John Menadue

Dolphin-culling and free trade agreements represent opposite sides of the coin of the relationship between Australia and Japan. Both are currently in the news, with Sea Shepherd activists hounding the fishermen of Taiji (where the documentary ‘The Cove’ was filmed) and Australian cattle producers in Tokyo trying to break down the last obstacle to a bilateral FTA. More than that, the two issues encapsulate the divided response among many in the West to Japan as a backward and insular nation, on the one hand, and a modern, global partner on the other.

Years ago I visited the island of Iki, off the coast from Nagasaki in western Japan, to report on the practice of ‘drive hunting’ of dolphins, the same culling method used by fishermen at Taiji to reduce the natural competition for a diminishing fish stock. The founder of Sea Shepherd, Paul Watson, had been in town a fortnight before and got himself deported for cutting nets strung across a cove in Iki, releasing scores of dolphins. The irony was that in the very act of sabotage Watson was caught in a storm and became stranded on an islet from where he had to be rescued by local fishermen (a fact omitted from the fanciful account of this episode posted on the organisation’s website.)

Interested to find out how others living on the island regarded the dolphin killing, I visited a farmer working his small holding a few kilometres from the coast. ‘Oh, those fishermen down there,’ he told me, ‘they’re an uncouth lot. They give the place a bad name.’

I was taken aback to find such a sharp divergence of interest, on this tiny island, between fisherman and farmer. I then realized the true importance of factionalism, based on occupation and geography, particularly in rural Japan. Australia’s FTA negotiators, the latest in a long line of officials who have tried for half a century to eliminate tariffs on beef and dairy imports, will be aware of these fissures in the Japanese bargaining position; the fissure, for instance, between the farm lobby and the consumer lobby, or the one separating domestic from international economic priorities.

The ‘enlightened’ farmer I met proudly showed me his chief productive asset: one Wagyu steer penned in his front yard, being pampered and premium-fed in readiness for the abattoir. Yes, you read that correctly, a herd of one. This and a few other odds and ends, plus a huge government subsidy, kept him in reasonable comfort. He was (and I think he sensed it to a degree) a parody of modern farming. It reminds me of another occasion accompanying an Australian delegation, led by the then Primary Industries Minister John Kerin, in the mid-1980s. Australia at the time was in the grip of a terrible drought, graziers were at their wits end, and yet they could not sell into the Japanese market at fair prices. I remember going with them to a farm near Nagoya and trudging past a veritable showroom of brand-new farm machinery bought with cheap loans from a highly protected rural bank. The Australians could only shake their heads in bitter disbelief.

So the Japanese farmer and fisherman, for all their differences in lifestyle, share one vital, historic conviction: that, whatever it takes, whatever the international pressure and criticism, their survival is paramount to the national interest. Anyone covering Japanese affairs will tell you that the Ministry of Agriculture has always outranked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs around the Cabinet table. While some progress has been made as a result of the decades of lobbying to gain improved access to the Japanese market for farm goods, every yard conceded has been hard fought. Cracks in the façade often seem to open up at moments during negotiations only to close again as a result of sectional pressure. I’ve heard Japanese Agriculture Ministers explain, in all earnestness, that their countrymen, even if they were given the choice, could not eat more imported beef––because, wait for it, Japanese intestines were different from Westerners’ intestines. Try arguing against that!

Without major concessions on agricultural imports, no FTA with Japan would be worth its name. Political conditions, however, are as favourable now as they’ve ever been for a genuine agreement, mainly because the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, riding a large parliamentary majority, does not need the farm vote as much as it did 30, 40 or 50 years ago. Global trade liberalisation is also an important lever in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s declared policy of economic deregulation (the last ‘arrow’ of ‘Abenomics’). Perhaps the time has come. But as the Sea Shepherd boys and girls will tell you, still prowling the headlands of Taiji looking for blood in the water, rugged self-reliance and a sense of entitlement to a traditional way of life remain formidable obstacles to change in Japan. And the Sea Shepherd crew should know all about that frame of mind.

