Event
Date
by Hon. Julie Bishop, MP.
Presented at the Perth Day of Ideas, 2 Aug 2003
The topic this afternoon is Australia's International Relations: Driven by Fear or Favour? I would like to say neither, but let's face it, even the paranoid have enemies!
The first thing to note is that Australians, like other global citizens, have a right to be fearful in certain respects at present. The trick is to keep it in perspective. The undeniable good accorded by globalization, whether it is instant communications or cheap travel or the diminution of national boundaries and the like, also affords transnational criminals, drug dealers, people smugglers, money launders and so forth, and of course terrorists, like opportunity. So there is real menace out there and it needs to be dealt with. It is being dealt with, but I think an important point is that counter terrorism, for example, cannot rest solely on force. The whole range of safe course options available to our Government and other Governments must be employed to take apart, for a start, terrorist organisations; to study their aims and remedy whatever cultural or political or economic environment that have bred that movement.
I think it is important in the context of what is known as 'the arc of instability' to our north where Australia's strategic interests are at their most profound. Force can have its place. There are obvious reasons for example, why the Australian, New Zealand and Fijian military force is an integral part of the operations in the Solomon Islands. For without that military support there would be severe limitations on the capacity of the civil administrators and the Police to carry out their tasks. But nonetheless, even in the Solomons, force is only part of the solution. The key in the south-west Pacific, and I would suggest, elsewhere, is to understand that the problems of instability and ethnic conflict, civil war, corruption and arms proliferation, stem, in the case of the Solomons, from the constitutional development since independence. That is, the mixed match between cultural and social practice and what we consider the norms of government. So while this is less acute in the more hierarchical and unified entity such as the Polynesian States, Tonga and Samoa, in Melanesian society such as Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu and the Solomons, with highly egalitarian norms and little national or even provincial identification, the problem is really critical. And if we are to leave the Solomons in a better condition than we found it and with a healthier future than was granted in 1978, then we need to deal with the structural challenges even if the reforms required are quite radical.
So looking at the arc, we can recognise that the prospect of external threat to or from the bamboo screen remains remote. So we should recognise in our policy approaches that internal threats and crisis will dominate the affairs of our near neighbours both in South-east Asia and in the South-west Pacific. There are contingencies, they are real and they are very concerning, particularly in Papua New Guinea.
Australia's capacity to influence these events is limited but we should be cognizant of any possibilities and the challenges and our possible responses. This has of course consequences for regional co-operation - politically, economically and militarily. Sometimes in the midst of Australian domestic politics, we lose sight of the fundamental drivers at play in our regions and we're'.let me think of the word'.. 'Aussiecentric' in the extreme to believe that the preferences or priorities of individuals or Australian Governments, shape the future of our region, or even Australia's place in that region. Certainly these aspects have an effect. For example, one only has to remember the personal response of the Malaysian Prime Minister to what I considered rather mild criticism in the early 1990s, a response that included the attempt to exclude Australia from the regional forum.
But the truth is that what some would see as disappointing progress on co-operation in our region does not all always have to be brought back to Canberra. It doesn't stem from Canberra, but from the financial crisis, the abdication of regional leadership, by democratizing Indonesia and a growing sense of two-tier economic development, that is a divergence between nations like Singapore and Malaysia and those most affected by the economic crisis such as Indonesia and Thailand.
The wider world? Well of course globalisation is having the effect of reducing the importance of geography. But threats and opportunities have of course globalised terrorism. It knows no boundaries. Who could have imagined that a land-locked impoverished state like Afghanistan might have sheltered and bred a direct threat to the West, indeed to the United States? Who would have imagined that Saudi education policy could be an integral challenge to global security policy? Australia's relationships beyond the immediate region are crucial to our national interests. That includes our relationship in East Asia, our approach to the Korean Peninsula and our intimate relationship with the United States.
