Juan Gabriel Vásquez, El Espectador, Colombia, 20 December 2013, http://www.elespectador.com/opinion/esta-babilonia-nuestra-columna-465199

Summary: The so called “War on Drugs” is an American invention from the time of Nixon. It has been a spectacular and costly failure. But the Puritans in the Americas do not want to even discuss the subject.

A year and a half ago, President Santos of Colombia said to Obama that the 40 year war on drugs had failed, and that perhaps it was time to look for alternatives.

Obama, for his part, recognized the necessity for debate, and that simple concession was seen by various Latin American representatives as a victory. It isn’t, but the mirage is tangible proof of an unhealthy dependent relationship: that which exists between the coca producing countries – the main ones are Colombia, Bolivia and Peru, which together have 150,000 hectares of illegal cultivation – and the principal consumer, the United States that takes up 27% of the world’s consumption.

Things being as they are, it is evident that any real change in drug politics has to have the United States as a party to it. It is also evident that Latin America cannot avoid taking the initiative. Now Uruguay is proposing to sell marihuana at a dollar a gram, and, “to defeat the drug trafficking business”, the Guatemalan President is looking at the possibility of selling opium poppies. Meanwhile, Michael Botticelli, the head of the Office of Control of Drug Policies of the United States, came to Bogota to say what we already know: Washington will not change.

The War on Drugs is a United States invention: the first person to use those words was Nixon, at a time when drugs were starting to be consumed massively, but in the producer countries, there were no cartels, no mafia, violence or corruption.

Forty years later, that same prohibition has converted the drug business into the most lucrative in the world. It has put into the hands of the mafias, an economic power strong enough to destabilize whole democracies, and above all, it has left dead people behind its trail. In Mexico alone in the last decade there were 70,000 murdered. Colombia’s deaths, from the years of Pablo Escobar to the war being waged today (whose principle fuel is the drug business) are equally astounding.

Drugs have a twofold problem: on the one hand, there is the public health problem that has always been there; on the other, there is the problem of public order, aligned to violence and the economic power of the mafias. Legalizing drugs is the only viable way of eliminating the second problem, and then only the first remains. The money wasted on this artificial war can be invested in education, prevention and treatment.

The Puritans, of course, in all parts of the Americas are opposed to this. In Colombia, during Uribe’s disastrous years, the slogan of a government campaign was the product of infantile stupidity: marijuana is “the stuff that kills”. But it isn’t: what kills is not the stuff, but the violence with which the mafias defend an illegal business.

Santos has created that Advisory Commission for Drugs Policy to think seriously about legalization, but it has received a hostile reception from the Puritans in Colombia, made up of Uribe’s heirs and the acolytes of the Procurator, a Lefebrvist Catholic, who has published pamphlets – from the Procurator’s office itself – against legalization whose title page has one of Durer’s paintings: “Scene from the Apocalypse, the Whore of Babylon”.

This, on the other hand, cannot be taken seriously. We are right behind the eight ball in allowing any debate on the subject.

Guest blogger, Kieran Tapsell, drew to my attention some good writing from Colombia on issues of international importance. Kieran is a Spanish translator. I hope you enjoy something a little different.  John Menadue

The Prime Minister’s visit to Japan, the Republic of Korea and China, highlighted for me the problems of media reporting and understanding our region.

I have posted blogs on our media. See April 17, 2013, ‘Media failure: the tale of two bombings in two cities’; May 17, 2013, ‘Truth, trust and the media’ and January 31, 2014, ‘Murdoch and Abbott versus the ABC’. I posted a blog on April 10 this year, specifically on Tony Abbott’s visit to Japan and the political shortcomings of Free Trade Agreements which usually have more hype than substance. That continues to be the case.

Our international media coverage is dominated by news out of London, Washington and New York. As I posted before, ‘An outsider and independent observer would conclude that Australia is an island parked off New York or London’. Our media coverage continues to be dominated by North Atlantic sources.

Although it is inadequate, the ABC is far ahead of other media in Australia in coverage of our region. It has fully-fledged correspondents based in Jakarta, New Delhi, Port Moresby, Tokyo, Bangkok, Auckland and Beijing.

None of our commercial TV or radio networks have full time correspondents based in Asia.

The SMH/Age have correspondents in China, Indonesia, New Delhi and Bangkok.

The Australian and other News Corporation publications obviously tap into the company’s foreign reporting assets such as the London Sun. The Australian has a correspondent in Tokyo. But News Ltd can hardly claim to be a serious and professional news organisation. It is the largest and least trusted media organisation in the Western world.

As mainstream media is squeezed the trend will be to reduce regional coverage. Closures are ongoing.

Tony Abbott’s Asian visit was principally covered by journalists from the Canberra press gallery. The gallery is increasingly fixated on politics, with very little interest in policy, let along policies in the foreign affairs, trade or defence areas. Embedded in the Abbott touring party, it is not surprising that they gave us an unprofessional coverage of the Abbott Asian visits, and particularly any understanding of Free Trade Agreements.

The embedded gallery journalists obviously had not read the November 2010 Productivity Report on Bilateral and Regional Trade Agreements. (This is a different name for Free Trade Agreements.)

The Productivity Commission Report concluded ’Businesses have provided little evidence that Australia’s Bilateral and Regional Trade Agreements (have to date) generated significant commercial benefits … net benefits are likely to be small … the direct economic impacts from services and investment provisions in Australia’s BRTAs … have been modest …’.

Following the Productivity Commission Report, the Minister for Trade, Dr Emerson, told the Lowy Institute in December 2010 that he was not interested ‘in collecting trophies for the mantelpiece, empty vessels engraved with the words “FTA” if they are nothing of the sort and of only token value to our country.’

In my blog of April 10, I drew attention to the exaggerated benefits that our embedded journalists attached to the FTAs with Japan and the ROK. The former Trade Minister said the same thing two and a half years ago.

The conclusion of the FTAs with Japan and the ROK with their exaggerated benefits did not occur with the stroke of Tony Abbott’s pen. Ian McAuley in New Matilda pointed out those negotiations had been ongoing for many years under previous governments. If anything, Tony Abbott’s public eagerness in advance to sign the agreements weakened our bargaining position. The Australian journalists with Tony Abbott didn’t make this point.