Walter Hamilton reported from Japan for the ABC between 1979 and 1996 for a total of eleven years.

A prominent Japanese historian once likened the psychology of wartime Japan to a ‘madhouse’ in which the public became capable of believing anything. Another who lived through those years noted how formalism––keeping up appearances long after a cause has ceased to have any meaning––suited a nation unable to change with the times. Credulity and formalism remain powerful elements in Japanese culture, regardless of the fact that the population is highly educated and, these days, formal barriers to the free flow of information are low. Recently we have witnessed extraordinary examples of this phenomenon. As Tony Abbott prepares for his first official visit to that country as prime minister next month, it is worth reflecting on the Japanese state of mind.

The instinct driving an elderly mother to hand over her life savings on the strength of a telephone call might appear to have little to do with international affairs, and yet her credulity fits within the larger picture. Japanese call them ‘ore, ore’ (‘it’s me, it’s me’) scams, in which a con artist pretending over the phone to be a relative of the elderly victim pleads distress and solicits money. Despite public warnings and police campaigns, this and similar forms of extortion netted criminals an estimated 12.8 billion yen ($140 million) in 2012. Though it might be hard to prove the Japanese are the most credulous people on earth, evidence points to a strong predisposition to believe what they are told.

Take, for example, the supposedly deaf composer described as Japan’s ‘new Beethoven’ and given the imprimatur of the national broadcaster, NHK, in a documentary broadcast last year entitled Melody of the Soul. The man was neither deaf nor did he compose the works for which he was feted (they were written by somebody else). The journalists and many others who dealt with him had grounds aplenty to doubt his story, but nobody dared challenge the myth. It wasn’t until the real composer, fed up with his paltry reward, threatened to blow the whistle that the truth was revealed last month.

This episode was followed soon after by another––in the field of science. The story initially presented to the public again proved irresistible: an attractive, 30-year-old female biologist had led a team of researchers to discover a way to create stem cells, opening a simple and ethical way to the cure of all sorts of ailments. Her youth, her sex, and the fact that she worked at a comparatively unknown (to the lay observer) institution added glamour to what was hailed as a far-reaching discovery. National pride oozed from the saturation media coverage. When it became known that, during her experiments, the superstar scientist wore a Japanese cooking apron, or kappogi, in preference to a lab coat, sales of the traditional garment skyrocketed. She might be a modern girl, but her heart was in the right place.

The stem-cell heroine is now in virtual hiding. The research papers she co-authored have been called into question on several grounds, prompting an inquiry. Though the mistakes uncovered so far have not been branded deliberate deceptions, clearly the public had been too ready to believe in miracles. As the backlash builds, there is a tendency to vilify (‘immature, sloppy’ research, her boss now calls it) what was previously adored.

Where Tony Abbott comes into the discussion is not, of course, in relation to the specifics of these episodes, but rather what they might indicate about the psychology of present-day Japan. There seems to be a strong, pent-up craving for miracles: redemption miracles, artistic miracles, medical miracles and, in the shape of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, economic and political miracles. It would be dangerous for Abbott, and Australia, to indulge in similar wishful thinking about the bilateral relationship. Japan is not out of the woods, economically, and relations with its nearest neighbours, currently as bad as they have ever been since the war, show little sign of improving. To ignore, play down or set aside these major conditioning factors in our two-way relationship would pander to the Japanese weakness for credulity and formalism.

What Japan needs right now is a cold shower: a reality check, a return to earth. Tokyo’s recent decision not to review the 1993 government apology on wartime ‘comfort women’ might, at first glance, appear to be the start of a healthy sobering up. But Abe’s explanation, that ‘we must be humble regarding history’, is not necessarily what it seems. Given the government’s direct hand in textbook screening, just one example of its current ideological offensive, his further comment that ‘issues regarding history should not be politicised or made diplomatic issues’ is hardly ingenuous or helpful. If Abbott ever intended broaching the issue that lies at the heart of Japan’s poisonous relations with China and South Korea (and recent media reports suggest he does not), he has been warned off even before he gets to Tokyo.

