Denis Bright invites comments on the recently released Foreign Policy White Paper which charts Australia’s short-term future in the Indo-Pacific Region to 2030. Is the White Paper essentially a federal LNP take on our future or can it accommodate some sparks of Australian independence?
The Guardian noted the sparks of critical independence from the Hon Julie Bishop as she anticipated the ascendency of Donald Trump just prior to the US elections in November 2016:
“Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, has raised concerns about the unclear direction of US foreign policy if Donald Trump becomes president.
She said the federal government had considered what a Clinton administration would mean for Australia and it knew what to expect.
But if Donald Trump won the US presidency she indicated the government would have to work hard to ensure Australia’s interests were still looked after”.
Restating Conventional Priorities
The White Paper places Australia at the centre of an Indo Pacific Hemisphere. Our potential influence is increased by the White Paper’s attempts to integrate economic and strategic interests.
The US Global Alliance has evolved to integrate such objectives.
In its conventional support for contemporary market capitalism, the White Paper has signed up to a now outdated model of financialization which has caused so many social tensions both within Australia and in neighbouring countries like PNG, Indonesia and the Philippines.
In all locations, the emphasis on achieving high rates of economic growth have not translated into improved living standards. In Australia, falling real wages confront rising costs of housing, rents and social pressures to consume more.
GDP trends also show some weakening of Australia’s global economic strength.
Comparing GDP Trends 2016-2030
The White Paper is committed to the maintenance of Australia’s links with networks of friendly market economies. The high levels of US corporate investment in Australia are deemed to be a welcome sign.
By 2030, the US may have exhausted much of its current capacity for investment outreach. If the European Union is considered collectively in the GDP tallies, the US may be approaching the secondary status of the world’s fourth largest economy in PPP terms.
Origins of Direct Foreign Investment 2016
Looking further ahead to 2050, the US economy will be 58 per cent the size of the Chinese economy. In global rank, Australia may have moved from 19th to 28th (PWC Online 2017).
Are these trends a prescription for a better future or a return to colonial status within the US Global Alliance?
Has Australia’s Colonial Status been Revived in the White Paper?
Earlier generations of Australian leaders also wanted to live in the shadows of great and powerful friends in the British Foreign Office and the best wisdom from the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Today’s White Paper continues these traditions. Greater engagement with China and the wider Indo Pacific Region is influenced by the need for the maintenance of over-riding ties with the US Global Alliance.
Some of the caveats in the White Paper against a more independent engagement with the Indo Pacific Region are ideologically based. These articles of faith are deeply entrenched in Australian domestic politics by generations of mainstream Cold War rhetoric.
“It is strongly in Australia’s interests, therefore, to support US global leadership, including by maintaining the strength of our alliance, keeping our commitment to increase defence expenditure to two per cent of GDP and contributing to coalition operations in support of global and regional security.
Beyond the United States, our cooperation with like-minded partners is also increasingly important to collective efforts to limit the exercise of coercive power and support an open global economy and a rules-based international order.
Australia will support reforms that give new and emerging powers a greater role in the international system. Some change to institutions and patterns of global cooperation is inevitable, necessary and appropriate to reflect the greater weight of countries such as China, Indonesia, India, Nigeria and Brazil.
Reform should be a shared project. Australia is a willing partner. At the same time, Australia’s national interests are best advanced by an evolution of the international system that is anchored in international law, support for the rights and freedoms in United Nations declarations, and the principles of good governance, transparency and accountability”.
More youthful national leaders from New Zealand and Canada seem more able to challenge these ideological constraints.
Long-term commitments to Australian sovereignty and peaceful engagement with the Indo Pacific Region should always uppermost along the short road ahead to 2030. It will take a lot of progressive activism to modify the dogmatic scenarios in the current White Paper. It is likely to receive bipartisan support prior to the next federal election.
Pragmatic modifications can be made later during a more moderate phases of US domestic politics so that the emphasis in domestic political debate can be placed on more contestable issues like the protection of living standards and environmental sustainability. This at least challenges the bland commitments in the White Paper to neoliberal solutions first and foremost at home and abroad.
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