Further, the journalists paid little attention to the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) that the US is discussing with Japan and ten other countries, including Australia. The US Trade Representative, Michael Froman, in commenting on the FTA between Australia and Japan said ‘Clearly, we are looking for a level of ambition in the TPP which is significantly higher than [what Australia achieved] in access to Japan’s farm sector, notably for beef’. If President Obama achieves this concession under TPP, the short-term benefits we have achieved in beef access will be quickly overtaken by our major competitor in beef, the US. But did the journalists with Tony Abbott understand this about the TPP?

I was in Japan immediately following Tony Abbott’s visit. The issue which struck me was not that the Japanese were so concerned about relations with China and the ROK. Their concern was the effect of the ultra-nationalist policies of Japan’s PM, Shizuo Abe, on relations with the US. I have not yet seen anything about this by the journalists who travelled with Tony Abbott to Japan. Did they speak to anyone but the public relations people working for the Australian and Japanese governments?

In the last day or two we have seen odd comments from a media commentator, Harold Mitchell, about the agreement between Australia and China for the Australian Network of the ABC to be made available to the entire Chinese population. This is something which only the BBC and CNN have been able to achieve. Not surprisingly, after twenty years of trying, News Ltd failed to get such access. Harold Mitchell said that ‘This agreement [with China] is one of the greatest ways we can continue on the PM’s very successful visit to China last week.’

The Abbott Government is threatening to cut ABC funding. Tony Abbott has accused the ABC of being unpatriotic. Julie Bishop has said that the government is assessing whether the $223 million contract with Australian Network in promoting Australia’s interest in the region is of value. The government has made it clear that it is seriously considering changing the contract with Australian Network and the ABC and giving a leg-up to News Ltd as an alternative to the Australian Network.

In short, the arrangement between the ABC and China would have been achieved in spite of and not because of the Abbott Government or the PM’s visit to China. But the members of the press gallery who travelled with Tony Abbott to the region have said nothing about this quite significant breakthrough by the ABC.

Apart from the ABC, we are not well served by the media in its coverage of our own region. That has shown up in the coverage of Tony Abbott’s visits to Japan, the ROK and China.

The USA and NATO seem to see their relationship with Russia as one of goodies and baddies. This is naïve and their hairy chested approach is not helpful. This paper looks at the realities of Russian attitudes to the outside world.

Many foreigners write off Vladimir Putin as a “fascist”, a communist throwback, a brutal dictator and so on. There can be no doubt that he is strongly authoritarian and doesn’t suffer opponents gladly but he is not Stalin. He was elected and there are opposition parties. Many Russians dislike him and oppose what he stands for but his appeal to Russian nationalism does not fall on deaf ears. Russians are a proud people who are glad to be rid of many aspects of Communism but feel some nostalgia for the glory days of the USSR which was strong and respected as a great power.  They believe that Russia will always be a “Great Power” and are suspicious of Western attempts to play down Russia’s importance in the world. These attitudes go back way before theSoviet Union and reflect the longstanding Slavophile/Westerniser debate.

While there were obvious differences in ideology and rhetoric there were also many similarities between theUSSR and the Russian Empire, especially in their policy towards the neighbours. The Soviets kept the conquests of the Tsars and added some. This does affect the attitudes of many today. Putin is above all a nationalist who wants to restore Russian greatness and is willing to stomp on anyone who gets in the way. However, he is neither mad nor stupid and understands the difference between a kind of Russian Monroe Doctrine and conquest.

Any action by NATO needs to take account of how Russia views things even if it is only following the time tested principle of know your enemy. Russians see the West as hypocritical and are suspicious of what they see as a US desire to dominate the world – and more importantly Russia. The US has a long track record of interference and aggression against other countries – Mexico 1847, the Philippine Republic 1898, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Chile, Grenada, Vietnam, Iraq and so on. The Russians also have no illusions about the peaceful record of European nations. Therefore, Western rhetoric about freedom and non-interference is not seen as the righteous wrath of the just but as the hypocrisy of aggressors. Russians would ask that if it was wrong for theUSSR to have missiles in Cuba is it not equally wrong for NATO to have missiles and troops on Russian borders? We may debate the rights and wrongs of these arguments but it is how Putin and most Russians see things. Even the pro-democracy anti=Putin people are not immune from this view.

Putin knows that the US is not going to use military force against Russia and the Europeans are even less inclined to do so. Sanctions will only have the effect of reinforcing anti-Western views and perhaps persuading people who don’t really like Putin to back him against the foreigners. If they were to bite economically that would resentment would be even greater. They may also encourage counter-sanctions.

So what next?  Crimea is a special case. It is historically Russian, has a Russian majority and should never have become part of Ukraine. It will be absorbed into theRussian Federation but it does not follow that Russia is bent on a conquest of Ukraine or even less on the rest of the former Soviet Union. Admittedly, the Eastern Russian speaking part of Ukraine is a problem as are some other Russian enclaves from the former Soviet Union. Putin has said he will protect the interests of Russian minorities but also that he has no claims on other territory. His actions in the case of Georgia and theCaucasus are not encouraging but fear of the West did not stop him.

If the West is seriously interested in a solution, more carrot and less stick would seem to be the answer. Most Ukrainians do not want to be part of Russia – and other neighbours even less so – but Ukraine is a corrupt and inefficient basket case which must give the Europeans pause for thought about how far they go in absorbing Ukraine as opposed to simply talking about its right to freedom of choice. NATO needs to be more sensitive to Russian feelings of encirclement by an organisation which was set up to contain theSoviet Union. They ask that if the Cold War is over, what is the role of NATO? This does not mean accepting Russian bluster or aggression but attempts to force Russia to kow tow publicly to the West are doomed. Quiet diplomacy has a much better chance of getting results.

Threats by Australia to ban Russia from the G20 meeting in Brisbane miss the point. This is not Australia’s decision to take but the G20 organisation’s. Australia is not a player in this game and if the Russians notice us at all they will see us as simply following the big kids of the anglosphere as we always do. Nobody is lying awake in the Kremlin worrying about what Australia will do. We would be well advised to keep a low profile.

Cavan Hogue was Australia’s last Ambassador to the USSR and the first to the Russian Federation and to Ukraine.