History and diplomacy cannot be separated on a whim, no matter how much certain politicians might find it convenient to do so. The formalism of humility without candour and sincerity, the credulity of a diplomacy built upon a refusal to fully face up to the past: these are manifestations of the same blind spot exploited by conmen, ‘deaf geniuses’ and headline-grabbing scientists. Tony Abbott needs to go to Japan with his eyes wide open and not take the line of least resistance to Abe’s unsustainable worldview.

Walter Hamilton reported from Japan for eleven years.

It is not often that our diplomats in foreign posts receive or need our sympathy in the work they do. But just think of their present plight in defending the Australian Government’s behaviour in foreign policy. What we are seeing across so many countries is alarming. With many key countries, we are skating on very thin ice – and the ice will probably crack fairly soon.

Just consider what is happening.

In our region for decades, opinion leaders and almost anyone else who knew anything about Australia scratched their heads when they realised that we had a foreign head of state. Invariably they asked themselves and others, how can this be in a country like Australia that sees its future as an independent nation in the Asian region? This cultural cringe has worsened in the last few days. We are going to have knights and dames.  How do our diplomats in the region explain this colonial nostalgia which is taking us back down a time-warp to Menzies of the 1950s? We are really making a laughing stock of ourselves. We give lip-service to the Asian Century. But knights and dames belong to the 19^th Century.

The Abbott Government has cut overseas development aid by over $100 million this year and with further cuts to come. The poor of our region will be punished so that the government can fund parental leave for the wealthy. How do our diplomats explain this?

We ask Cambodia, one of the poorest countries in the world, to take asylum seekers that we have a duty to protect and support. Cambodia is a member of ASEAN. The other members of ASEAN must be nonplussed.

We have offended the President of Indonesia in the clumsy handling of telephone tapping of his office. We add to this insult by breaching Indonesian sovereignty almost at will with our naval vessels and turn backs of asylum seekers. Scott Morrison tramples not only over the rights of asylum seekers, but also has been extremely damaging in his visits to Indonesia. On very reliable advice, I know that in Jakarta he is regarded as quite garrulous and aggressive. He shoes the same approach in Australia.  He is causing great damage. He is determined to stop the boats at any cost, including our relations with Indonesia.

The Australian Government tapped the telephones of East Timorese ministers and officials who were engaged in delicate negotiations with the Australian Government on the gas field between Australia and East Timor. The Director of ASIO, who sanctioned the tapping of the telephones in the first place when he was head of ASIS, then persuaded George Brandis to issue orders for raids on the premises of a witness and the Counsel for the East Timorese Government before the International Court. I am glad I am not a diplomat in Dili to try to explain this.

In Opposition, Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison attacked the human rights record of Malaysia, and particularly ‘caning’. It caused serious damage in our relations with Malaysia.  It was wilfully and deliberately done because the Coalition did not want the Labor Government to be successful in stopping the boats. Under the rubric of concern for human rights, the Coalition sided with the Greens in bashing Malaysia.

Our relations with China have been pungently described by a frequent visitor to China as ‘f… ed’. Tony Abbott started the damage by describing Japan as Australia’s best friend in Asia. Given the long-term hostility between Japan and China it was not surprising that China was offended. Julie Bishop then added to the insult by her comments in Washington. Quite unnecessarily we sided with the Japanese against China over the disputed islands in the East China Sea. When Julie Bishop visited Beijing in December last year she was publicly chided by her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi. He accused Australia of ‘jeopardising bilateral mutual trust’. He added ‘the entire Chinese society and the general public are deeply dissatisfied’. Peter Rowe, our top diplomat for North Asia, told a Senate Committee a few weeks ago that ‘I have never in 30 years encountered such rudeness’. The Chinese are clearly very angry. Our diplomats in Beijing would be wise to keep their heads down. Not surprisingly they are having difficulty arranging Tony Abbott’s visit

But wait, there is more. Last month in an exclusive in the SMH on February 24, Bianca Hall and David Wroe reported that ‘Diplomats preparing for the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva have expressed concern that Australia is working to actively undermine a push for an international enquiry into human rights abuses in Sri Lanka because of the [Australian] Government’s eagerness to cooperate with that country’s leaders on asylum seekers’. It was reported that the US and UK officials had ‘a deep concern’ about Australia’s position.

