Eurasia: A Geo-political re-alignment

[Paul Rigby]

Australian Foreign Policy Incompetence

Reginald Little (nsnbc)

http://nsnbc.me/2015/03/15/australian-fo...ompetence/

"US anger at Britain joining Chinese-led investment bank AIIB" are the headlines of a Guardian report of 13 March 2015. "Cabinet split over Asian bank' after UK's shock support" are the headlines of a Melbourne Age report of the same date.

They highlight a British resolve in the face of a world undergoing rapid transformation, especially in financial power and in respect of Chinese influence. They also reflect the disarray of an Australian government preoccupied with personal ambitions amongst its leaders and led astray by the mono-cultural character of its foreign affairs minister and establishment. Of course, the British decision on the AIIB would have been driven by the City of London, which is much more knowing and experienced in these matters than is likely to be the case with an Australian government.

Nevertheless, this is perilous for Australia at a time when previously dominant English speaking maritime powers are in danger of being marginalized by the multi-cultural transformation of more than 4 billion people likely to make up a dynamic, emerging Eurasia, (or Eurasafrican), continental trade zone networked by very fast train and other technologically advanced overland connections.

Few Australian s are informed with the knowledge to make these type of assessments. Political leaders allow the mainstream media, controlled from far across the oceans and from another hemisphere, to censor from the news all meaningful reference to these matters.

China's Silk Road initiatives designed to transform Eurasia and perhaps Africa, the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) grouping and its epochal financial initiatives and the imminent expansion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are developments that are rarely, if ever, allowed to trouble the Australian consciousness. Yet, they are in the process of rendering the authority of United Nations Organizations, long structured to favour the interests of major English speaking nations, anachronistic.

These developments have already greatly reduced the authority of the United States and give no evidence of being reversible. Moreover, with Russia driven into an ever closer alliance with China and Germany being nudged out of NATO and into Eurasia by American ineptness and over-reach in Ukraine, serious doubts have been raised about any superiority that might be claimed by American defence technology. Given its dependence on corporations with a single minded preoccupation with profit, it has become implausible to assume America retains any critical areas of practical, strategic advantage.

Of course, Australians also hear little about the diverse areas of technological superiority achieved by the Russians and Chinese independently with their elite education standards. Yet, the miseries and cost of the F 35 fighter project have become a symbol of the perils of dependence on the reputed superiority of American military technology. There is much implicit evidence that this is recognised by responsible leaders in the Pentagon, even as it remains politically impossible to address such realities publicly.

Australian mainstream media coverage of ISIS and Ukraine also highlights the manner in which both the Australian people and government are deliberately misled about other critical issues. Only the recently introduced monthly, Australian National Review, escapes the misleading but politically correct propaganda that distorts the complexities of Western interests in these areas of conflict.

It is contrary to the views held by most Australians, when this and much other international alternative media suggests ISIS is a creation of American, Israeli and Saudi Arabian interests that now has Americans fighting Americans (and Australians). Equally, Australians are uninformed about suggestions that the present Kiev power holders are the product of an illegal coup against a democratically elected government and are the perpetrators of the MH17 shoot down, with its consequent Australian deaths.

The challenges and difficulties of leadership and government in English speaking nations accustomed to the privileges and influence associated with power should not be belittled at this time. The rise of China and the spreading bankruptcy and financial problems of the West, together with the emerging transformation of Eurasia outlined above, signifies a type of End of Empire experience for the English speaking world. Perversely, China has much more recorded experience and understanding of the predicaments of End of Empire moments than the English speaking peoples.

At such times, long disguised and neglected weaknesses amongst the privileged become all too evident and it becomes increasingly difficult to manage and reconcile contending factions. This seems evident in both Canberra and Washington. Against this back ground it might be argued that both Prime Minister Abbott and President Obama have done somewhat better with the big issues than it is at all popular to recognize. Abbott displayed some deft but unremarked finesse at the G20 meeting in Brisbane at the end of 2014 and Obama has not relented in an ongoing struggle to rein in a war faction that presents him with a series of counter-productive, unwanted and entangling fait accompli.

A fundamental problem also rests in the mono-cultural character of English language leaders. Perhaps no one illustrates this better than the Australian Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop. An extremely attractive and youthful woman for her age, she is clearly dedicated, hard-working, well studied and focused. Unfortunately, however, she seems to exist and operate in a culturally one dimensional world at a time when Australia confronts a diversity of cultural challenges, whether from China, Indonesia, India or more distant parts of the world. For a government that committed initially to prioritising its relations with Indonesia, its performance has been characterized by muddle, irrelevance, insensitivity and domestic preoccupations.

