In a prominent article in The Weekend Australian’s ‘Inquirer’ section on 3/4 November, headed “Canberra alone must control our China ties”, the director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Peter Jennings, castigates the Victorian government, a large delegation of leading Australian businesses and the Australian Technology Network of Universities for having the temerity of engaging with Chinese counter-parts in pursuit of mutual interests. They are charged with being naive and operating outside their station.
Jennings writes: “Unless our federal government better explains the national security risks, Australia’s relations with China will be driven by groups interested in economic engagement, not national security”.
As for the Victorian government in particular, don’t they realise, he asserts, that “the states and territories have no responsibility for national security and little or no access to the intelligence information that informs national judgments about Beijing’s strategic aims”. The sin of the Victorian government was that, in signing a Memorandum of Understanding at the Chinese Embassy in Canberra supporting China’s Belt and Road Initiative, they were in effect engaging in international treaty-making over the head of and in defiance of the Australian government. While the terms of the agreement have not been published, its purpose is stated to be that Victoria is “best placed to capitalise on the investment opportunities possible through the Belt and Road initiative, meaning more trade, jobs and investment in Victoria”. No prima facie constitutional issue here.
As for security, in each of the above cases Jennings’ injunction is that such dealings should be channelled through or monitored by the national security apparatus for the reason that we are already and effectively in a Cold War state with China and a false step anywhere could have irreversible strategic consequences, penetrated and reduced to a vassal state. Spelling this out Jennings writes, after lamenting that the Federal Government itself has failed “to set the right framework for engaging with China”, that: “As the keeper of the intelligence keys, it’s only the federal government that is able to explain why there should be limits to building economic dependence on an authoritarian state focused on being a dominant military power”.
Really! Dependence comes about in other more serendipity ways as through the natural rhythm of trade flows, everyday interactions between peoples and comparative advantage. More often these processes lead to inter-dependence. So should our dealings with China revert to a straight-jacket approach as was the case with the Soviet Union in the days when there was a red under every bed?
Surely Mr Jennings is going too far. Curiously he might take a lead from a recent item in his own Institute’s blog, The Strategist. This recalled the wisdom of Sir Percy Spender, the distinguished Foreign Minister in the Menzies’ post-war governments. Spender believed that diplomacy and economic cooperation should precede military action, and that maintaining peace was more crucial to the security of the nation and its people than winning costly and destructive wars. He put diplomacy and economic policy in the service of national security. He placed the preservation of peace at the top of Australia’s strategic objectives.
Spender was not unmindful of security considerations but he did not cloak our essential everyday dealings with major powers under a tortoise shell of paranoia and security screenings. To be otherwise would only engender the worst of fears, on all sides.
Andrew Farran is a former diplomat, law academic and trade policy adviser.
Andrew Farran in his younger days was a diplomat, Commonwealth civil servant and law academic (Monash). His subsequent business interests included international trade, intellectual property and publishing, and wool growing. He was a regular contributor to Pearls & Irritations from 2017 – 2020.
Writes extensively on international affairs and defence, contributing previously to major newspapers (metropolitan and rural). Formerly director of major professional publishing company. Currently apart from writing he directs a registered charitable foundation with links in both Australia and overseas.
Comments
3 responses to “ANDREW FARRAN. What is it to be with China – cooperation or conflict? A response to Peter Jennings of ASPI.”
It is unfortunately the case that people like Mr Jennings who inhabit the so-called ‘think tanks’ in Australia, heavily dependent as they are for money, and sabbaticals on the US, are programmed to think that all Chinese motives are suspect. Of course China has a geopolitical interest in the BRI that goes beyond trade. But is that not the case with the former and current American empires? Obama’s ‘Asia pivot’, the current attempts to set up a ‘Quad’ (Japan, Australia, India and the US) and the literally hundreds of US bases in the Asia-Pacific region all reflect what was frankly admitted by the Pentagon in a recent publication to be the prevention of an alternative (to the US) power to dominate the Eurasian land mass.
People like Jennings would be more credible if they applied their critical eye to the actions of major powers other than Russia and China, instead of claiming ulterior motives to every non-US initiative to advance economic peace and progress.
Jennings I see as one of the most grievous frontmen for American empire. There is nothing nuanced or scholarly about his daft opinions. Hartcher seems ro be taking up the cyborg implant hatred of China as well. US hegemony, and Washington criminal incompetence is the true danger as every Pew poll suggests?
Never before have Australia’s economic interests been in such desperate conflict with its security/military-industrial establishment. Mortal combat between Gina Rinehart and Russell Hill.