Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
Author: Ron Huisken, ANU
In 1996, President Clinton told a joint sitting of the Australian Parliament that ‘the way [China] defines its greatness for the future will help decide whether the next century is one of conflict or cooperation’.
Fifteen years on, China’s trajectory has unmistakably lived up to Clinton’s expectations of ‘greatness’. Read more…
Author: Ron Huisken, ANU
Political manoeuvering aimed at resuming the Six-Party Talks process on reversing North Korea’s nuclear weapon program is intensifying following a Russia-DPRK summit in August 2011.
Washington’s and Seoul’s experience with the DPRK since its nuclear objectives were first suspected has left scar tissue, and new ideas and initiatives have been conspicuously absent recently. Exploratory moves on re-engagement are laden with caution and scepticism.
Author: Ron Huisken, ANU
In a recent essay, Toshi Yoshihara laid out a strong, coherent case for a US military presence in Australia far more substantive than anything either country has contemplated since WW2.
The comment was triggered by an on-going US review of its international military posture and the agreement at the 2010 Australia-US ministerial talks for a joint working group to examine options for broader US access to Australian facilities and bases. Read more…
Author: Ron Huisken, ANU
China has published defence white papers every even year since 2000. The sixth in this series appeared at the end of March 2011: ‘China’s National Defence in 2010.’
The format is basically the same as in past years, and a great deal of the language on particular issues remains the same or very similar. The 2010 paper has been streamlined (10 sub-headings versus 15 plus appendices in the past) and the odd issue has been placed in a different context. Read more…
Author: Ron Huisken, ANU
Nation states are a complicated and imperfect species. They are prone to say and do things that surprise other states (and sometimes their own citizens). One of the harder jobs for policy analysts is to decide what constitutes the inevitable ‘noise’ of international relations: the tactical adjustments, someone speaking out of turn, or a simple policy miscue.
The rise of China has made this a progressively more acute challenge for most countries but especially those in the Asia Pacific. Read more…
Author: Ron Huisken, ANU
Australia’s Prime Minister Gillard has not contested the view that she is far more comfortable dealing with her domestic agenda than playing in the foreign affairs arena (even setting aside how the Rudd factor might play into this preference).
But she has to do both and the more quickly she learns the ropes and can judge when and on what she needs to reach for her passport the better. Read more…
Author: Ron Huisken, ANU
China recently unveiled a new fighter aircraft with stealth characteristics undergoing runway tests. The following day it flew for about 18 minutes, reportedly its maiden flight.
This was newsworthy for several reasons; for one thing, China is very secretive, especially about weapon systems still under development. For another, this first sighting of the aircraft occurred on the eve of a visit to China by US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, a visit that heralded the resumption of high-level military dialogue after a hiatus of more than a year. Read more…
Author: Ron Huisken, ANU
China’s posture toward the DPRK is under scrutiny. Over recent years, a growing number of observers have concluded that, aside from the question of how much leverage China had over Pyongyang, stopping the DPRK’s nuclear program was not China’s first priority (as it was for the ROK, Japan and the US).
Beijing appeared to attach primary importance to preserving the status quo on the Korean peninsula, that is, an enduring DPRK. Beijing’s eventual tolerance of the DPRK’s nuclear tests, its continued experiments with long-range ballistic missiles, and its nuclear and missile export activities with Iran and Syria constituted the primary evidence for this conclusion. Read more…
Author: Ron Huisken, ANU
The first meeting of Defence Ministers from ASEAN, plus the US, China, Russia, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, was held in Hanoi on October 12. Judging from the exceedingly anodyne joint declaration, ASEAN was content with the fact of the meeting. And that is not unreasonable. Getting these 18 defence ministers together is no small feat: Collectively, they ‘command’ defence resources comparable to the members of NATO, and unlike NATO, there is no past war or crisis or common threat to drive them together.
The ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting (ADMM) is itself a recent creation. Read more…
Author: Ron Huisken, ANU
In the international arena, the shortest distance between two points is rarely a straight line. A particularly good example is the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting (ADMM).
The first ADMM took place in 2006. It will meet next in Hanoi later this month in a new ASEAN+8 format. The eight being Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea and the United States. East Asia may have over-indulged in forum-creation, but, even so, this development merits more recognition than it has received. Read more…
Author: Ron Huisken, ANU
Australia’s democratic system of governance is grounded in an acknowledgement of human imperfection. Governance is as necessary as greed for wealth and power is inescapable, so our system is characterised by checks and balances at all levels, by procedures to investigate, expose and, if necessary, punish. Regular elections re-legitimise those to whom we delegate the function of governance. We prize our system not because it necessarily delivers superb governance but because the package of participation, control, and governance seems better than any alternative.
The system in China, in contrast, appears to be rooted in the belief that perfection is attainable. Read more…
Author: Ron Huisken, ANU
Both Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have been prominently associated with an agreement to build an additional 16 nuclear power reactors in India together with proposals that address fabricating nuclear fuel rods and re-processing plutonium from irradiated fuel rods. This is despite, in recent times, both men finding it rather hard to stay on the same page.
This deal capitalises on the Bush administration’s herculean undertaking to wind the clock back and position India as though it had declared and demonstrated its nuclear weapon status before January 1968 and joined the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) on the same basis as the US, USSR/Russia, UK, France and China. Read more…
Author: Ron Huisken, ANU
China’s fierce reaction to Washington’s recent confirmation of a US$6.4 billion arms deal with Taiwan was pre-meditated, not spontaneous. The deal itself has been around since 2001, and it was an open secret that the recent announcement was a matter of when and not if. This issue played out alongside a subsequent confirmation that President Obama would meet the Dalai Lama in his capacity as Tibet’s spiritual leader, a development that Beijing warned would threaten trust and cooperation with the US.
China and Taiwan have notched up some significant gains in the direction of normal dialogue and freer economic interaction since President Ma took over in Taipei in May 2008. Many commentators assessed that the ‘Taiwan question’ seemed to be more securely quarantined than ever. Read more…
Author: Ron Huisken, ANU
The Australia-Japan International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament released its initial report on December 15, 2009. While the reaction, in Australia at least, has been subdued, The Australian newspaper has run two substantive reactions – both somewhat disdainful. One contended that that the report consisted of little more than naive noble sentiments thrown at intractable realities while the other insisted that the report dangerously discounts essential security functions performed by a credible U.S. nuclear deterrent.
Both reactions have merit, but neither engages the real issue. Read more…
Author: Ron Huisken
It is not hard to read into Pyongyang’s behaviour in the Six Party talks. There is a profound ambivalence about what it should be asking for and even about whether it should be in the negotiations at all.
This ambivalence seems to have been tested by the Bush administration which, in its second term, switched from demands to negotiations, and private bilaterals with the DPRK outside the Six-Party framework. It even delivered on a key demand: delisting the DPRK as state sponsor of terrorism, in October 2008.