Daniel Flitton
July 3, 2009
Paul Keating has challenged a central tenet of Kevin Rudd’s multibillion-dollar, 20-year military blueprint, warning the Government has taken too defensive a stance in response to China’s rise in the Asia-Pacific region.
Returning to his “big picture” theme of Australia’s place in the world, the former Labor prime minister said last night the effects of the global financial crisis had matched the radical transformation of global affairs following the Cold War.
“I think we can safely say that the pendulum point of world economic activity has shifted and settled upon East Asia,” Mr Keating told a Perth audience.
The US – having in the past seven years gone from the world’s largest creditor country to largest debtor – was beset by uncertainty, he said – “Its financial mendicancy, its economic structure and its social and demographic problems.”
He said the US must turn away “from the mindless fizz of ever more consumption” and bring back to life manufacturing in American cities.
Mr Keating acknowledged the countries in East Asia confronted profound strategic problems – whether China’s one-party political system could maintain economic growth, for example, how Japan would cope with a rapidly ageing population and the prospect of unification on the Korean peninsula.
But China might eventually eclipse US power in the region and the major shifts in world power offered huge opportunities for Australia.
“With all that has happened and is happening, it will make absolutely no sense for us to think of our security in isolationist and defensive terms,” Mr Keating said. “The notion of Australia’s security being found outside Asia is as absurd now as it has always been . . .”
He said Australia’s international outlook must always remain outgoing and positive.
“For these reasons, I found myself at odds with some of the text of the Government’s 2009 defence white paper,” he said.
“Much of it is unexceptional . . . but it goes on to discuss what it describes as ‘the remote but plausible potential of confrontation’ between us and ‘a major power adversary’, not suggesting who that power might be.
“Obviously, it will not be the United States. You are then left to take your pick of China, Japan, India or Indonesia.”
Mr Keating said the tone of the paper was too ambivalent and failed to state clearly whether China’s military advance posed a threat to Australia or was a natural and legitimate aspiration for a rising economic power.
Released in May, the paper pledged a doubling of Australia’s submarine fleet from six to 12, extra warships, cruise missiles and advanced jets.
The paper took a swipe at Beijing for a lack of transparency in its own military build-up and warned that “shows of force by rising powers are likely to become more common as their military capabilities expand”.
Delivering the annual John Curtin Prime Ministerial Lecture, Mr Keating said Australia could not predict what sort of new order might spring up in the face of relative American decline.
“A region of this kind might turn out to be as peaceful and as prosperous for Australia as the one we have had since the end of the Vietnam War,” he said.
Accepting the need for defence readiness, he warned: “Too often, Australia has created problems for itself when its defence policy has gotten ahead of its foreign policy. Vietnam and Iraq are prime examples.”
He praised China’s huge economic leap forward in recent decades – “This great state, with its profound sense of self and the wherewithal to make a better life for its citizens, has eased itself into a major role” – a development, he said, that would be altogether positive for the region and the world at large.
“We do know China will be a power in its own right and a big player,” Mr Keating said.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/keating-queries-stance-on-china-20090702-d6l5.html
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