Issues in Australian Foreign Policy January to June 2019
2019; Wiley; Volume: 65; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1111/ajph.12620
ISSN1467-8497
Autores Tópico(s)Commonwealth, Australian Politics and Federalism
ResumoIn the first half of 2019 Australian foreign policy was tumultuous, marked by the federal election on 18 May 2019. The election was won, somewhat unexpectedly, by the Coalition and returned Scott Morrison as Prime Minister. The initial moves of the Prime Minister, new Foreign Minister Marise Payne and new Defence Minister Senator Linda Reynolds in the diplomatic sphere were conducted against the backdrop of intense debates about “strategic competition” between China and the United States of America in our region.1 As 2019 began, many volatile events lay on the immediate horizon for Australian foreign policy, but due focus on these events was interrupted by the election. This chronicle considers how nimble Australian diplomacy was able to be during the first half of 2019, with some broader implications for the transitional nature of Australian foreign policy. When the then foreign minister, Julie Bishop, commissioned the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, she noted it was designed to help Australian diplomacy be more proactive. She said: “[…] it's about looking at the kind of framework that needs to be in place so that we're not reacting to events, we're strategically positioned to manage, maybe even shape, events”. The major foreign policy headlines of the period January to June 2019 seemed to show Australia still reacting to rather than shaping events. These included the return of ISIS foreign fighters and their families holding Australian citizenship, tensions building in Iran, protests beginning in Hong Kong, increased violence in West Papua, and terrible terrorist attacks in Christchurch and Sri Lanka. Australia struggled with effective international responses and faced difficult domestic debates at home. There were, however, also set pieces with shaping opportunities, including Morrison's attendance at the G20 Osaka in Japan and invitation to the G7 Summit, bilateral visits and significant trade activity with Hong Kong and Indonesia free trade agreements.2 There were elections for Australia's partners in some of our most important relationships, such as India and Indonesia. The government also continued with the difficulties of implementing big policy ideas like the “Pacific Step-Up” and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This chronicle also locates key dynamics of Australian foreign policy in the period in question in terms of the broader arc of debates over independence from our allies, and what levels of investment in defence and diplomacy Australia now requires. It is a delicate business when crafting independent foreign policy positions while acknowledging the giant panda/bald eagle in the room. The tensions for bipartisan foreign policy are explored through the election discussion below. Despite the low profile of foreign policy in the election, early 2019 showed that diplomacy is no longer an elite, secret activity that affects only the powerful or political. For an open economy like Australia's, with mobile citizens in a shifting but interconnected region, it is the stuff of everyday life. Despite the more liberal internationalist tendencies of Turnbull, and Bishop, the Coalition government continued a more transactional foreign policy than its predecessor in 2019. Former Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and former Trade Minister Andrew Robb repeatedly explained during this period how the concept of “economic diplomacy” guides Australia's international engagement.3 “Strong economic outcomes” are the priority; shared prosperity is the objective.4 Despite Bishop's competent term as Foreign Minister, despite sustained economic growth, this period of Australian foreign policy will be considered a time when investment and political energy dwindled despite the clear need for innovative diplomacy. Some of the issues faced by the Turnbull government were unforeseen and to a large extent unforeseeable and had to be faced as best the government could. As Turnbull stated in June 2017, “the economic, political and strategic currents that have carried us for generations are increasingly difficult to navigate”.5 But some issues challenging Australia's international impact were homegrown. It is somewhat ironic that Australian foreign policy suffered at the hands of the dual citizenship saga in the Turnbull government. During the period from July 2017 up until to the 2019 election, Australian parliamentarians faced scrutiny over whether they held dual citizenship in breach of the strict requirements of the Australian Constitution.6 Fifteen sitting politicians were ruled ineligible by the High Court of Australia (sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns) or resigned pre-emptively, including Barnaby Joyce the Deputy Prime Minister. Since the controversy erupted, some have suggested that section 44(i) of