BY LACHLAN MCKAY-
Knock me down with a feather, a foreign policy issue got a look-in during a federal election. Don’t get me wrong, there have been many elections within Australia where foreign policy and global events have shaped the domestic debate. Indeed, one might recall the 2001 re-election of John Howard just some short months after the September 11 attacks (though I was about to turn 3 at the time, so I don’t actually recall it). Yet, the leaked security agreement between China and the Solomon Islands sparked serious speculation about the future of the Pacific and the effectiveness of Australia’s foreign policy in the region. What’s more, both sides of politics engaged in some serious politicking over national security this election cycle; Peter Dutton told the country we need to “prepare for war” whilst Penny Wong’s critique of the government was that failing to stop the Sino-Solomon’s pact was the “worst foreign policy blunder in the Pacific since the end of WWII”. The accuracy or indeed connectedness to reality of those comments aside, what is important for voters is to understand how Australia needs to approach the Pacific region in a new age of great power competition between the U.S. and China. To understand what the future of the region might hold and what Australia’s place in it might look like, we need to better appreciate what our position in the Pacific has been until now.
Australia’s relationship to the Pacific has been a complicated one, to say the least. We are one of the largest powers in the region, with a huge landmass relative to our neighbours, a developed economy, and powerful allies in the U.S. and the U.K. Compared to some of our closest neighbours such as the Solomon Islands, we are a whale amongst minnows. Yet if we expand our view out from our “backyard” to the broader Indo-Pacific, we see Australia is dwarfed by some serious powers. India, Japan, South Korea, China, and the U.S. are all exerting influence in the region and Australia is doing its level best to maintain its own interests amongst these. In doing so however, we adopt a toxic middle management attitude towards the region; we kiss up to the more powerful actors and we kick down on our smaller pacific neighbours. We kick down by treating them not as our equal partners, but lesser states, who are not always worth the attention and effort, highlighted by the lack of diplomatic presence in Honiara at the new Sino-Solomon security deal.
Australia kisses up to the big fish in the Pacific. Whilst not a new trend in Australia’s foreign policy, we often find ourselves aligned closely to the biggest power in the region. In our early history we were attached to the UK, and from World War Two, we’ve been attached to the US. This feeling is termed the “fear of abandonment” by Allan Gyngell, National President of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, as Australia orientates its foreign policy to that of our most powerful partner. Right now, that partner is the United States. We kiss up to them because we enjoy the protection that their military provides to us in the Pacific. We enjoy protection under the U.S’ nuclear umbrella as well as their sophisticated military capabilities. Even as the world becomes more polarised between the great powers of the U.S. and China, Australia has decisively turned towards the US with the AUKUS agreement, even at the cost of Australia’s relationship with France. What’s more, the primary driver of Australia’s switch to purchasing US nuclear submarines compared to the French diesel powered subs is largely driven by fears over China’s expansion in the Pacific. These nuclear submarines, when finally built, would give Australia the capacity to target the Chinese mainland directly with conventional weapons. This highlights growing fear within Australia’s foreign policy about China’s growing influence within the Pacific region. A fear that was inflamed at the news of the new security deal between the Solomon’s and China.
The deal is significant, and the fact that it occurred at all represents a culmination of Australia’s history of kicking down when it comes to our closest Pacific neighbours. In particular, the rhetoric Australia uses around the Pacific, labelling it as “our backyard” as the (now previous) Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said in the past. This irritates and most likely offends those relegated to backyard status, as forcefully put by Prime Minister Sogavare “The Pacific is home to all countries of the region, not a backyard or territory of anyone; it should be a stage of international cooperation, not an arena for geopolitical games”. In the same speech Sogavare invokes the suddenness in which the region heard of Australia’s AUKUS alliance, that “I learnt of the AUKUS treaty in the media”, and that the lack of information given to the Solomon’s was clearly a source of frustration for him. These quotes point to a sense of anger that the Solomons have for Australia’s most recent behaviour, despite the assistance Australia has provided in sending military and law enforcement personnel to the Solomon Islands. So clearly there is a greater sense of frustration from Australia’s behaviour in the region, not just in the Solomon Islands however, but across the region.
While we focus on excluding influence from China and expanding our alliance with the U,S, our neighbours have become focused on climate change and Australia’s failure to act. The Pacific Islands Forum recognised that climate change is “the single greatest threat” facing the Pacific, mostly due to the expected increase of natural disasters that many Pacific nations are already vulnerable to. This represents an existential threat to these countries who now see Australia as unreliable and obstructionist to action on climate change, which has already cost Australia the goodwill and influence with our neighbours.
Australia’s reluctance to take on climate change serves as the biggest wedge in the relationship between us and the Pacific. Starkly illustrated at the last Pacific Islands Forum in which Australia insisted that the official statement from the meeting contain no mention of the phasing out of coal from domestic energy production. This prompted a majority of other, smaller nations to endorse the Kainaki II Declaration, which called climate change an existential crisis to the planet and insisted on the phasing out of fossil fuels.
Other leaders in the Pacific are already calling out Australia’s position, with the Nadi Bay Declaration in 2019 calling on Australia to cease coal production in the decade, and with harsh critique from Prime Minister Spoanga of Tuvalu saying “You are concerned about saving your economy in Australia […] I am concerned about saving my people in Tuvalu. Spoanga’s comments reflect the deep anger and resentment that is shared by many other leaders, as seemingly the only things Australia cares about is its domestic fossil fuel industry and influence, rather than an ally committed to helping these nations deal with the climate threat.
It is perfectly clear that Australia’s narrower perspective on the security dynamics will be one that fails its neighbours on this key issue, as illustrated by the Solomon Islands and others reaching out to other places for support like China or excluding Australian influence from the region. These fractures are clear and jeopardise Australia’s relationships with the Pacific. Even the positive efforts of Australia’s engagement are tainted by its failure to act in step with the Pacific on climate. Even more troubling, Australia is persisting in its securitisation priorities of countering Chinese influence in the region through the AUKUS agreement, and new defence deal with Japan rather than looking to move on climate change, which is the highest priority of our Pacific neighbours.
What is required now of Australia is a reset of relations with our Pacific family. We need to outline a new approach that properly acknowledges the difficulties that the region faces with climate change, development and protecting their ways of life in the face of these challenges. As the new Labor government is sworn in we already see a step in the right direction. The new Foreign Minister Penny Wong dashes across the Pacific in a bid to show the region that Australia is fully committed to a new approach, with a more personal touch. But nothing is solved just yet. And if the new government fails to take on board the necessary changes that our region is signalling to us, we will continue to see the region drift away from Australia. We will no longer become the “partner of choice”, that honour will likely belong to China. If that happens, our place in the region’s future will be very much out of our hands.
