Author: Peter Drysdale

Next month Mr Obama will visit Australia for the first time as President of the United States. His schedule is still shrouded in secrecy but he is scheduled to address both houses of the Australian parliament in Canberra, following the precedents set by his predecessor, George W Bush, and President Hu Jintao of China. By any yardstick, this is among the most important events in Australia’s diplomatic calendar. Though the going might be a little rough for him at home right now, Obama is bound to be welcomed very warmly in this country.

But what is at stake on the visit? This week Hugh White reviews Australia’s relationship with America over the past few Presidents and Australian prime ministers and nails what he believes is the central question that the President and Australian Prime Minister Rudd must deal with. The question which could and should shape the US-Australia alliance over coming years, he argues, is China. President Bush ignored the implications of China’s rise for American power, and Howard was happy to go along with this, discovering China when it delivered the apparently never-ending good times, without putting in place any strategy to manage the politics of where the relationship would inevitably lead.

Obama and Rudd, White asserts, do not have that luxury. Quite suddenly, the political and strategic implications of China’s economic weight have become impossible to ignore. This is the issue on which Rudd and Obama must connect. It is an issue that will need more than one presidential visit with which to deal. Rudd does understand China’s growing power and its implications for the world, and it would be good for everyone if he could help Obama understand it too – not as a go-between, but as someone with the imagination to help Obama see how best America can maximise its future influence in Asia while avoiding strategic competition with China. That should be the big theme of their meetings here in Australia.

Rudd has dipped his toe into this issue, pressing Obama to deal with China through the G20. White thinks that this is ‘small-time retail diplomacy’ compared with the need for a full-scale debate about Asia’s future and America’s place in it. Maybe, but I’m not so sure. Dealing with butter might be as important as dealing with the guns, at least to begin with and, make no mistake, America’s commitment to the G20 fundamentally transforms the global order. America’s staying on course with that could be by far the most important thing to Australia’s and Asia’s future security that President Obama can possibly do in the short term.

On a personal note, Mr Obama’s visit will be particularly warmly received by old friends and colleagues from the ANU who worked with his mother when she and the future president lived in Indonesia. President Obama will, of course, fly from Australia to Indonesia. We shall return to the importance of that and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s visit to Australia later.