If this serial blundering continues, we will suffer real pain. It is likely that China and Indonesia could be the ones to inflict that pain.

Spare a thought for the diplomats who have to try and repair the damage.

Ukraine, the U.N., the European Union and the U.S. have nine days in which to influence the tide of events in Crimea or witness the second (after the excision from Georgia of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008) expansion of Russia’s military and political control beyond its post-Soviet borders. Nine days. That’s how long the Sochi Paralympics will run – during which the prestige-conscious Vladimir Putin is unlikely to declare ‘Full Ahead’.

Everything about the Russian takeover in Crimea suggests a carefully planned, long-term strategy. The concoction of excuses being offered by the Kremlin, the disinformation about ‘fascist threats’ to Russian-speakers and Jews, comes straight from the old KGB playbook. It is utter nonsense to suggest the special forces being used in Crimea were briefed, equipped and deployed in response to an appeal for help from ousted Ukrainian president Yanukovych contained in that piece of paper produced days after the troops were on the ground. An operation like this, requiring the coordination of many external and internal elements, had to have been in the making for weeks, if not months. The reason Russia refused last month to sign the negotiated political settlement in Kiev becomes apparent: Putin had another solution in mind.

Sitting in Sydney, thousands of kilometres from Simferopol, never having visited that part of the world, I am little qualified to comment on the events unfolding there, I admit. But I have read enough history and heard enough of Putin lamenting the ‘disastrous’ break up of the old Soviet Union to sense that Crimea satisfies more than a passing ambition for the Russian leader. Some more knowledgeable observers believe he is acting out of a need to distract attention from weaknesses in his own country’s economy and social cohesion; that what we are witnessing is opportunistic adventurism. While adventurists are not necessarily less dangerous than methodical imperialists, the implication of their analysis, that Putin is riding the tiger’s tail, smacks to me of wishful thinking. And, anyway, successful adventurism often proves habit forming, and domestic problems, and the opposition movements that in normal circumstances coalesce around them, tend to melt away when the cause of ‘national survival’ is invoked.

The Internet offers us a bewildering array of information, commentary and analysis on the crisis. What I did not know about the history of Ukraine, up until a few days ago, was a lot; for many people, I imagine, it has been a quick swot. Yes, Ukraine has been an independent country for only a short time. Yes, it is divided along religious, ethnic and linguistic lines. Yes, Crimea occupies a special place in the survival story of the Russian people. Yes, Nikita Khrushchev may have been tipsy when he ceded Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954. But, so what? An invasion is an invasion, and no hastily organised referendum conducted under the guns of an occupying power can be considered a legitimate act of self-determination (first run a Russian flag above the parliament building, then ask the people whether they want to be part of Russia––an order of events reminiscent of the Nazi’s Lebensraum program). The use of thugs and militias to intimidate and threaten opponents––a further tool in the Kremlin’s kitbag, as we are seeing––is the present reality, and no amount of gesturing to former historical realities can cancel out what is happening on the ground today.

Very few Europeans would welcome a return to the Cold War. Fewer still want a ‘hot’ war over Crimea. I suspect most governments would be satisfied if Putin stops there and does not extend his annexation to include eastern Ukraine. If so, there will be a touch of ‘Munich’ about the collective sigh of relief. (A Mark Twain quote is being used a lot lately: ‘History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.’) The planned economic and political sanctions are unlikely to have a deep or lasting effect. They’re already being be cited by the Kremlin as evidence of Western hypocrisy and anti-Russian animus; any chinks in the solidarity of the sanctioning states will be ruthlessly exploited.