the constitution is out of date and should be changed by referendum. No White Paper, however insightful, can protect Australia from the damage to our international reputation over our constant turnover of prime ministers. Hopefully, that phenomenon is finally over.7 New Prime Minister Scott Morrison got off to a shaky start after winning the August 2018 leadership spill. He visited Jakarta within days of his appointment but did not attend the Pacific Island Forum on Nauru. He also cancelled long-planned visits to Malaysia and Vietnam. He then jeopardised the Indonesian relationship with a rushed announcement about moving Australia's embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. With the West Jerusalem embassy announcement in December, explored by Rebecca Strating in her contribution to this series, Morrison proved a new diplomatic adage: that you can, in fact, please no one, all of the time.8 Australia was increasingly criticised in various multilateral fora for its detention practices on Nauru and Manus Island, as well as its climate policies and defence of the coal industry. Morrison then had a difficult summit season, with world leaders such as Angela Merkel clearly losing patience with the revolving door of Australian leaders at the G20 Summit in Argentina. Despite his natural affinity with the US, Morrison had to focus on China. China's rise has been challenging in complex ways for Australia, during this “Indo-Pacific” era.9 It was expected that the Turnbull-Bishop team would nurture Australia's relationship with China, its largest non-allied trading partner, with a good beginning at the G20 Summit in Hangzhou. Instead, over the three years, China put Australia in the “deep freeze”10 and we are yet to thaw. China has put off visits between ministers, deferred a trip by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Secretary, and delayed a range of educational exchanges. The Chinese Embassy issued a safety warning to international students, a large market for international education. This was in response to then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's vow to crack down on foreign interference in Australian affairs, as well as our freedom of navigation position on the South China Sea. China displayed an increased military assertiveness, especially in relation to the South China Sea. The Royal Australian Navy flagship Canberra reported an encounter in the South China Sea in May 2019 while trailed by a Chinese warship: its helicopter pilots were hit with lasers from what appeared to be fishing vessels. This period also saw the consolidation of political and ideological power under President Xi Jinping. China continued to exert economic influence through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), to which the state of Victoria suddenly became a signatory in October 2018. To date, Australia's official stance has been not to join the investment initiative. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) Secretary Frances Adamson represented Australia at the Belt and Road Forum in April 2019. Then-Trade, Tourism and Investment Minister Steven Ciobo attended the Belt and Road Forum in May 2017; in September 2017, he signed a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in third party markets. During the White Paper launch in late 2017, Prime Minister Turnbull used strong language regarding China's behaviour in the South China Sea and said Australia would defend itself against interference and coercion in our domestic affairs and democratic processes. These strong words followed allegations of Chinese interference across Australian political, academic, media and business institutions aired by ABC's Four Corners program in June 2017.11 The passage of the Espionage and Foreign Interference Act 2018 was of universal application but parliamentarians clearly identified in parliamentary debate the legislation as pertinent to Chinese activities in Australia. In August 2018, the federal government banned Chinese-owned tech giant Huawei from taking part in the roll-out of 5G mobile infrastructure over national security concerns. Subsequently, China put Australian Cabinet Ministers in the “deep freeze” for some months. This freeze is despite the strong and continued focus on economic diplomacy and trade, often at the expense of human rights concerns as part of the Coalition's “open for business” nation brand. Turnbull had pressed the “reset button” with China just before the leadership spill when he was replaced by Morrison in August 2018.12 This was the one relationship that may have benefited in the short term from the change in prime minister. As of September 2019, Morrison has yet to receive an invitation to visit China. Despite these set-backs, the need to be principled and steady, and to build a long-term relationship with China, remains the challenge. It was in this context that new Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the Pacific Step Up policy in late 2018, explored below as a signature policy. But the Morrison government had