As Tony Abbott’s first time to South Korea (ROK) as Prime Minister this visit carries much more importance than the mercantilist hype in which it  has been cloaked. It will certainly will be seen through a much larger prism by his hosts – and their brothers across the border. The Korean peninsular is of fundamental strategic importance to Australia as the only place in the world where the national interests of the all major powers intersect and the potential for conflict remains so high. The mozaic  of all these interests is extremely complex,  demanding close and continuing interest of the highest order and very sensitive management on our part –  as the Prime Minister and his team should have learned from the instant and robust reaction not only from China but also the ROK to his incautious remarks about Japan being Australia’s best friend in the region. This visit offers him the opportunity to appreciate this kaleidoscope of challenges at first hand.

Both Japan and the ROK are alliance partners of the US but they often sing from very different hymn sheets – usually to the chagrin of the US as witnessed by President Obama’s very public efforts at the recent summit in The Netherlands to initiate and chair the first face to face meeting between Prime Minister Abe and President Park. Likewise, on many issues the ROK is more comfortable with China than it is with Japan. As their country has been a battlefield for centuries between China and Japan, Koreans have learned more about managing relations with both than any other country and have much wisdom to offer at a time when the rest of the world is beginning to focus on the looming strategic shifts in the region

North Korea , of course, remains a constant threat not only to the ROK but to the region and the world more widely. ROK views on and policies towards the DPRK are naturally far more complex than media headlines would suggest – and often more sophisticated. This links directly into the ROK relationship with the US which is often quite sensitive. Australia would do well to understand much better these shades of difference and bear them in mind in forming our own policy towards the DPRK.

There have been some notable occasions when Australia and the ROK have worked very closely together on regional and international initiatives :for example,  Hawke and his Korean counterpart with the foundation of APEC, Rudd and his counterpart with the development of the G20. But the Middle Power vision of the two countries in the region , along with Indonesia and others, has often been mooted but never taken off. It could be timely to revisit the concept in discussions with President Park.

Given the welcome progress on the FTA after so many years in the making and  the extraordinary size of the travelling business retinue some of the hoopla is understandable. But there is still some way to go before its outcomes can be reasonably quantified. It will make little if any impact on the big hitters of Australian exports to the ROK whose business is well established and working well on a market basis with what is a remarkably globalised Korean economy. Last year we enjoyed a $ 10 billion trade surplus with our exports to the ROK twice the value of their exports to us. In any event Korean business culture is such that touring spectaculars seldom lead to instant match-making. Sustained engagement through personal networking remains essential. Even door opening for groups of this size becomes very problematic.

Our agricultural exports should gain benefit from the FTA but the floodgates are unlikely to open wide – especially in beef which has been so contentious for decades. The services sector should also benefit. The most obvious Korean gain will be the removal of the 5% tariff on cars which has disadvantaged Korean manufacturers to cars from Thailand.

In his recent Asia Society promo of the North Asia tour Abbott is “hoping” that the FTA will be signed while he is Korea. The uncertainty is generated by the lengthy translation of the volumes of paperwork involved. The Korea US FTA several years ago failed so badly in translation – sparking over 300 cases in Korean courts and real tensions between Seoul and Washington.

After signature the formal approval of the FTA by both parliaments will be needed before implementation. On the Korean side this will be no cake-walk especially in the very sensitive agricultural area. Democracy is very much alive and well in Korea and they have a higher proportion of rural electorates than Australia. Given the outstanding success of cooperatives in the ROK, rural voters are largely small and ageing farmers not rapacious landlords or agribusiness. The Korean government may wait for the signature of FTA’s currently in negotiation with Canada and New Zealand to present all three as a package to the National Assembly.

Mack Williams is a former Australian Ambassador to the Republic of Korea.

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.

Annexation, as in the latest example of Russia with Crimea, usually refers to a smaller entity being swallowed up by a bigger one. It has a long history with both violent and peaceful outcomes. A recent example is East Jerusalem which Israel took over after the Six-Day War in 1967, resulting in enmity ever since. Before that was the Anschluss in 1938 when Hitler declared Austria to be part of Nazi Germany. Not long afterwards he annexed Sudetenland, a German-speaking area of Czechoslovakia, precipitating the road to World War Two. In 1975, Indonesia invaded East Timor and announced it had annexed it, much to the disquiet of its residents.

It may surprise some that Hawaii and Texas became part of the U.S. as a result of annexation in the 19th century. Texas had been a northern state of Mexico until a majority of its people favoured joining the U.S and got the blessing of Congress to do so. Hawaiians had little say in the matter. The Americans overthrew their Queen and made Hawaii part of the U.S. for strategic and trade reasons.  In 1910, Japan annexed Korea. In 1914, Britain added Cyprus and Egypt to its Empire, taking both from the Ottomans with whom it was at war.

In 1961, Goa, the Portuguese colony on the west coast of India, was forcibly absorbed into the newly-independent country. In formal terms, it was annexed, but India has always insisted it was ‘liberated’. It has similarities with with Crimea. Both are small specks in the overall geography of their regions. Crimea has a Russian-speaking majority who voted overwhelmingly to become part of Russia. In 1961, nearly two-thirds of Goa’s population was Hindu just as they were the overwhelming majority in India. Goa had been in Portuguese hands since 1510. Crimea became part of Russia in 1783 when Catherine the Great actually annexed it until the Soviet Union ceded it to one of its states, Ukraine, in 1954.

The reasons for both takeovers were mainly strategic. In its latest move, Russia clearly wants to protect its naval access to the Black Sea and to the Mediterranean. In the case of Goa, India was worried by the likely consequences of the 1955 CENTO pact (Central Eastern Treaty Organisation) consisting of Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey and Britain with the U.S. taking a keen interest on the sidelines.

The distinguished Indian newsman, Prem Prakash, who covered the Goa takeover, recalls:

‘With the prospect of Goa, the only natural harbour along the vast western coast of India, possibly becoming a military base of the U.S.-led CENTO which could bring Pakistan forces there, India became alarmed. India’s hawks and anti-U.S. lobbyists led by Krishna Menon, the then Defence Minister, started pressurising (Prime Minister Jawaharlal) Nehru to take pre-emptive action’.

 Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, wanted to see if the matter could be resolved peacefully. But the Portuguese Prime Minister and dictator, Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, said Goa was non-negotiable because it was part of metropolitan Portugal.

