CHAPTER FIVE
THE end of the Cold War, plus an election year, has led to further reductions in the usual low level of American interest in foreign affairs. There is a general feeling that they won the essential conflict of the post-World War II period. The communist enemy that they have been fighting in earnest since Truman's presidency just gave up. Communists still hold power in China, Vietnam, and North Korea, but global communism no longer threatens to engulf America and its allies. I, and many of my conservative friends, agree with the sentiments of the broad American body politic that we have earned a deserved respite, that our defence and foreign aid budgets can be reduced -- not for the purpose, in my mind anyway, of increasing domestic spending, but to give Americans a tax break.
The real question this begs is whether America is now going to be moving back to an era of isolationism. So far, and despite some disturbing trends during 1992's election campaign, I would say no, but there is a serious continuing American debate that Australia would do well to follow. Two years ago Owen Harries included a member of the libertarian Cato Institute, Ted Galen Carpenter, in his delegation. We conservatives are allied to the libertarians on many issues, such as the necessity to eliminate farm subsidies and to promote free trade. But the libertarian foreign policy represents the conservative movement's hard isolationist fringe, which actually was a strong tendency in the Republican Party until the end of World War II. Today in too many respects libertarians sound much like the discredited American left, calling for disengagement from most if not all of our foreign involvement.
And to varying degrees, we see this libertarian-left mix in some of the policies that were advocated first in the Democratic primaries (by Bob Kerry and Tom Harkin), then by Patrick Buchanan, and later still by Ross Perot. All of these men have favoured sharp reductions in US military commitments to our allies. Buchanan and Perot have both called for increased protectionism for US industries, largely in response to Japanese competition. Perot seems to favour an industrial policy of subsidising select industries to increase their competitiveness against Japanese companies. But at a minimum, it's safe to characterise both Perot and Buchanan as inward-looking, unwilling to exercise the global leadership now expected from Washington.
All this makes the work of a mainstream conservative organisations much harder. In March a relatively long study was released -- about 30 pages -- outlining suggested goals for a post-Cold War foreign policy. It can best be termed a call for selective engagement in areas which threaten global stability, and which in turn threaten the United States. For example, it was maintained that the US can no longer be concerned with every African civil war that in the past would have engaged them because it was a likely area of superpower confrontation. Nevertheless, it was also believe that, as the sole remaining superpower, the US has -- at times and in specific circumstances -- to exercise leadership to defeat real threats. 1991's successful defeat of Iraq illustrates the continued need for American leadership. But just as importantly, it should be a lesson to their allies that Americans expect those allies to assist their efforts to meet future common enemies.
Asia has been one area where strong and effective American engagement has long been advocated . This year they celebrated the tenth anniversary of their Asian Studies Center. In that Center, they have issued more than 150 papers addressing specific challenges to American interests in Asia, including many having to do with the American-Australian bilateral relationship.
They created their Asian Studies Center because they believed at the time that Asia would rise in its importance to American interests, relative to Europe and other areas. Their two-way trade with Asia has outpaced their total trade with Europe by more than 50 per cent.
As conservatives we support a progressively liberal trading régime, exemplified by free trade. We support GATT, and an immediate conclusion of the Uruguay Round. If GATT breaks down, I suppose that Americans will not feel as threatened as will the Australians, because there is an alternative for America in terms of the Free Trade Agreements which they have been negotiating. We support both bilateral and multilateral free trade with our Asian friends as a means of increasing that trade on both sides. As did the Bush Administration, we strongly oppose the creation of an Asian trade-bloc, such as the one most recently proposed by Malaysia. Such a bloc is, we believe, designed to be dominated by Japan and to exclude the United States: very likely Australia as well.
At this point we are sometimes accused of hypocrisy, because we are also one of the most vocal boosters of another trade-bloc, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). But I would make the following distinction: NAFTA is not a bloc that will erect common barriers to the outside world, as does the European Community. It is merely an agreement to lower internal barriers among its members, and we hope it will eventually include all of the Western Hemisphere. But why stop there? Let us use the forum for Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) -- which originally was an Australian idea -- as the basis for a NAFTA-APEC free-trade alliance. APEC is an excellent idea, as long as it does not produce a ponderous, expensive bureaucracy, and as long as it makes a free-trade alliance its highest priority.
We also have consistently supported American strategic and military engagement with their Asian allies. It is an essential corollary to support for free trade, which cannot succeed without political stability. That political stability, in turn, depends on a stable military balance in the region. While the defeat of Soviet communism has allowed the US to reduce its military presence in Europe sharply, the Cold War's Asian flash-points have not all disappeared. And we recognise that most of Asia hopes the US will maintain its military presence.
KOREA
Former Secretary Cheney described Korea as the one place where, he feared, a war could start in 24 hours. We regard North Korea's nuclear weapons program as a threat to international stability which rivals that of Saddam Hussein's armies. Imagining somebody as crazy as Kim Il-Sung with nuclear weapons does, in fact, frighten all of us. Even if you do not believe he is fool enough to use them against Seoul, surely it's possible that he could sell nuclear weapons or technology to radical Middle Eastern régimes, which in turn could use them against Israel. This issue has now reached a critical phase. We will soon know whether Kim Il-Sung is prepared to abandon his nuclear ambitions, or whether Seoul, Washington, Tokyo and other allies will have to take further measures to compel Pyongyang to end those ambitions.