to deal with a series of difficult issues that were less foreseen. The so-called ISIS caliphate lost its last piece of territory on 23 March 2019. Tens of thousands of foreigners had travelled to Iraq and Syria to join Islamic State, including at least 230 Australians. The resultant outflow of fighters' families into temporary refugee camps brought to light the situation of Australian women and their children who are seeking to return to Australia. In many cases the children have been born overseas to Australian mothers who joined as supporters or sympathisers, having either followed their husbands or having found ISIS husbands upon arrival in the caliphate. There are reports of up to nine Australian families in the Syrian refugee camps, including three of the surviving children of Khaled Sharrouf. Sharrouf was an Australian terrorist who made international headlines in a photograph standing next to his young son holding a severed human head, and was reportedly killed in 2015.13 During this period of early 2019 Morrison government wrestled with the thorny question of whether these citizens should be allowed to return, and whether any assistance should be provided to facilitate their return. On 1 April 2019, Prime Minster Scott Morrison gave a doorstop press conference on the topic: “I'm not going to put one Australian life at risk to try and extract people from these dangerous situations, I think Australians would certainly support that”.14 By 5 April, Morrison observed that the government was open to working with the Red Cross to assist in the return of children once identity and citizenship checks were completed. Experts debated the issues of what rights these individuals held as citizens, and whether the children should be treated differently under international law.15 Whether Australian citizens do or do not have a right of consular assistance is a matter of debate, and has yet to be finally determined by an Australian court. However, experts called for reform to the Consular Services Charter and the need to distinguish between the Australian parents and their Australian children.16 At the same time, debate continued over a bill introduced in November 2018, whereby the government proposed to give the Home Affairs minister the power to strip Australian citizenship from people convicted of any terrorism offence, removing the current requirement that they must also have been sentenced to at least six years in prison. The standard for stripping a dual citizen of Australian citizenship would also be lowered, so the minister would only need to be “reasonably satisfied” that a person would have another citizenship.17 The change would increase the chances the minister might strip citizenship from a person who was not in fact a dual national or in circumstances where their foreign citizenship was disputed, as occurred in the case of twenty-seven-year-old ISIS fighter Neil Prakash who was disowned by both Australia and Fiji. The bill lapsed before the May election, the debates continued.18 On 15 March 2019, Brenton Tarrant, an Australian citizen, was charged with the murder of fifty-one people, forty counts of attempted murder and one terrorism charge in New Zealand's deadliest peace-time mass shooting in Christchurch. The attack saw a gunman open fire on Muslims during Friday prayers, broadcast live on social media.19 Tarrant, a twenty-eight-year-old personal trainer from Grafton, New South Wales, is believed to have posted extremist views on anonymous online forums like 8chan, and visited North Korea. He is alleged to have connected online with a spokesman for Austria's far-right youth movement. Shortly before the attacks, he apparently published on 8chan a link to a seventy-four-page manifesto. He was not identified as a person of interest by either New Zealand or Australian intelligence agencies prior to the attacks. Australia's Parliament issued condolences and increased the security budget to provide added protections at places of worship. It then passed a law that threatens huge fines to social media companies and jail for their executives if they fail to remove “abhorrent violent material” quickly from their sites. The government did not pass recommendations from the Australian Human Rights Commission to bolster hate crime laws and create a database to track such crimes. The Christchurch attack was a key moment for Australia in many respects. It pointed to a failure of intelligence-sharing with our closest friend and raised the question as to whether there were holes in monitoring of white supremacists as opposed to Islamic extremism. It showed the closeness of people-to-people links between the two countries. It also led to two modern diplomatic dilemmas. The first was the way the attack was used in Turkey by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The second was the way the live broadcast of the massacre should be regulated to avoid the viral sharing of such footage. Both issues required Morrison to show leadership. In a campaign rally ahead of local elections on 31 March, President