India began building up its forces around Goa. Portugal tried to rush warships there, but President Nasser of Egypt refused them access to the Suez Canal. That was because India and Egypt had just become founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement. Portugal then tried to provide reinforcements through its air force only for its planes to be denied overflying or refuelling rights. A civilian charter did get through. Portuguese soldiers, expecting to find hand grenades, instead found sausages for their consumption.

Salazar demanded his hopelessly-outnumbered  troops in Goa fight until the last man. They ignored him. The result was that India took control of Goa within a day with minimal casualties. Later the Portuguese governor was tried for treason.

Just as happened with the Crimea takeover, the U.S. rushed to the UN Security Council to protest, while the Soviet Union applauded the action. China, though a vociferous opponent of colonialism and its running dogs, neither condemned nor supported the invasion.

Prakash says the Indian action was justified in much the same way as the Russian one was. Why, he asks, would India allow the threat of a foreign takeover of a prime naval base just as Russia reasoned much the same about its Black Sea presence after the elected leader of the Ukraine had been overthrown by mob rule tacitly supported by the West?

Goa became part of India with little trouble and has developed into a prosperous and peaceful international tourist destination. Lisbon still offers Goans Portuguese nationality if they can prove they or their ancestors were born during colonial rule. For Crimea, separation may not be so easy when it depends on the Ukraine for its water and power supplies and has no contiguous border with Mother Russia.

John Tulloh had a 40-year career covering foreign news.

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.

Western rhetoric about the situation in Ukraine shows little understanding of the realities of Russia and Ukraine. If Western countries want a new cold war they are going the right way about it. It is a complex problem which cannot be solved by superficial noises about democracy and territorial integrity. Crimea is a special case which should be separated from the more general conflict.

Crimea was always Russian until Khrushchev put it into the Ukrainian SSR which didn’t matter because everything at that time was controlled from Moscow anyway. However, after the break-up, a whole lot of people who spoke Russian and thought of themselves as Russians found themselves in a country they didn’t want to be part of and felt no loyalty towards. That is why they are an autonomous region and that is why they want to be part of Russia instead of Ukraine.

Many Russians do not see Ukrainians as being different. The beginnings of what we now know as Russia were in Kiev when Prince Vladimir adopted Orthodox Christianity. Kievan Rus, as it was known, then spread north to Moscow and is seen by Russians as the origin of their civilisation. Those who think of themselves as Ukrainian would not deny history but presumably would argue that things have changed in the last 500 years and they prefer to look towards Europe.

Ukraine is divided between Russians and Ukrainians. The non-Russian Ukrainians have an understandable distrust of Russia. In places like Lvov people who have never moved from the one house have been Polish, Soviet Russians and now Ukrainian. There is also a religious divide between Russian Orthodox and Uniates who have their own rites but accept the authority of the Pope. The current split within Ukraine is between those who look to Russia and those who look to Europe.

If a free and fair referendum is held in Crimea there is likely to be a majority for joining Russia. Forcing these people back into Ukraine is not going to solve anything. They will remain a discontented group who will continue to make trouble for the central government. They believe they have the right to self-determination and Ukraine might be a stronger and more stable country without them.

Russians are a proud people who have been humiliated by their lessened influence in the world but who still firmly believe Russia is a Great Power. Putin has this view in spades and attempts by the West, especially the USA, to pressure him will be resisted. It is certainly true that he is authoritarian – to put it mildly – but this should not lead us to ignore the fact that in the case of Crimea he does have a point. Quite apart from Crimea, Putin does have a vision of a Russia which plays a major role in the world and is not pushed around. He does not seem to accept that Ukrainians don’t like to be pushed around either.

Sanctions are dangerous in that they will tend to create a gap instead of bringing Russia into closer ties with Europe. Even if they were to succeed, they would leave a resentment that will not go away in a hurry. Megaphone diplomacy is not helpful.

The pious comments from the Coalition of the Willing about not interfering in other countries are a bit rich! While there is plenty of chest pounding from Putin, Russians will not be impressed by pressure from people they see as not being in a position to cast the first stone. Western countries may claim the moral high ground but Russians will not agree.

Australia can have no significant influence in this dispute and we would be well advised to keep a low profile. However, I understand that domestic pressure from Ukrainians here who have more votes than Russians is a factor which politicians will take into account in their public rhetoric. I suspect the community here, many of whom left Ukraine while it was still part of the USSR, have unreal expectations of what Australia could and should do in Ukraine. Most of them belong to the Ukrainian speaking and anti Russian part of the country. They have a legitimate point of view but so perhaps do the people who do not want to be part of Ukraine.

Cavan Hogue was the last Australian Ambassador to the USSR and the first to the Russian Federation and to Ukraine. He was also Ambassador to Mexico, Malaysia and Thailand.

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.

In his Australia Day post Abbott’s relations with China Australia’s first Ambassador to the People’s Republic, Stephen Fitzgerald, begins

‘Can you believe the Abbott government has any idea where it’s headed on relations with China? Whatever you think of China’s politics, you can’t just take sides against China or meddle in the tense and volatile issue of China-Japan relations without there being some consequence for our bilateral relations. But the government doesn’t seem to care. From what you can divine from the little it says publicly, it thinks the Chinese will back down under Australia’s glare, and “get over it”. Like the Indonesians will get over it. But the Indonesians, whose thinking we know more clearly, aren’t going to get over it. Abbott and Morrison are so untutored in foreign relations and diplomacy, or so deaf or both, that they don’t understand something has snapped in Jakarta. It’s not about our policies it’s about the language the Abbott government uses and the lecturing, patronising and racist attitudes they convey. A strong, independent, democratic and regionally influential Indonesia is not going to put up with that any longer and relations are never going back to the way they were before.’

Other academic and journalistic commentators have observed that the Government seems to believe either that relations with Jakarta will return to an even keel within an acceptable period, or that it doesn’t really matter very much. The latter attitude would be of a piece with the Prime Minister’s comment that China trades with us because it is in her interests to do so.

It seems timely in the light of this very public conversation to relate a couple of anecdotes that indicate the role that the presence or absence of goodwill between states can play as they go about their day to day business, some of which can be of towering importance.

In 1989 I accompanied then Prime Minister Bob Hawke on an official visit to Korea, Pakistan, India and Thailand, starting in Seoul.  This was the trip on which Hawke successfully proposed, in Seoul, the establishment of a forum for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).  I was in Europe immediately prior to the trip and I timed my arrival in Seoul to enable me to meet the Prime Minister and party on their arrival at Kimpo International Airport.