The key to long-term peace in Korea, of course, is a peaceful reunification of that divided nation: something to which everyone gives lip service, but which in practice is at times subverted. Until the nuclear problem erupted with regard to North Korea, the United States was very vigorously supporting Seoul's efforts toward bilateral talks with Pyongyang. Japan claimed to be doing so as well, but at the same time was also giving food and other assistance to North Korea, thus effectively undercutting the opportunities for North and South to come together. Japan has never admitted this publicly, but various officials in Korea on different occasions were highly sceptical of Japan's stated support for a reunited Korea. I suppose if I were the leader of the Japanese government or a Japanese company, I would be concerned too about the possibility of the 32 million South Koreans coming together with the 19 million North Koreans -- because with their natural resources, it would be a much more formidable international competitor to Japan than a separated Korea currently provides. In the short term, then, I see differences with Japan over this matter: though I hope our long-term interests converge.
JAPAN
Ambassador Mike Mansfield used to say, whenever anyone called on him in Tokyo, "Welcome to the American Embassy, Tokyo, which is at the heart of the most important bilateral relationship in the world." Maybe it is; maybe it isn't; but if it isn't, it's certainly near the top of the list. Today, though, the only thing that necessarily unites Taipei, Beijing, Pyongyang, Seoul and virtually every other Asian city is anti-Japan feeling: aroused when, for example, the Japanese do something stupid like rewriting their history books to exclude what actually happened during World War II. Distrust of Japan is felt in varying degrees in Asia, yet it's still there: perhaps a centimetre below the surface, but always ready to be opened up as a wound. This is one of the reasons why their allies in Asia particularly want the United States to stay active in the Pacific. At the same time, however, in terms of their domestic politics, one of the reasons they urged Japan to take an active role in UN-sanctioned peace-keeping operations is very basic: American public opinion. No matter that the Japanese are substantially supporting the American troop presence in Japan at this point. As Ambassador Sembler has pointed out so eloquently: were they to take those American troops home, they would cost them a great deal more than they now cost us in Japan's various US bases. But, were they not to get the Japanese involved in long-term peace-keeping, two things would happen. First, Americans would say that the Japanese were probably lying about how much they spend (however much it might be); second, if the Japanese were not willing to risk their lives to defeat threats to global stability, American support for their security relationship with Japan would plummet. That would be in nobody's interest, anywhere in Asia.
Their relationship with Japan is the glue that holds much of the rest of Asia together. Or, to use a different image, the United States is in many respects the buffer between Japan and the rest of Asia.
CHINA
China analyst, Andrew Brick, has long advocated a China policy that we call Chinese Water Torture: or Subversion Through Development. I recently visited the Southern Provinces near Hong Kong, and saw for myself the potential for capitalism to erode communist central authority from Beijing. For this reason, efforts to grant Most Favoured Trading Nation status to China should continue to be supported -- in the hope that the economics of free trade, of trade between their two countries, will eventually lead to political reform.
In addition, we have long urged that Washington strongly support Hong Kong and the Republic of China on Taiwan -- the closest and most effective sources for importing capitalism to the Mainland. Hong Kong and Taiwan are also their thirteenth- and sixth-largest trading partners respectively. Taiwan, for its part, is a major economic actor in Asia. It deserves membership in multilateral organisations such as GATT, and diplomatic recognition commensurate with its growing economic importance.
But perhaps even more important, both Hong Kong and Taiwan provide examples of Chinese democratic development. Like South Korea, the Philippines and, we hope, Thailand, they prove the observation made by Milton Friedman: that capitalist development will precede democratic development, because a wealthy middle class invariably wants to become a free middle class.
SOUTH-EAST ASIA
The rapid American withdrawal from the Philippines is being interpreted as yet another sign that America is not serious about Asia. First, this view is not correct; second, the failure of the relevant negotiations simply was not their fault. We hope -- with the 1992 elections in the Philippines -- that they might in fact be able to make some new efforts towards repairing that relationship.
AUSTRALIA
Papers on how ANZUS can be improved have been published. Australia's participation in the Strategic Defense program, especially, is something of interest to both our countries. It follows logically, I think, from the use of the Australian-American Joint Facilities to help shoot down Iraq's Scud missiles; and it demonstrates how Australia might eventually make a vital contribution to world defence.
CONCLUSION
Domestically, the "free-rider argument" is heard throughout Washington and levelled at various foreign countries. It's an argument for American withdrawal and isolation. Yet among American policy-makers in Washington, and among the broad American public, Australia has never been viewed as a "free rider." No-one who has seen Australia's War Memorial, with its reminders of our countries' shared sacrifices for more than 70 years, will conceive of Australia as a free rider.
Our bilateral relationship and our alliance are strong. Yet they need constant review and periodic reinvigoration. There are three pillars on which they rest today, all of which can use further attention from both Australia and America. The first pillar is trade co-operation: looking for new avenues, working toward bilateral free-trade area agreements between ourselves and among our related allies. The second pillar is defence: in terms of co-operation on things like G-PALS and the SDI program. The third pillar is extensive public diplomacy, in which our Ambassador has been so effectively engaged here: whether it's the joint commemoration of the Battle of the Coral Sea or whether it's countering the notion that somehow America is exporting cultural imperialism like Phil Donahue.
I was told by a friend not long ago that he was having a hamburger and filling up his petrol tank at a remote station in the Australian outback, a station which happened to have a satellite dish. Four employees of this station were watching Phil Donahue. This Australian had been to the United States, and he said, "You know, that isn't what America is like at all." The owner of the station replied, "I'm glad you told me that. I've been watching this for the last two years, and I haven't seen a single normal person on there during that whole time!" This kind of misinterpretation of America must be countered by people-to-people relationships, which I think are going to be much more important than the Foreign-Ministry-to-State-Department relationships for the future. Australians and Americans have shared numerous experiences and interests. It's on the aforementioned three pillars that we will build for our future co-operative relationship.
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