Regional reality check

In a keynote address to the KangaNews DCM Summit in Sydney in March, Broinowski suggested that closer regional links should be the number-one priority for Australia. They should be able to be forged without damaging the relationship with the US, but if this proves impossible, a more independent diplomatic direction may be necessary.

Broinowski’s reality check on China is that he does not believe the claims it is staking in the South China Sea – even to the extent that they are expressed through heightened military presence – indicate wider expansionist goals.

“I do not believe that China wants a war,” Broinowski says. “Senior Chinese officials have told me and the AIIA that they do not believe it is their role to do this. In fact, they are following Sun Tzu’s advice, in this case: ‘The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.’”

Broinowski points out that sovereignty disputes over islands in the South China Sea are neither new nor easily untangled, and that China’s own claims are not necessarily expansionist in nature. He points out that while China claims all the islands as its sovereign territory and has militarily occupied around seven, Taiwan has itself made similar claims to universal ownership. Meanwhile, Vietnam among other nations has also established military presence on South China Sea islands while Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei are just some of the countries with claims on other islands.

According to Broinowski, China does not want to provoke military conflict, and will not seek to take over islands occupied by others by force. “I think the Chinese are being very thoughtful, in that they realise they don’t actually have to do anything to win this territorial dispute,” Broinowski argues.

He told the KangaNews conference: “It has the advantage of geographical proximity and some historic claim to some of the islands. To others it has no claim, as underlined by a recent decision by the Court of arbitration in the Hague in relation to islands claimed by the Philippines. But given the influence it has gained through its massive trade and investment in the region, China can simply do nothing. Its sheer size and influence will work in its favour in persuading neighbours to respect the sovereignty it has claimed.”

Meanwhile, China will remain a responsible international citizen in Broinowski’s view. It makes no other territorial claims and is the only one of the five permanent UN Security Council members to be actively pursuing a global ban on nuclear weapons. Indeed, until recently it had no ‘first strike’ capability – nuclear weapons attached to missiles – and only started attaching its own weapons to its missiles when discussions with the US over first-strike reduction possibilities broke down.

Broinowski argues that China’s status as an emerging superpower means its regional territorial claims should be both expected and likely undeniable. Quoting former Australian prime minister, Paul Keating’s, view that “great nations need space” he also suggests that China is not acting differently from any other great power.

Broinowski also offers a reality check when it comes to North Korea. This comes in the form of his claim that Western media commentary generally overstates North Korea’s willingness and capacity to initiate nuclear conflict.

This does not mean that the North Korean regime and its military threat should be underestimated. Broinowski explains: “Although Kim Jong-un has been characterised in the West as a leader who is unhinged and not capable of rational thought, the reality is that he and his father have been able to develop nuclear weapons and are already responsible for five successful nuclear weapons tests. North Korea has also developed missiles capable of reaching Japan and beyond, and is working on an engine for an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the US.”

But just because North Korea has almost developed a credible nuclear arsenal does not mean it will automatically use it, Broinowski argues. Rather, he believes its arsenal has been developed as a deterrent against occupation or regime change.

The comparison Broinowski offers is with Iran. The Israelis and some conservative commentators in the US believe that if Iran acquired nuclear weapons they would automatically use them against Israel. But this would immediately result in nuclear annihilation of Iran by Israel and the US. If Iran ever does develop nuclear weapons, Broinowski believes they will be acquired as a deterrent not as a first strike weapon.
        
“In this context it is not particularly helpful for Western journalists to hyperventilate about North Korea suddenly dropping a bomb on, say, Sydney,” Broinowski comments. “The reality check is that they’re not going to do it. The weapons programme is a defence mechanism, and the US – as even Trump has suggested in one of his many tweets – would be better off sitting down and talking to them.”

Washington did exactly this in the 1994 Framework Arrangements under which the US – backed by South Korea, China and Japan – would supply and construct two light water nuclear power reactors if North Korea would abandon its nuclear weapons programme. For six years this bargain held, and US engineers were able to go in and dismantle nuclear capabilities at North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear facility and safely store irradiated nuclear fuel rods. The deal only came unstuck when Congress refused to honour the bargain and supply the reactors.

Broinowski is a former Australian ambassador to South Korea, and he is hopeful that the presidential elections forthcoming on 9 May will deliver an incoming South Korean government that may be more amenable to the idea of easing off on military threats and developing a capacity for direct dialogue with the North. Terminating or even interrupting combined US-South Korean joint military exercises would help lighten the atmosphere, he adds.