Unfortunately, someone in Canberra had neglected to put in to the Taiwan administration in good time a request for diplomatic clearance for the Prime Minister’s RAAF B-707 to transit Taiwanese airspace. Military aircraft are no more permitted to enter another country’s airspace without permission than naval vessels are permitted to enter their territorial waters.

Urgent clearance was requested, but the Taiwanese did not feel motivated to waive the normal timelines for our convenience, so the Prime Minister’s aircraft had to fly around Taiwanese airspace, and was several hours late into Kimpo. The fact that I was waiting at the airport for the duration is a matter of no consequence; the fact that the Korean Prime Minister was also inconvenienced in this way was embarrassing and of course required us to make explanation.

In 1998, while I was Secretary to the Department of Defence, the anti-Chinese riots in Jakarta reached a level of seriousness at which we felt obliged to make preparations for a Services Assisted Evacuation of Australian nationals. At the time there were about 20,000 Australians resident in Indonesia, of whom about 10,000 were in the greater Jakarta area, and the rest were scattered throughout the archipelago in numbers ranging from substantial communities in commercial centres like Surabaya to tiny numbers working in remote locations on aid projects, as teachers, or for service-oriented NGOs.

As soon as we started we quickly received requests for assistance from friendly countries like the United States, New Zealand, Spain and others who had smaller expatriate populations in country and for whom it made little sense to plan a separate uplift.

Planning an evacuation on this scale across the whole of the Indonesian Archipelago is no trivial matter. It involves identifying the most appropriate airfields to use as pick-up points, the types of aircraft that can be landed there and the gross weight that will be able to take off again. For contingencies such as these it also involves figuring out from where these aircraft can fly in and fly out again without having to refuel.

Before implementation, it also requires the home government to give permission for all of these aircraft to land – and agree to appropriate exit formalities for all of the people they are planning to pick up.

Very early in the process the planners began to worry about the vulnerability of the road from downtown Jakarta to the airport. What if we gather together hundreds of people in central Jakarta and can’t get them to the airport because there are disturbances en route or the road is blocked?

Chief of Navy Vice-Admiral Don Chalmers had a ready alternative up his sleeve. At the time an RAN frigate was exercising with friendly navies to the north of Indonesia, in the South China Sea, and the exercise was drawing to a close. VADM Chalmers suggested that the frigate be directed to remain on station in that approximate location, so that it could proceed promptly to Jakarta if required. He also undertook to ring his Indonesian counterpart, with whom he maintained very good working relations, and tell him what was going on, so that the Indonesians wouldn’t be wondering why an Australian warship was hanging around just outside their territorial waters.

The Indonesian response? Words to the effect, “We quite understand and we would like to assist you with the planning” – a response of immeasurable value.

What these anecdotes indicate is that, on occasions when we need from another country assistance or permission it does not have to give, a lack of goodwill can lead to inconvenience or worse, whereas a positive relationship can lead to more being offered than we have requested.

There will be a price to be paid for our Government insouciantly ignoring the clear messages from Indonesia that it is infuriated by the measures we are taking in pursuit of our “stop the boats at all costs” policy. We had better be very confident that we will not in the foreseeable future need any important favours from Jakarta.

Paul Barratt was Secretary of the Department of Defence, Secretary of the Department of Primary Industries and Energy, and Deputy Secretary of the Department of Trade.

Sometime late last year, the Australian government made the seemingly innocuous decision to revert, after 18 months, to calling the Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar by its British name Burma. One of Tony Abbott’s growing list of regional insults.

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In a commentary published by the Lowy Institute entitled “Japan is Back: Unbundling Abe’s Grand Strategy*, Dr. Michael Green (Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic International Studies in Washington, DC) analyses the political and economic policies of Japan’s conservative government under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and concludes that “the overall strategy could be quite effective” in enhancing Japan’s prestige and forcing the cooperation of China.

The article is detailed, wide-ranging and informed by high-level contacts within Japan. The credentials of the author and the forum in which his views were aired suggest they are likely to be consonant with advice that Prime Minister Tony Abbott is receiving from his foreign affairs advisers. The article deserves a close reading because Green’s attempt to give Abe’s policies the status of a “grand strategy” unintentionally exposes their underlying contradictions.

The author begins by arguing that Abe’s strategy does not represent a break with the past: “[His] national security agenda is not, in fact, a departure from the general trajectory established by his predecessors in the post-Cold War era.” Elsewhere, he asserts, “While scholars have emphasised the debate among different strategic schools in Japan, the real debates now are mostly about the timing and scope of change – not its direction.” Green wants to counter any suggestion that Abe is an extremist or maverick politician acting out of step with popular opinion. Later in the article, however, he states: “The policy and legal obstacles that Abe is now busy removing as part of his internal balancing strategy were erected by previous Japanese governments eager to build a buffer against involvement in US military plans in the Pacific.” There is an obvious contradiction. Is Abe building on existing policy frameworks or dismantling them?

Green’s case that Abe’s policies are continuous with the past, on closer examination, is based mainly on the claim that “[his immediate predecessor, Prime Minister] Yoshihiko Noda…began the push for most of the key elements of Abe’s security agenda.” In other words, by “predecessors” he means principally Noda. While it is true the Noda government sought to shore up Japan’s alliance with the United States, this represented a swing of the pendulum back from the failed attempt of a former leader of his ruling Democratic Party of Japan, Yukio Hatoyama, to put a distance between Tokyo and Washington. Noda gave expression to one side of the historical “bi-polar” complex that has characterised Japan’s postwar relationship with the US. Furthermore, the Noda government––deeply unpopular because of its perceived incompetence––took strategic decisions (notably the purchase of the three Senkaku/Diaoyu islands that so enraged China) reactively, under duress and without a clearly articulated policy agenda. To posit a continuum between Abe and the panicked previous administration is curious, to say the least.