I wanted to discuss this afternoon and just put on the table, the issue of North Korea. It can be a case study indicating why international relations have to be so flexible and responsive particularly when responding to a regime like North Korea. As a case study, it represents today the point at which the great global security challenges, terrorism, weapons proliferation and state failure, intercept directly with Australia's long term regional strategic interests.
Without going into the history, the situation facing the world, facing the Australian Government is this. The North Koreans plan to have unspecified nuclear weapons. They further claim that they are entitled to export such weaponry as they see fit. They are demonstrably capable of using intermediate range missiles against Japan, against South Korea or the Russian pacific coast, and although still largely ambiguous, they may have a missile capability. They may have a missile capability that would reach continental United States, probably Alaska, and possibly northern Australia. It is ambiguous. The North Koreans are regular weapon suppliers for states and non-state actors, particularly in the Middle East including Yeoman and Syrah in Iran. The North Korean Government may also be involved in transnational crime including the smuggling of narcotics into Australia. And finally, just to sum up a rosy picture, any action against, or any military action directed against North Korea would likely result in the massive bombardment of Seoul and the probable deaths of hundreds of thousands of South Korean civilians.
So what are the implications? Now this largely hinges on whether or not the North Korean leadership is serious about its nuclear arsenal or is simply seeking a bargaining chip for economic aid. This is a continuation of the strategy that they adopted in the 1990s.
Secondly, whether North Korea would act to proliferate this weaponry, or utilise it against its neighbours, is by no means certain given the idiosyncratic nature of the regime and its willingness to negotiate in bad faith as evidenced in the allegations of corrupt conduct now surrounding the Sunshine Talks with Seoul. So if the North Koreans are bluffing then they are playing a very dangerous game. The second half of the equation is much clearer than the former, having written of the Pong Su affair earlier this year all Australians are aware of the North Korean connection to transnational crime. Just as the Japanese are now fully aware of this bizarre kidnapping policy carried out in the 1960s and 1970s where Japanese beach goers were literally snatched off the beach away across the sea of Japan.
I was in Tokyo in November last year just as the issue of the abductions had come to light. It seems it was almost as an aside over a cup of tea amongst the North Koreans and the United States' James Kelly, along the lines, "Oh, by the way, the kidnapping stories are true." Of course, understandably, it sent the Japanese populous, their leader, the media into a frenzy of fear. Everything that they had concerned themselves about, everything that they had thought about North Korea was suddenly coming true. Reading the daily newspapers was like reading a very bad James Bond movie script at the time. This kind of bizarre policy history is combined with notable features of the North Korean society, such as the intergenerational veneration of the Eternal Leader, now dead some nine years, and now the Dear Leader who fascinates or indeed horrifies those who study him. I don't know if people have had the opportunity this morning to have a look at an article in The West - The Crazy World of Kim Jong Il. It is worth having a look at.
But we also have to bear in mind that there are one million men under arms and also that North Korea conducts international diplomacy through quite eccentric means and foreign correspondents. So clearly North Korea is a hostile and unpredictable and desperate actor. As I read in an op-ed piece recently on the subject of North Korea, there are two groups of people in Washington today - people who are terrified and people who aren't paying attention. I think that not only holds for Washington but for Canberra as well. Australia's interest in the Korean Peninsula is multi-faceted. First we understand that proliferation of nuclear weapons, particularly to terrorists, is a direct threat to our national security. Second, Australia is an ally and friend of the two nations most directly threatened by North Korea, in South Korea and Japan. Add China itself and these three countries constitute over a third of all our exports. Finally, war on the Peninsula would be a humanitarian disaster, and we must not forget that Australia is obliged as a signatory to the 1953 Amnesty to defend South Korea from northern aggression.
In summary I hope that China is able to play a very, very important role. I think the United States have appropriately involved China in this debate. I believe that all Australians, and most certainly a group of people such as those gathered here today, should give serious consideration to the sobering scenario that is unfolding on our northern border and beyond.