“The elephant in the room – one that is not often mentioned in the press – is that the most recent launch of four missiles in a test by North Korea coincided exactly with the annual military exercise, ‘Foal Eagle’, conducted jointly by the US and South Korea,” Broinowski adds. “It is understandable that Pyongyang would feel a bit insecure about this, and it seems to me that the latest ‘rocket adventures’ is a reaction to it.”

In this context, the unpredictable nature of the new US president is making many – Broinowski among them – nervous. As with other judgements on Trump, any conclusions so far have to be tempered by the lack of coherent policy message emanating from the US commander in chief.

Broinowski says: “Trump has said many, many things during the presidential claim and afterwards, plenty of them contradictory or counterfactual. What we can say for sure is that he is more confrontational towards China than his predecessor, he stokes unnecessary friction and he treats China as an aggressive strategic competitor that needs to be checked with US strength.”

Like many other observers, Broinowski’s hope is that calmer heads will prevail. He refers to visits to Japan, South Korea and China by the US secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, its secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, and the vice president, Mike Pence, as in part being efforts to damp down alarm over some of the more outlandish statements Trump has made. But the concern remains.

“I’ve been hoping since the US election that Trump would have his sails trimmed for him by the wise and learned people surrounding him in Washington,” Broinowski comments. “But then I see how many departments he has abolished, the budgets he has cut, and some of the people with whom he has surrounded himself. I worry about his promises to spend
US$50 billion on building up America’s nuclear forces to make sure the US never loses another war. Nuclear weapons cannot be used in any rational war-making context – this is out-of-date thinking.”

He concludes: “I don’t know, and I don’t think anyone with professional experience in these matters can know, which direction Trump is going to go. All we can do is watch and hope that his policies are contained by good, constructive thinking in the State Department, Pentagon and elsewhere in Washington.”

The biggest fear for Australia is that a belligerent US with a willingness to rattle its sabre in the Asia-Pacific region could force Australia to take the US side against Australia’s biggest trading partner, China, in a way that would not be in its long-term interest.

Broinowski refers to the claim made by former Australian prime minister, John Howard, that Australia didn’t have to “choose between history and geography” – in other words between its strategic alliance with the United States and its huge trade partnership with China. “I hope we have sufficient diplomatic agility not to be forced into having to make this choice,” Broinowski says.

But reality might not give Australia this agility. For several years, an Australian naval frigate has been embedded with the US seventh fleet, based in Japan, while the second in command of US Army forces in the Pacific area has been as Australian Army officer. “Whether we could extricate ourselves from such a situation in the event of conflict with China, even if we wanted to, is a major problem,” Broinowski says.

Meanwhile, Broinowski observes that Australia is already fighting alongside its American allies in undeclared wars in the Middle East. The strategic benefit of such engagements to Australia is neither clear nor discernible. “ We should be focusing our military efforts and resources in our own region,” Broinowski says.

In this respect, he argues that Australia is not sufficiently taking advantage of the opportunity to engage with its trading partners and other nations in Asia. “We have a lot of trade with China, Japan, Korea and across Asia, but our actual investment in the region is quite small,” he argues. “We are unadventurous for a country of our economic weight, and the contrast with what China is doing in the region is significant.”

There have been advocates for change in the way Australia prioritises its regional relationships, but their voices have not been fully heard. Broinowski points to a paper drafted by Australia’s former secretary of the treasury, Ken Henry, for Julia Gillard’s Labor government in 2011 but subsequently abandoned by the incoming Liberal National Party coalition.

Henry advocated closer ties with Asia. In doing so, he highlighted facts such as the declining levels of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Indonesian language tuition in Australian schools as signs of a nation insufficiently committed to regional engagement.

The current minister for foreign affairs, Julie Bishop, has commissioned her own white paper after the Liberals abandoned Henry’s work. “I just hope our government is wise enough to realise that we must engage in more independent thinking about how to pursue our real interests in Asia,” says Broinowski.

He cites two “straws in the wind” when it comes to Australia’s willingness to closer ally itself with its neighbours even if doing so has to come at the expense of US relations. One is Bishop telling the US that Australia is not willing to participate in naval patrols in the South China Sea. The other is the public claim by Australia’s former defence chief, Angus Houston, that joining these patrols would not be in the national interest.

“It would be a mistake for Australia to continue to allow itself to be told what we have to do by the US and I hope Bishop’s white paper will clear the path for us to do as we wish,” Broinowski comments. “I’m not advocating that Australia abandon its alliance with the US, only that it take a step back and coolly analyse any future military engagement with its national interests clearly in mind.”