Green refers to a former “left-leaning” Prime Minister Takeo Miki’s opposition to arms exports, without identifying him as a leader of the same Liberal Democratic Party Abe now heads. The LDP, like the DJP, has always contained competing views on whether rearmament or disarmament best serves Japan’s national interest, whether a look-to Beijing or a look-to-Washington posture is preferable. The current ascendency of the pro-Washington hawks within the LDP is just that: a phase in a cyclical power play. To suggest, as Green does, that a single continuity of views has existed within Japan’s leadership since the breakup of the Soviet Union is unsupportable. (The recent about-face by former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, coming out against nuclear power and backing a rival to the LDP’s candidate in Tokyo’s gubernatorial election, is a further example of the volatility of Japan’s conservative mainstream.) While it is true that Abe enjoys a high level of support within the electorate––anything over 50% is extraordinary by recent standards––there is little evidence that the so-called “grand strategy” (which Green invests with a spurious coherence) goes more than slogan-deep in terms of public understanding. Indeed it is incapable of being comprehended, I submit, because of its internal contradictions.

Another of the contradictions emerges when Green discusses regional responses to Abe’s policies. He states that the Abe Government “is pursuing foreign and security policies that are welcomed…by most governments in the region.” Yet he also says, correctly, that “the most striking thing about his diplomacy is that it has been focused on the near and far abroad rather than the immediate neighbours South Korea and China.” Given that the other key players in Japan’s region are, of course, China and South Korea, how does Green’s first statement stack up? He seems to believe that Australia, the US and other like-minded nations should support Japan in a diplomacy conducted over the heads of its nearest neighbours: “Abe’s preference for diplomacy with the states around China’s periphery also reflects his view that Japan’s natural partners are the democratic maritime states.” For Australia to automatically support Japan against its neighbours, rather than urge Tokyo to seek an accommodation with nations of vital interest to us, would be foolhardy.

Green identifies within Abe’s diplomacy (correctly, as far as it goes) an attempt to present Japan as a bastion of freedom, rule of law and transparency, and thus a defender of “Western” values, as opposed to the alternative “Pan-Asian” version that defines Japan by cultural and ethnic affinities. Japan, however, has been down a similar path before, in the period 1900-1925, and that, as we know, proved unsustainable. Green concedes that “tensions between Seoul and Tokyo are indirectly hurting broader Japanese influence in Asia and even in Washington” but does not explain how, by facilitating a diplomacy that overlooks South Korea, the US or Australia would benefit. Green treats the disagreements over historical accountability, so damaging to regional relations, as “complications.” This happens to be the prevailing Japanese attitude, based on the calculation that since China and South Korea have not always been as strident about such matters in the past, they can be waited out. The danger of inaction, however, was underlined again recently when the new president of NHK, Japan’s national broadcaster, made light of the “comfort women” issue during a news conference. Every time the Japanese Establishment’s complacency and recalcitrance are exposed, the gulf widens. If Abe wishes to lead a credible world power he must embrace a credible and candid accounting for the nation’s past. More than a complication, right now it is the spanner in the works.

In his discussion of Japan’s defence needs, Greens starts from the proposition that “China’s coercive pressure in the East China Sea…is most likely to spark a larger confrontation.” No evidence is offered for this one-sided view. He considers an increased Japanese military capability, including counterstrike deterrence, the sine qua non of a strategy to prevent Chinese coercion. Green’s account of why the country has lived for so long with a limited military capability is pure revisionism: “Japan’s deterrent capabilities are significantly less efficient and credible because of the numerous legal and bureaucratic constraints that have accumulated in the post-war period.” The language suggests that red tape, rather than a popular aversion to military adventures, has been the main constraint on Japan since 1945. The opposite is true. Japan’s war-renouncing constitution has been the central pillar of the nation’s postwar prosperity, and to dismiss it as a “bureaucratic” encumbrance is quite perverse. Certainly, various governments over the years have reinterpreted the basic law to enable Japan to maintain a modern military establishment but each step on that journey has kept intact a credible commitment to the principle of non-belligerence (though critics of Japan’s support for American military engagements in Asia and elsewhere would, of course, disagree). This is a whole-of-state issue, not a matter for backroom tinkering.

Green reports a “growing interest in Tokyo in the concept that Japan might use the development of counterstrike capability as a source of leverage vis-à-vis the United States.” He argues that as a result of Japan embracing a broader definition of its right to collective self-defense “the SDF will be seen by allies, partners, and potential adversaries as a more effective fighting force within the confines of Japan’s renunciation of war as a means to settle international disputes.” A more effective fighting force, I suggest, is not necessarily the best advertisement for the renunciation of war. For the two to be possibly compatible would require a style of leadership––inclusive, disposed to listen rather than dictate, and sensitive to the concerns of neighbours––that Abe so far has not displayed.

Green describes a view taking shape within the LDP that the government need not move immediately to revise Article 9 of the constitution in order to achieve its military-strategic objectives; it can do so through an administrative measure. But a change to Japan’s military posture to include a significant counterstrike capability, without a full airing of the issues that a debate on the constitution would enable, is not a development Australia should welcome. It runs counter to the very democratic values Abe insists link his nation to “natural partners” like Australia. The centralisation of power under Abe that Green identifies (and approves of), including the creation of supra-parliamentary organs, such as the new National Security Council and National Security Bureau, and the enactment of a wide-ranging state secrets law, might, to some, make Japan a “normal” country, but they seem unlikely to cast more light on the murky process of Japanese policy formation––quite the reverse.

A final contradiction arises in Green’s discussion of the support he says the US, Australia and others should lend Japan in its confrontation with China: “The United States, Australia, and all maritime nations have a stake in Japan not backing down under Chinese military pressure. Ultimately, a modus vivendi might be reached in which Japan finds a way to acknowledge officially that there is a de jure dispute [over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands].” For Japan to acknowledge that a de jure territorial dispute exists, as Green surely knows, would to Abe and his supporters constitute a back down. Such a concession might be desirable; but to argue against backing down to China and, in the same breath, to advocate it is peculiar. Green gets into this pickle by failing to adequately acknowledge that Japan’s actions have contributed to the impasse with China. Japan’s friends would do better to denounce the hardliners on both sides and propose solutions that get beyond fixed positions implied by the term “back down.” Green’s proposal would lead to an untenable situation in which anything Japan says or does must be approved, or else. He writes: “Resisting Japanese requests for joint contingency planning or pressuring Tokyo to compromise in the face of Chinese coercion would do fundamental damage to the credibility of the [US-Japan] alliance and lead to more pronounced hedging by Japan. The result would be less US control over escalation in a crisis in the East China Sea and weakened dissuasion and deterrence all along the offshore island chain.” You can’t have it both ways. Either Japan is a partner who can be resisted and corrected, as well as supported, or it is a liability. The same goes for China.

