American Politics: Riding two horses simultaneously

By Tom Switzer

During last week’s presidential visit to Australia, I was frequently asked whether Australia is faced with a hard, stark choice between the US and China. After all, the rapid rise of the People’s Republic over the past decade means different things for Canberra and Washington.

For the latter, its main significance is the emergence of a potent geopolitical rival; for the former, it is the opportunity for a rewarding trade and investment partnership, and that opportunity is being eagerly seized by Australian policymakers and business alike.

China is now our largest trading partner, and with Australian exports to and imports from China growing at more than 25 per cent a year, and with the compatibility that exists between Australia’s vast mineral and energy resources and the needs of the Chinese economy, it does not seem improbable that China will remain our leading trading partner for the next decade.

There are, of course, risks and uncertainties involved. For one thing, China has a huge demographic time bomb ticking, whereas America’s moderately high fertility rate, taken together with its liberal immigration policies, means that the US is better placed here.

For another, China has not yet experienced the boom-and-bust cycle that afflicts all capitalist economies, and several economists are predicting lower annual growth rates of around six to seven per cent during the next three years, which would surely pose all sorts of serious problems for a vast, fragmented and disparate people.

Still, it is widely assumed that China’s thirst for our commodities explains why Australia has not succumbed to the global financial contagion.

Meanwhile, the President’s visit marked a special milestone in Australian diplomacy: the 60th anniversary of the US alliance. It continues to command broad bipartisan and public support for good reason: it serves real and substantial interests, such as Australian access to US intelligence, military technology, the security guarantee, and the need for what Sir Robert Menzies called “a great and powerful friend,” which has been deeply embedded in the national psyche since our independence in 1901.

None of this, however, means that Australia is faced with a hard, stark choice between the US and China — not, at least, unless one of them insists such a choice be made. But it does mean that Canberra must learn to play a more demanding diplomatic game than ever before, one that will on occasion involve the difficult feat of riding two horses simultaneously.

How so? Well, instead of the sturdy, straightforward virtues of unconditional loyalty, Australia will need to play a more demanding diplomatic game than ever before. Instead of going “all the way” (Harold Holt) or “waltzing matilda” (John Gorton) on the American bandwagon, we’ll need to cultivate some of the skills of the helpful passenger — which include careful steering, timely map reading, a judicious use of the brakes and, not least, better road manners — lest we crash into our largest trading partner.

In other words: more agility, ambiguity, discrimination and qualified commitment.

There is nothing strange about these skills; they are among the basic tools of diplomacy. But the special conditions that have for much of its existence allowed Australia to dispense with their regular use are ending. From now on, Australia will need to regard alliances not as a test of character (“Australia will be there!”) or a union of souls (the “Anglosphere”), but as pragmatic devices to be adjusted to changing conditions.

It has been said that post-9/11 US foreign policy is a work in progress, and that those who get too close run the risk of being hit by a piece of falling scaffolding. It’s not clear whether last week’s announcement to allow US forces to use Darwin for forward positioning will hurt Australia’s standing in Beijing. But it is surely the case that although the US alliance will endure, it should also change in the new era.

The reason is clear: China. During the Obama-Gillard press conference on Wednesday, as well as the president’s address in Parliament House Thursday, the PRC was unquestionably the elephant in the room. Although they expressed themselves in different ways, both Obama and Gillard seemed oblivious to the emerging geopolitical reality that the distinguished Harvard Professor Steve Walt has recently identified.

Writing in the Washington-based National Interest, Walt argues: “If China is like all previous great powers — including the US — its definition of vital interests will grow as its power increases; and it will try to use its growing muscle to protect an expanding sphere of influence.” Given its dependence on energy imports and export-led growth, Beijing might want to make clear that no other state deny it access to the resources and markets on which China's future prosperity and stability rely. Such a situation, warns Walt, would encourage Beijing to challenge the current US presence in Asia.

Now, people of good faith will fret and wail about an expansionist dragon, and this is understandable at face value. But they should also recognise that the US, since it rose to great-power status, has also sought to exclude outside powers from its neighbourhood. It is one thing to say the enhanced military coordination that Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced this week won’t amount to containment, but China will probably think differently. Look at it from another perspective: how would the US feel if the Chinese maintained a network of alliances and a sizable military presence in the east Pacific?

As Walt concludes:

Over time, Beijing will try to convince other states in the region to abandon ties with America, and Washington will almost certainly resist those efforts. An intense security competition will follow.

How would Gillard, for instance, respond to a Sino-American spat over Taiwan or the South China Sea?

It is in Australia’s interest to see a status quo maintained in China-Taiwan relations, one that balances de facto autonomy with formal ambiguity of status for Taiwan. Anything that tilts that balance — in either direction — threatens to drag Australia into an ugly spat between our most important security partner and our most important trade partner.

The task of riding two horses simultaneously is delicate and potentially dangerous, but our politicians and policymakers had better get used it.

21 November 2011