Erdoğan showed excerpts of a video taken during the mosque shootings and denounced what he said was rising hatred and prejudice against Islam. He criticised New Zealand and Australia for sending troops to Turkey in the First World War Gallipoli campaign, claiming their motive was anti-Islam. He was reported as saying: “Your grandparents came here […] and they returned in caskets. Have no doubt we will send you back like your grandfathers”.20 New Zealand sent Foreign Minister Winston Peters to intervene, but at a subsequent Erdoğan's rally, an extract from Tarrant's alleged manifesto was flashed up on a screen again, along with footage of the gunman entering one of the mosques and shooting as he approached the door. Scott Morrison summoned Turkey's ambassador for a meeting, during which he call Erdoğan's language “reckless” and “highly offensive” and demanded the comments be removed from Turkey's state broadcaster. Morrison warned he would consider “all options” in reviewing ties.21 The second piece of diplomatic investment by Morrison involved the use of social media during the attack. Prime Minister Morrison joined a group led by New Zealand and France called the Christchurch Call, advocating stronger regulation of media companies after the Christchurch attack was live-streamed on Facebook before being shared millions of times.22 This had strong bipartisan support from all Australian political parties and was progressed at the G20 Summit in Japan, discussed below. On Easter Sunday, 21 April 2019, a well-planned and coordinated attack was carried out in Sri Lanka, with seven suicide bombers attacking six targets on the west and east coast, all within twenty minutes of each other. 256 people were killed and over 500 injured. Three attacks were in churches during Easter Sunday morning church services, which were heavily attended; the others were at hotels during weekend breakfast sittings. One hotel attack involved sequential suicide bombs. Experts determined that this was an attack designed to maximise Christian deaths in the churches and Western deaths in the tourist hotels, so it had an “ideological component by targeting a religious community and possibly a higher strategic purpose by impacting on Sri Lanka's tourism sector”.23 ISIS claimed responsibility but Sri Lankan authorities pointed to a small radical Islamist group in Sri Lanka, National Tawhid Jama'a (NTJ). There are reports that Indian and American intelligence services passed information to Sri Lankan authorities about planned attacks by the NTJ. NTJ had been suspected of vandalising statues of Buddha late last year. Sri Lanka was in a state of emergency until 25 August 2019. Two Australians were killed in the attack and the impact on Australia's diaspora community was profound. Vigils were held in Melbourne for an Australian mother Manik Suriaaratchi and her ten-year-old daughter Alexendria who were killed in the attack on St Sebastian church. Prime Minister Morrison, a religious man, was passionate as he spoke about the attacks: “Sri Lanka is grieving. Australia is grieving. Two Australians have lost their lives in this terrible massacre. My heart is full of grief for them and their families.” Morrison made a joint statement with the Foreign Minister, Marise Payne, stating that they had been in contact with the Sri Lankan government and offered the support of counter-terrorism officers.24 2019 started in serious election mode. The election itself was almost silent on foreign policy, except for some anxiety expressed in debates about the US-China trade wars. Labor was campaigning on fairness but no policies were squarely in the realm of traditional foreign policy. Research shows that Australians tend not to vote with an eye to foreign policy issues,25 despite the 2006 Lowy Poll finding that 82 per cent of respondents thought “it will be best for the future of Australia's if we take an active part in world affairs”.26 In the 2018 Lowy Poll, only 17 per cent of Australians said they are “satisfied with the way things are going in the world today”, while 78 per cent are dissatisfied.27 Australian political leaders have traditionally aimed for bipartisan positions on foreign policy. And so, the Labor Party's National Policy Platform reflects generally the trends identified by the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper: “The current global context is one characterised by disruption — one in which the magnitude and nature of change influences Australia's strategic, economic and foreign policy interests”.28 What differences there are in foreign policy stem from a difference in foundations, as former Shadow Foreign Minister Tanya Plibersek phrased it in her 2016 address to the Lowy Institute. Labor emphasises Australia's good international citizenship with a multilateral approach, while the Coalition has emphasised bilateral relationships and priority on trade agendas.29 However, in the eyes of voters reading scant reportage and discussion of foreign policy issues, this difference in emphasis and the consequent differences