility that it might be excluded from a dialogue among the bigger regional players, and where this idea is heading? Rudd gave his hosts a clue.
Thinking strategically, there is opportunity for Singapore to play itself into a key coordinating role. This could have happened, and perhaps still could happen, around the APEC Summit to be held in Singapore in November.
Clearly, as Rudd observed in Singapore, the Asia Pacific Community idea needs to relate to the established regional structures – APEC and East Asian arrangements – if it is to be both accepted and serve its underlying political-security purpose. It would have been sensible for Singapore to grab the initiative in taking this idea forward and host a small informal meeting (the idea is only worthwhile and practical if it limits dialogue to the major players) alongside the APEC Summit. Such a meeting would have to link to the East Asian Summit process by inviting India to join the meeting.
The change in the structure of regional economic and political power, with the rise of China and India, now recommends a step in this direction. This reality is at the core of Rudd’s idea as is its implications for regional political and security affairs over time. He has been crystal clear about that from the time he first put it forward last June (see my piece and Andrew Elek’s piece).
If this initiative is not taken before APEC at Yokohama in 2010, the EAS in Thailand in October must seize the opportunity to bring a more representative East and South Asian collection of economies to the APEC table and initiate the first explicit and serious dialogue on political and security affairs.
Though it cannot encompass all APEC’s membership, or all the membership of EAS, a dialogue on political and security affairs needs to represent both as they are presently constituted, and in all probability will likely become a central driver of a truly Asia Pacific Community that links to, is coordinated with, and draws on the base of all of the established trans-Pacific and East Asian arrangements.
Dear Peter,
I was fortunate to attend the Shangri-la Dialogue and PM Rudd’s speech on Friday evening. I thought that he spoke too long with too many issues, but afterall it was carefully crafted good speech. Although there was little concrete view on APC, the way he presented was more accomodative to existing initiatives and leaderships in the region. He praised the role of ASEAN and other overapping regional frameworks. I think that the tone of his consideration was well received by the audience.
PM Rudd also impressed the audience during the Q&A session. Many questions were raised including recent Australian Defense Whitepaper, North Korea, US-China relations and somewhat blunt question like “what worries you?”. He was well informed along these issues and eloquent enough to convince the audience about his political commitments. I am glad to see Australian ‘middle power’ leadership that encourage, once again, the architecture debate in this region.
The recent financial and economic crisis has proven that Rudd has been having difficulties in managing the Australian economy and its own domestic affairs. He was full of ideas and ideals, such as his article in the Monthly’s February 2009 issue. He was full of ideology and declared the death of neoliberalism, or fundamental marketnism. He has turned from a self claimed economic conservatism before the last election and has become a reckless interventionist. The two cash handouts either naively thought or dressed as fiscal stimulus are the proof of his economic and national management skills.
One should notice that Rudd was Labor’s shadow foreign minister before he became its leader and Australian PM. He may be better at foreign affairs than national leadership. But that needs to be proven. His APC concept will be a test of his ability to manage much broader affairs based on a middle power. I hope it will not be proven as another fanciful spin, like the 2020 Australian summit episode. What has happened after that? It was reported that 9 out of the 1000 ideas were selected and acted upon. Those 9 may have their individual merits, but one doubts whether they are the greatest among the 1000 ideas from that summit.
I am not an ideologist. Neither am I personally opposed to Rudd, or Swan. But I am a realist and like to analyse things based on available information. Sorry that I may seem to have lost confidence on the Rudd government. I sincerely hope that I will be proven to be wrong, because if I am, then that means Australians will not be too badly managed by the Rudd government.
There is a news report on the Australian today on Rudd’s unpublished essay related to his APC idea. The following two sources can serve as references:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25573720-601,00.html
http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Rudds-secret-spiked-essay-for-Foreign-Affairs-magazine/
Presumably, Rudd in that essay would have elaborated on the idea more fully. But since it is not published yet, I don’t know what his main arguments are. Anyone interested has to wait for its publication, if it ever has that day.
The debate about Prime Minister Rudd’s Asia Pacific Community (APC) proposal is being complicated by confusion over whether the key point is an outcome or the means of achieving that outcome. It is my impression that the essence of Rudd’s proposal concerned the process or mechanism, not the characteristics of an APC. And his key objective is to see the United States cemented into a body that offers the best prospect of managing the turbulence that we will most certainly encounter in this region. In other words, Rudd did not have a particular vision for an APC but was rather concerned that we equip ourselves to get there without violence, instability and arms races. Regrettably, an awkward and sceptically received initial presentation necessitated some recalibration and the proposal is now cast as ‘a conversation about where we need to go’ which takes away from the main thrust.
Assuming that my interpretation of the APC proposal is at least roughly correct, I think that Rudd was on the right track. Indeed, his proposal is flatteringly close to an assessment of multilateral processes in East Asia that I published some years ago [‘Civilising the Anarchical Society”: Contemporary Southeast Asia, August 2002 ]. Sadly, however, there is no shred of evidence of any connection. At that time, I concluded that the interdependence of the security interests and concerns of East Asian states was strong and growing stronger but that the available management tools were not up to the task and that the machininations of the anarchical society appeared to be getting the upper hand. My prescription, characterised as a piece of strategic preventive diplomacy, was for the major powers, including the US, to take collective responsibility for the region’s strategic future and invest an appropriate process with the authority to deal with the core sources of stress and instability.
Seven years on, this remains a valid assessment
Irrespective whether Ron Huisken’s interpretation of the Rudd APC proposal is correct, that proposal seems fatally flawed. It is a naive and premature idea.
Just think about this: is China willing to deal with the US alone or is that willing to deal with the US and its two military allies and deputies in the East Asia together? Alternatively, is Rudd prepared to give up the US – Australia alliance? Is Japan willing to do so?
I have no doubt that Rudd is good intentioned in his APC proposal. But if Ron Huisken is correct that Rudd’s key objective is to see the United States cemented into a body within which there are some members that are militarily aligned with the US while the other rising power is not, it is unlikely to get off the ground.
That should not be a too subtle point for people to see. In that context, there is also the Australian white paper on defence. It does not appear to sit well with Rudd’s APC concept. At the least they have been poorly timed together.