Green performs a valuable service by articulating issues that Australians should be considering as a matter of urgency. Without a doubt, Abe (who has compared current relations between China and Japan to those between Germany and Britain in 1914) is the strongest, most belligerent Japanese leader to emerge for decades. There are, however, flaws in his “grand strategy.” Diplomacy conducted over the heads of China and South Korea to engage supposedly like-minded democratic maritime partners such as Australia should make any modern Bismarck quaver. Resolving the historical grievances between Japan and its former colonial underlings is essential to future regional security. They will not fix themselves. To demonstrate its commitment to democratic values Japan needs a full-blown debate about the role of its defence forces within the constitution rather than increasingly centralised and elitist decision-making. Australia’s interest in a vibrant and peaceful Japan requires our leaders to oppose all measures that heighten regional tensions and undermine longer-term stability.

* http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/japan-back-unbundling-abes-grand-strategy

Walter Hamilton reported from Japan for the ABC for eleven years. He is the author of “Children of the Occupation: Japan’s Untold Story”.

Can you believe the Abbott government has any idea where it’s headed on relations with China? Whatever you think of China’s politics, you can’t just take sides against China or meddle in the tense and volatile issue of China-Japan relations without there being some consequence for our bilateral relations. But the government doesn’t seem to care. From what you can divine from the little it says publicly, it thinks the Chinese will back down under Australia’s glare, and “get over it”. Like the Indonesians will get over it. But the Indonesians, whose thinking we know more clearly, aren’t going to get over it. Abbott and Morrison are so untutored in foreign relations and diplomacy, or so deaf, or both, that they don’t understand something has snapped in Jakarta. It’s not about our policies it’s about the language the Abbott government uses and the lecturing, patronising and racist attitudes they convey. A strong, independent, democratic and regionally influential Indonesia is not going to put up with that any longer and relations are never going back to the way they were before.

And the risk is that at the same time relations with China will be pushed back to at least where they were before Julia Gillard secured agreement for a regular high-level strategic dialogue with Beijing in April last year. This is not only harmful to our bilateral relations and restricting in our scope for managing them in our own interests. It will limit Australia’s capacity to be an effective player in regional affairs and a useful voice in the balancing of US China relations.

The fact is the government doesn’t have a China policy, in any coherent, strategic, long-term sense, and it has laid out no narrative in any speech or document that would give the lie to this assertion. Its handling of the issues with China over the last few months has been in the service more of a neoconservative confrontationist US view of China than an Australian view or Australian interests.

At the US-Japan-Australia Trilateral Strategic Dialogue in the wings of the APEC ministerial summit in Bali in October 2013, Australia put its signature to a communique which “opposed any coercive or unilateral actions that could change the status quo in the East China Sea”. The problem is, it’s the very status quo itself which is in dispute between Japan and China, and by some interpretations the Chinese case is by no means weaker than Japan’s. Whatever the rights, Australia needlessly and recklessly took sides in a complex dispute in which we have no part, and Beijing of course reacted.

And there’s a bit more. The final wording agreed in Bali was reportedly different from the draft prepared by DFAT, bearing the stamp particularly of the two drafting officials from Tony Abbott’s Australia and Shinjo Abe’s Japan (Tony Abbott’s ‘best friend’ in Asia). The Australian official was Abbott’s Senior Advisor on National Security, Andrew Shearer, allegedly in Bali to ride herd on the neophyte Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and an advocate of bludgeon diplomacy and hairy-chested confrontation of China.

In November, China declared an Air Defence Identification Zone, ADIZ, in the East China Sea. This may be a matter of concern to Australia, but it’s not immediately proximate for us, and it’s one for us that demands skilful diplomacy not confrontation. Australia had a range of possible responses, but Julie Bishop went straight for a public slap down, carpeting the Chinese Ambassador to Australia Ma Zhaoxu to denounce Beijing’s move, and rubbing the Chinese nose in it by talking it up in language that suggested ‘Look what I’ve done!’ The concerning thing about this is that it was bound to achieve nothing other than provoke a tougher, uncompromising position from the Chinese, and so it did. “Irresponsible”, said Beijing. But worse for us, it put diplomacy out of play, again to the detriment of our relations and any role in whatever diplomatic potential there might be for amelioration of the tensions surrounding the issue.

Julie Bishop then made a scheduled visit to Beijing, and we saw on television the famous prelude to her meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. It’s the first time I’ve seen a senior Chinese, during the photo opportunity that precedes such bilateral meetings, vent a disagreement in this way with any country, even with the Japanese at difficult times in their relations. Wang Yi’s body language alone would have been a fairly blunt signal, but his sharp words in front of the media amounted to an official Chinese declaration that relations with Australia were in bad shape. In the history of our diplomatic relations, apart from the Tiananmen massacre we’ve not had such a stand-off. This, at a time when what we need most is to get closely alongside the Chinese and do whatever we can diplomatically to help defuse regional tensions and work on the development of a new order in the Pacific that peacefully accommodates Chinese as well as US power.

Yet in December, when Prime Minister Abe visited the Yasukuni Shrine and other countries in the region with an interest in Japan’s wartime record immediately objected and even the US cautioned Japan, Australia said nothing. This is a deeply emotional issue for both China and Korea, who interpret a prime ministerial visit to this shrine as an intentional denial of Japan’s wartime atrocities. And whereas on the two earlier issues the Australian government spoke out when it might to greater effect have chosen a diplomatic response and a public reticence, on this issue it didn’t even refer to it till a month later, and then only en passant in a Bishop interview with the Financial Review, when the incident was well out of the way.

With China, as with Indonesia, disagreements and policy differences can be managed, but it’s the way we’ve gone about it, and the language, and the idea from colonial times that if you speak English to these people loudly and clearly enough they will understand and do what they’re told. And for Beijing, there’s the unmistakable message that on matters it regards as vitally affecting its sovereignty, we stand with a particular US view that doesn’t want to accommodate Chinese power.

Beijing has not got over it. But what will it do in response? So long as it sees benefit for China, it’s unlikely to want to disturb economic relations or derail the FTA negotiations. What’s more likely is downgrading the importance it gives to political and strategic dialogue. But political and strategic dialogue is the one element of our relations we can least afford to lose. It took years to persuade an Australian government to understand this, and when finally it was taken up by Julia Gillard it took a huge effort to get the Chinese government to come to the party.