in policy may not always have been apparent. Shorten was certainly interested in transnational issues and the process of globalisation as it disrupts the lives of middle-class and working-class Australians. As he said at the Lowy Institute in 2018: “John Curtin and Ben Chifley […] understood the connection between the lives of working Australians and the corridors of international diplomacy”.30 The ALP will appoint a Global Human Rights Ambassador with responsibility for the advancement and protection of disability, LGBTIQ, ethnic and religious minority and other human rights, and supports the passage of the International Human Rights and Corruption (Magnitsky Sanctions) Bill. The ALP will ensure parliamentary consideration of Australian defence involvement in armed conflict during the 46th Parliament. The ALP will reconstitute the role of Minister for Pacific Affairs and International Development. There was considerable interest in the region about the prospect of an Australian foreign minister who both identified as lesbian and was born in Malaysia in the form of Penny Wong.33 In combination with Marise Payne, the face of Australian diplomacy, our face to the world, is modern, intelligent, Asia-literate female power.34 The next Labor government will not deal with China purely through the prism of worst-case assumptions about its long-term ambitions. Pre-emptively framing China as a strategic threat isn't a sufficient response to its role and increasing influence in our region […] We will deal with China on the basis of the actions it takes — and in our own national interests.36 Australia's interests will obviously be different from those of the United States in some areas; our national focus is different, our relationships with our close neighbours are different, our economies have different structures. And indeed differences in perspective and opinion are one of the many valuable qualities we bring to our alliance with the United States. The Labor Party opposed the second Iraq war — and in view of the consequences, we were more responsible allies for doing so […] We can — and will — express any differences within the enduring framework of our close relationship.38 The controversy within the Coalition over Chinese war ships visiting Sydney Harbour in early June directly after the election indicates that this relationship will also prove difficult for Morrison.39 I've said before that our foreign policy must not be simply transactional. It's about our character and values. Who we are in the world, and what we believe in. We believe in the rule of law; in equality of choice and opportunity. We believe in peace and liberty through the prosperity of private capital, property rights, free and open markets. We believe in being good neighbours and we are a partner that pulls its weight. We want to see an open, rules-based Indo-Pacific where the rights of all states are respected.40 The Pacific Step-Up was announced by Morrison in November 2018, and began to be realised in 2019. While the White Paper laid out a stepping-up in engagement, long overdue, with the Pacific, it was China's increasing influence in the region that led to a sense of urgency and scale to the Pacific pivot announcement. The announcement included AU$2 billion of new funding for infrastructure, a billion dollars to entice Australian businesses back into the region, adding five new diplomatic missions, enhancing labour mobility opportunities and creating an “Office of the Pacific” with whole-of-government oversight.41 Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the US promised to connect electricity to 70 per cent of PNG's population by 2030.42 Early 2019 saw the implementation phase, in the lead-up to the Pacific Island Forum in Tuvalu. On 18 January 2019 Minister Payne announced the appointment of Ewen McDonald as the Head of the Office of the Pacific in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. McDonald was the current High Commissioner to New Zealand, with accreditation to the Cook Islands and Niue. Coming from AusAID, McDonald was generally welcomed by the sector recognising that he did have extensive experience working with Pacific colleagues on foreign policy, development and humanitarian issues, especially at the United Nations. I have to say, if you're standing in Honiara and you're talking about delivering an internet capacity that cable will deliver, the anticipation, the excitement is absolutely palpable amongst young people looking forward to being able to study in a much more effective way, businesses looking forward to being able to do business in a much more effective way, government looking forward to being able to deliver to citizens in a much more effective way […] And we are working to ensure that nations in our region have the capability to defend these networks.43 Prime Minister Morrison was in a better, more secure position than at the Argentina Summit to have influence at the June Osaka Leaders Summit, although he was still more recognised for being Australia's seventh prime minister in