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21st century reality - Australia out in the cold

By Reg Little - posted Friday, 25 July 2008


Moreover, the May 16, 2008 initial meeting of foreign ministers of the BRIC nations - Brazil, Russia, India and China - in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg foreshadows a potential economic and political alliance that could relegate the Atlantic powers of America and Europe very much to the sidelines. A spokesman for Russia’s foreign ministry at the meeting put it succinctly in the following words: “BRIC unites the major economic growth centres with more than half the world’s population, the role of which in international affairs will grow.”

Somewhat troublingly for Australia, given their land size, population and growing economic power, these four nations all compare favourably with Australia in their potential for mineral commodity production. Moreover, two of them are today’s most important markets for mineral commodities.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) are other instances of effective Chinese diplomacy. Working discreetly and flexibly with new partners, China has become a powerful mobilising force that is transforming Australia’s world. This has no need to address the interests of an isolated and easily forgotten Australia, which is often too closely identified with discredited American policies.

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Most central and important, however, may be the AMF, which has the potential to begin the unraveling of the whole international institutional system put in place by the British and Americans after victory in 1945. This includes the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and all other global institutions where Anglo-American power is disproportionate to 21st century realities.

In other words, we are likely witnessing the beginning of a rapid process of change that will leave Australia in a world that is totally unlike anything experienced in its written history. With America, in the words of Gore Vidal, “broke” after the use of 9-11 to overthrow its normal forms of government, it is hard to anticipate the terms on which Australia will seek to engage its dynamic Asian neighbours, excluded as seems likely from a variety of emerging organisations critical to its interests.

The neglect by the mainstream media of serious comment on these developments is reminiscent of the manner in which it has managed reports on Iraq and Afghanistan. Misguided and counterproductive policies have been given credibility by misreporting or non-reporting of critical information.

At the same time, Australia’s new government seems to be even more in thrall to Washington than its somewhat underrated predecessor. The first American administration of the 21st century has squandered in two presidential terms what might have been three or four decades of measured and managed, if inevitable, decline of Anglo-American authority.

Even the March 2008 publication of Eamonn Fingleton’s In The Jaws of the Dragon: America’s Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Hegemony has disturbed little of the self-congratulation that surrounded the phoney futurism of the 2020 Summit. While not at his best in addressing the region’s robust and strategic Confucian civilisation - probably best viewed in the circumstances as a necessary concession to American readers - Fingleton offers a penetrating and accurate account of the nature of American and Western failure and ineptness in the East Asian region.

Australia is also profoundly troubled by these failings. During recent Prime Ministerial tours of China, Japan and Indonesia neither the media nor the official party seem to have taken any interest in the various financial and institutional regional developments outlined above. Rather the focus was on Australia’s proposal for new institutional initiatives that seem quite unreal in the context of the more practical, focused and purposeful initiatives addressed above that leave Australia in the cold.

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Moreover, it is worrying that all the initial reporting on work on the Rudd Government’s forthcoming defence white paper seems to make no allowance for the potential impact on future Australian defence purchases should there be a major shift in power, financial and technology relations between the United States and the BRIC nations. Already, there is much evidence that American military technology has become dependent on East Asian hi-tech materials and components and, given the apparent priorities of its military-industrial complex, it is imperative to evaluate the capacity of the United States to maintain a serious lead in military technology.

It is certainly an advance that Australia has elected a Prime Minister with claims to be bilingual, and maybe even bi-cultural. We may, however, be entering a global order where only the multi-lingual and multi-cultural will be adequately equipped.

The demise not only of Anglo-American financial and institutional authority but also of Anglo-American linguistic and cultural authority would confront most Australians with challenges of a character that few have contemplated. India is the sole BRIC nation that uses English widely but English offers little insight into the psyche of elite Brahmins or Indians of other castes. Even less does it capture the Russian soul, the Brazilian spirit or the Chinese Dao.

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About the Author

Reg Little was an Australian diplomat from 1963 to 1988. He gained high level qualifications in Japanese and Chinese and served as Deputy of four and Head of one overseas Australian diplomatic mission. He is the co-author of The Confucian Renaissance (1989) and The Tyranny of Fortune: Australia’s Asian Destiny (1997) and author of A Confucian Daoist Millennium? (2006). In 2009, he was elected the only non-ethnic Asian Vice Chairman of the Council of the Beijing based International Confucian Association. His other writings can be found on his website: www.confucian-daoist-millennium.net.

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