Public reports all indicate that Foreign Minister Bishop has lobbied to delay Australia becoming a foundational member of the AIIB, on grounds advanced by the US that it does not match the governance standards of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Yet anyone literate in the experiences and sentiments of nations outside the privileged circle of those close to English speaking centres of power knows that these organizations are widely judged to have been regularly abused to favour the interests of wealthy English speaking peoples. There is nothing exceptional or remarkable in this as all powers are disposed to take advantage of such situations, especially when under pressure. The problem becomes serious and acute, however, when a country in the geo-commercial situation of Australia wittingly, or unwittingly, choses to favour an American past over its inevitable Asian future.

In the Australian Embassy in Beijing in 1976, while Chairman Mao was still alive, I argued on the basis of unique cultural qualities the unpopular and seemingly inconceivable case for a future Chinese economic miracle. According to the 2007 DFAT R G Neale lecture this helped shape Australia's response to economic opportunities in China. It is most difficult, however, not to be dismayed by subsequent developments. Yes, reporting at that time helped Australian economic growth over the following four decades. Nevertheless, that economic growth has been accompanied by an almost total failure of Australian (and other Western) politicians, diplomats and academics to look seriously into the cultural qualities that are making China, and Asia more broadly, the major agent for dynamic transformation of the global economy.

When explored with any seriousness and an open spirit, it is apparent that Chinese, and most Asian, culture shares little of the fundamental qualities that characterize the English speaking world. Western habits of abstract, rational, theoretical and belief based thought are easily mastered and used to advantage by those well educated in the Chinese tradition. They are, nevertheless, marginal to the central strengths of that tradition.

This is something that seems totally beyond the comprehension, even the imagination, of mono-cultural English speakers like Australia's Foreign Minister. Otherwise, she could not so earnestly argue a case that is implausible and disadvantageous in a rapidly evolving global environment largely masterminded and shaped by superior Chinese strategic wit.

The significance of the following concluding words from the Age article also seems to escape the comprehension of the Foreign Minister.

China has charted a course to become an alternative banker to the world, seen as a direct challenge to the incumbent roles of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Last July, it partnered with Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa to form a BRICS Development Bank, with $50 billion in capital, with the five members also announcing plans to pool $100 billion of foreign-exchange reserves for any of them to tap in the event of a crisis.

In October, China led the creation of the $100 billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), seen to rival the Japan-led Asian Development Bank, and a month later announced a $40 billion Silk Road Fund, to fund infrastructure projects in the region.

Humming and hawing about phoney governance issues will only work to marginalize Australia on the fringes of critical emerging regional and global financial institutions. The only reward will be temporary favour with one of the less competent factions struggling to shape the future of a United States, mired in its own tangle of political and financial misjudgements. Sadly, it might even be said tragically, unlike 75 years ago, Australia cannot realistically expect the United States to exercise real influence in its region in future.

One might conclude by noting that it has been reported that the new government in Egypt has, despite all its troubles, begun negotiating with China over the construction of a $US10 billion very fast train rail over the 900 kilometres connecting Alexandria and Aswan. This is the type of project long ruled out of consideration by the "governance" of the World Bank and IMF but now transforming Eurasia and possibly linking it overland with Africa.

Australia, even together with the United States, is in no position to slow such projects. It needs, rather, to be tuned into the political and financial institutions doing their planning and have the boffins in the foreign and economic departments catch up with the City of London in evaluating the implications for Australian industries of a global order undergoing fundamental transformation.

Reg Little was an Australian diplomat for 25 years, working in Japan, Laos, Bangladesh, the United Nations (New York), Ireland, Hong Kong, China, Switzerland, and the Caribbean. He was Deputy or Head of Mission in five overseas posts and served in Canberra as Director of North Asia, International Economic Organizations and Policy Planning as well as Executive Director of the Australia-China Council. He obtained high level language qualifications in Japanese and Chinese.

He has participated regularly since 1987 in Conferences in Asia, particularly China, that have addressed Asian traditional civilization and economic development. He has been a Director of the Beijing based International Confucian Association since its foundation in 1994 and was elected its then only Vice President not of Asian ethnicity in 2009.

He has co-authored two books The Confucian Renaissance (1989, published several times in both Japanese and Chinese) and The Tyranny of Fortune: Australia's Asian Destiny (1997). His most recent publications as sole author are A Confucian-Daoist Milennium? (2006) and a Smashwords Ebook Chinese Mindwork: A Primer on Why China is Number 1 (2015). More of his writings can be found at http://www.confucianconsensus.org. He can be contacted at cmindwork@gmail.com