This is serious. It’s not a case of being pro-China or seeing Asia through a Chinese prism, which is what the proponents of the US policy of denial pretend. To lose that dialogue or have the Chinese not take it seriously would be a major setback for us. And make more difficult the management of our economic relations. And deny us opportunities to resolve through diplomacy and dialogue the many challenging issues we’re going to face directly with China as a Great Power in our external habitat and a force in our domestic politics.

What will happen, if the Indonesian government turns to China to supply or even directly assist its navy in the protection of Indonesia’s sovereign borders? And China obliges? And they turn to Abbott, Bishop and Morrison and say: “you, of all people, ought to understand”?

If you meddle in someone else’s issues by taking sides when you’re not a party principal, can you really believe they might not meddle in yours?

Dr.Stephen Fitzgerald was former Australian Ambassador to China

The fear of many Thais is that the country will end up like the Philippines – so laid back that nothing gets done, so corrupt that everyone stops trying, so mismanaged that there is misery for many just around the corner.

While things may not have reached the depths of Marcos era chaos, there are worry signs. Why? There seems now no way out of the circumstances the country finds itself in:

• The protests are led by a former deputy prime minister facing murder charges over his part in 2010 when there was the bloody suppression of just the sort of protest movement he leads;
• The Government, whose performance has been below par on the economy and whose legitimacy as an elected majority is doubted because of the financial supplements offered to those who voted for them, is paralysed;
• The King who usually provided the circuit breaker in Thai politics is too ill to take part;
• The military are shy about participating because of the very negative reaction they got in 2010 for their bloody intervention then;
• The police are not trusted and are believed by many to be still loyal to Thaksin Shinawatra who was once a leader among them.

The slide into chaos is gentle and few would venture to suggest what might unfold when leadership is absent and the forces at work are so weak, contradictory and ineffective.

Take this week: a State of Emergency was declared but absolutely nothing has changed – the demonstrators are still clogging up the city by holding rallies at intersections where it appears the same crowd processes from one point to another to listen to speeches and applaud musical performer. There is hardly a police officer to be seen.

And now, with the country a week off an election which the Government says it is legally bound to hold within 60 days of the dissolution of Parliament, the country’s Constitutional Court declared there’s nothing to prevent a delay in the holding of the election.

Something has got to give. But it would be a brave person who could say with confidence what will. After two weeks, it’s hard to see the Bangkok protestors who are fed up with the Shinawatra family, quietly going home. Being fed up, anger is not resolved by meekly agreeing to disband.

There is a reported 35,000 people who have come from the south (the Opposition’s stronghold) and are financially supported by those managing the protests. Why would they go home if they are in paid employment?

The Shinawatra supporters will concede that Thaksin and his sister aren’t angels but the alternative is a collapse back into a pre-democratic form of government by a Council of the good and the great. Who appoints them? For how long? With what mandate delivered by whom?

And then there’s the military – the army and the police. Who’s giving them their riding instructions and how long will they follow them?

Mention of a racing metaphor – “riding instructions” which are given to a jockey by the trainer – suggests to me the appropriate way to look at what’s happening in Bangkok.

As an adolescent and keenly interested in horse racing, I used to listen to a discussion between various tipsters broadcast every Saturday morning. Sometimes, when the glorious uncertainty of picking a winner led to complete confusion among the panel discussing prospects, the panel moderator, Bert Bryant would sum up and conclude with a single sentence: “And the answer is….a pineapple!”

In Thailand, the answer is…..an orchid!

Could we do more to offend the Indonesians? Yes, I think we could by appointing, as has been suggested, Peter Cosgrove as our next Governor General. He was the military Commander who led the INTERFET forces against the Indonesian military in East Timor in 1999.  This was much more than just a military defeat for the Indonesians. It resulted in Indonesia’s political humiliation in the eyes of the world. Indonesia had to withdraw from East Timor with loss of face.  I don’t think that Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison, in their reading of the Lonely Planet Guide to international relations would be aware of this. Stopping the boats is everything regardless of the human beings involved or our relations with Indonesia.

I believe the Australian-led intervention in East Timor was justified and in normal times the appointment of a former military opponent of the Indonesians would largely go unnoticed. But because of the Abbott Government we are not in normal times in our present dealings with Indonesia; the country that is more important to us strategically than any other.

The Abbott Government has trod clumsily and provocatively in our relations with Indonesia. It should not add to the problem.

The phone-tapping of the Indonesian President, his wife and senior colleagues by an Australian security agency occurred before the Abbott Government came to power. But the insensitivity and amateurish response by the Abbott Government really caused annoyance in Indonesia.

More unfortunately there has been our provocative policy of turn back of asylum boats to Indonesia. There is no doubt that the Indonesian Government feels quite strongly that this action has breached and continues to breach its sovereignty. In the ‘war’ on boat arrivals, the Abbott Government has ignored the collateral damage it has done to our relations with Indonesia.

The Abbott Government has portrayed the humanitarian issue of asylum seekers and refugees almost entirely in the vocabulary of war. It has established Operation Sovereign Borders, a military operation led by the military.  To justify secrecy Tony Abbott says “if we were at war we wouldn’t be giving out information that is of use to the enemy” Scott Morrison says “this battle (against boat arrivals) is being fought using the full arsenal of messages..” With this sort of terminology it is not surprising that the Indonesians are alert to crossings of their borders by Australian warships. This unfortunate militarisation and vocabulary of war would also be exacerbated by appointing a former senior Australian General as our next Governor General.

Discretion is important particularly when diplomatic relations become fragile. Discretion suggests that the Abbott Government should not worsen the situation by appointing a former military opponent of Indonesia as our next Governor General. In the Javanese way, the Indonesian Government may be polite on the subject. But it would be wise to avoid more potential damage particularly as the anti-Australian drum is likely to beat louder in this Indonesian Presidential election year.

It should be recalled that in his military career, Peter Cosgrove in 2001 was the Chief of the Army when the Howard Government put SAS troops on board the Tampa to stop asylum seekers coming to Australia. I thought at the time that this was a highly political and partisan act to use the military in this way and that when matters had cooled General Cosgrove would stand down. But not so.