All nations bordering Russia, meanwhile, have been put on notice, especially those with significant Russian-speaking populations. Over the past 25 years, efforts have been made to draw Russia into the European sphere––under Putin now the tide is ebbing. The ancient contested ground of Central Europe faces increasing pressure to re-align national interests with Russian interests. The levers for this pressure from the east will include the threatened withdrawal of energy supplies, ‘nationalist’ agitation from within the Russian diaspora and blatant military power. There will be sweeteners, too, such as soft loans and trade privileges. All will be played out amid a geopolitical conversation about growing American irrelevance and impotency (see: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam). Such is the worst-case scenario.

A best-case scenario might be something like this: the withholding of international recognition for a Russian-annexed Crimea (the example of Burma-Myanmar is instructive about what can be achieved through a lasting international resolve); a policy of engagement with Russia based on strict reciprocity (starting with strategic trade goods) that stays Putin’s hand from turning off the gas pipelines running west; immediate material support for open and fair elections in Ukraine, with sufficient independent observers on the ground to validate the process; and encouragement for a more inclusive political culture, which might assuage Russian concerns about creeping NATO-ism. A failed and bankrupt state in Ukraine would, after all, be a more immediate threat to Russia than any member of the European Union. It could be smarter for Russia to let the E.U. and its partners pick up the tab. Now that could be the starting point for a real conversation with the Kremlin.

Walter Hamilton reported on international affairs for the ABC for 13 years.

Prince William, his wife Kate and son George are to visit Australia next month. What joy awaits us. The weather should be good for a holiday and adulation from Tony Abbott and his monarchist friends.

Seeing such a visit, the leaders in our region will again scratch their heads. In this ‘Asian Century’ why is Australia inviting a British royal to a country that says that its future is in Asia. The visit may give a short-term lift to tourism, but it will again put us on the wrong side of history.

The royal entourage will visit Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra plus Uluru and the Blue Mountains. The all-up cost, based on previous royal tours, will be about $2 million, another dent in Joe Hockey’s plans to reduce our budget deficit.

A visit by a lesser royal reminds me of Gough Whitlam’s comments to Queen Elizabeth at a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Jamaica in 1974. He had been concerned for some time about the lesser royals ingratiating themselves with state premiers to have an expenses free trip to Australia. Inevitably Gough Whitlam would receive a letter from Sir Jo Bjelke-Peterson or Sir Charles Court that it would be nice if a member of the extended royal family could visit Australia. Gough Whitlam was faced with the political problem of being seen publicly to be unfriendly to the royals. So he was cornered and the visit by the lesser royals went ahead.

But at CHOGM in 1974, Gough Whitlam told the Queen that she and Prince Phillip were welcome – but could she please discourage other members of the family ingratiating themselves with state premiers to get a visit to Australia.

So I was not surprised when the Queen told Australian officials on board Britannia at a reception ‘Your Prime Minister was very kind to Phillip and me. But he was a bit rude to the rest of my family.’  Importantly the message had been conveyed and she understood. She is a smart person. If only her children and grandchildren were half as smart.

In Japan in 1979 I had the privilege of calling on Shigeo Nagano to tell him that the Fraser Government wanted to confer on him an honorary award of Companion in the Order of Australia. Shigeo Nagano had been a major contributor to the development of trade and particularly minerals trade between Australia and Japan. He had been Chairman of Nippon Steel and in 1979 was Chair of Japan’s Chamber of Commerce. He was a very nice man.

After I described the award and its significance, the first question Nagano san asked me was ‘When can I go to London to receive the award from the Queen’. I had to let him down gently and explain that it was an Australian award and it could be presented to him either in Japan by me or he could go to Australia and receive it from the Governor General. He chose the former and a reception was held later in Tokyo for the investiture together with many of his business colleagues.

It was just another illustration of the confusion in our region that comes from our quaint association with the British royal family.

When will we mature and become an independent country with our own Head of State. We can do with fewer visits from lesser royals or any royals for that matter.