eleven years than his policies. Due to a big year for Japan, the two summits were held only six months apart. Morrison delivered a headland foreign policy speech just before the Summit, in which he stated: “[t]his is why Australia has always, and will continue to, welcome China's economic growth”, which was welcomed by China, and Morrison met the Chinese leader on the sidelines.46 He was invited to an exclusive dinner with President Trump in Japan for over an hour, in which he was able to speak to Trump and his advisers about the effect his trade tariffs against China were having on the rest of the world, including allies like Australia.47 Trump was delighted with Morrison's election win against the odds, and issued an invitation for a state visit to the US in September 2019, only the second state visitor to the Trump White House. As the Osaka Summit met at leader level, trade representatives from sixteen Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) nations were in Melbourne for talks. They were from the ten ASEAN nations as well as China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India. The goal was to conclude RCEP by the end of 2019 and continue negotiations with the EU FTA until finalised. In relation to the Christchurch Call discussed above, Morrison brokered a declaration at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, to put new pressure on Facebook and other social media giants to halt the spread of violent terrorism online in the wake of the Christchurch attacks. The US government joined the message despite deciding not to support the Christchurch Call after months of Australian diplomatic effort.48 In the lead-up to the G7 Summit in France, to which Morrison scored a rare invitation, Australia was working with the OECD to fund the development of voluntary transparency reporting protocols for social media companies to prevent, detect, and remove terrorist and violent extremist content.49 Morrison did show leadership on this issue and it was a modest diplomatic success. Generally though, our closest allies continued to cause serious trouble in the first half of 2019, throwing off their usual mantle of leadership. Australia's strongest alliances with the United States and the United Kingdom were challenged by the UK's “Brexit” vote in June 2016, and the unexpected election of Donald Trump in November 2016. The ramifications from both have lasted the whole of the forty-fifth Parliament and still bedevil the forty-sixth. Very few Australian commentators predicted Trump winning the US presidential election or the Brexit vote in the UK. Trump's election meant diplomacy expert Alan Henrikson's adage rang even more true, that, nowadays and for the foreseeable future, “diplomacy will be about reacting to the United States”.50 Trump's erratic twitter diplomacy, the leaked first phone call with Turnbull (excruciating on both sides) and sudden shifts on policy have eroded Australian public support for US foreign policy.51 The US made unilateral decisions to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Human Rights Council and UNESCO during this period, and have hurt Australia as collateral damage from the trade war with China. The US foreign policy think-tanks argue that with the Democrats in control of the House of Representatives, the Trump White House will be more active in foreign policy as it struggles to pursue a productive domestic agenda. This could lead Australia into some kind of rollercoaster if we are not willing to disengage from some US requests for our assistance, especially in relation to Iran. In 2019, the US Ambassador to Australia — Republican lawyer Arthur Culvahouse —finally arrived in Canberra after more than three years' delay. Early indications suggest that Culvahouse might well spice things up during his posting. He told the US senate that while China is Australia's largest trading partner, Australia has also given China “a nation that's already […] aggressive” an “outsized” influence and opportunity to press its agenda.52 The Brexit vote was less extreme in direct consequence but still has rippling consequences for Australia's relations with the European Union (EU).53 Turnbull said at a press conference in London that Australia “had been the first on the phone” to call for a free trade agreement with the UK following Britain's decision to leave the EU.54 DFAT has also set up a Brexit Task Force.55 The slow ousting of Therese May, completed in July 2019, limited the UK's power to engage in strong international leadership due to the total preoccupation with the terms of Brexit. These issues would have been difficult enough without China's increased activity on the global stage, as well as India's confidence in the region bolstered under a newly-elected Prime Minister Modi. Prime Minister Modi was re-elected in May 2019, with considerable interest and analysis from Australia on the globe's largest election. There was attention to opportunities to strengthen and monitor the relationship with I
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