BY JOHN MENADUE

Eleven years ago I gave the speech below. I was then pessimistic about our understanding of Asia. The situation has got markedly worse since then, writ large in the unremitting attacks on China stemming from ignorance and parochialism, particularly in our White Man’s Media.

We are so used to being told and doing what Washington wants that we find it hard to make up our own mind on what is in our national interest. And our failure to think for ourselves is going to become even more critical with a new player in our region, China which is going to grow in influence.

The current hysterical anti-Chinese rhetoric in Australia is not so surprising. Our media and business sectors are seriously ignorant of our region .

We will not find “security within our region”, as Paul Keating put it, without knowing Asia much better. We are over-informed and seduced by American power and influence but for most Australians Asia is a closed book.

Since our settlement as a small, remote “white” English-speaking community, we have been afraid of Asia and its large populations. We have clung to remote global powers for protection — Britain and now the United States. Some are working to find a way out of this fear of Asia, but our fear keeps raising its head and is easily exploited by opportunists.

• We have broken the back of White Australia, but it keeps coming back, particularly since the time of John Howard and Pauline Hanson. Tony Abbott’s and Scott Morrison’s campaign to demonise asylum seekers is really a proxy for a campaign on race. Donald Trump sings from the same racist inspired hymn sheet
• The campaign against Chinese investment, is really a replay of the hostility to Japanese investment 30 years ago. It is time we grew up. In the 1980s our media was full of hostility to Japanese investment: “The local community begins to feel Japanese are not playing fair and square” (AFR April 7, 1988); “A single piece of seamless fabric — companies interwoven with government” (SMH May 23 1987); “Japan’s 20 biggest companies could buy the entire state of NSW using just one year’s profits” (SMH May 23 1987). This is despite the fact that Japan and more recently China have a quite small proportion of the stock of foreign direct investment in Australia.

Gone on smoko

• It seems counter-intuitive when one considers the Asian presence — students, visitors and trade. But we are probably less Asia-ready than we were 20 years ago.
• In the 1980s and early 1990s at the time of the Garnaut report we were making progress in such areas as Asian language learning, media interest in Asia and cultural exchanges, but we have been “on smoko” for the past 20 years.
• Asian language learning and education funding at university are in relative decline.
• The national policy on Asian languages adopted by the Hawke government and COAG has run into the sand.
• Most Asian language learning is in crisis. French language learning is more popular. It may help tourists reading menus in Paris but it is not much help in our region.
• The Australia media is still embedded in our historical relationships with the UK, and the US. News items from Asia tend to be the weird, the funny and the menacing. Aussies in strife in Asia are a case of perpetual indulgence, particularly our drug runners in Bali.
• The ABC does it better than other media, but it is still focussed on unimportant issues in London and New York although they may be important for US and UK readers. But we are not an island moored off London and New York.
• Most of our reporting of Europe comes out of the UK accompanied by the usual English bias and invective towards Europe.
• The Henry report on Australia and the Asian Century was expunged from the Prime Minister and Cabinet website by Tony Abbott.

Why did we go on smoko?

• Change is always painful and the end of White Australia particularly with the Indo-Chinese program during the Fraser period, followed by the Hawke government’s economic restructuring was unsettling and painful for many. And Keating was no slouch either on change. = He became a true believer in Asia almost overnight. It was full throttle, a defence treaty with Indonesia and an Australian republic to signify that our future was no longer with a British monarch. In retrospect, we didn’t manage the change well enough.
• An unsettled community provided an opportunity for Howard to reassure us that under his guidance we could be “relaxed and comfortable” again. Fear of Asia was engendered with dog whistling about Asian numbers and then boat arrivals. Howard was the big interruption in the process of Asian involvement and Asian literacy, although he tried to mend his ways in his later years as PM, particularly in relations with China.

But there is not only media failure. Our business sector has also failed us.

The business sector’s failure to skill itself for Asia has been a major barrier to developing Australia’s potential in the region and improving productivity in this country — something which the Business Council tells us about repeatedly. Business has not looked at its own performance — getting its own house in order.

I don’t think there is a chair, director or CEO of any of our top 200 companies who can fluently speak any of the languages of Asia. They show little interest in up skilling themselves. It is those awful unions that are to blame.

This lack of knowledge and understanding of Asia in corporations has meant that university graduates with Asian skills have not found the employment opportunities they hoped for. On the employment front, many of them ran into a dead end. In the 1990s I knew and encouraged many Australian young people who had acquired Asian skills. Unfortunately, they had to go offshore for work for example to Hong Kong or Japan, and work for multinational companies. What a loss! Australian employers just didn’t get it and the Australian taxpayer footed the bill.

Julie Bishop’s commendable New Colombo plan is likely to face similar problems with Australian companies showing little interest in employing young Australians as they return from their Colombo Plan experience in Asia.

Far too many Australian businesses opportunistically see Asia as customers of opportunity rather than partners. In the long-term trade and investment is about relationships of trust and understanding. That can’t be done through an intermediary or an interpreter. The tide of serious interest in Asia by our large corporations is at a very low ebb.

• Survey after survey of Australian business show that most Australian businesses operating in Australia have little board and senior management experience of Asia and/or Asian skills or languages. The closest some Australian business executives get to Asia is the Rugby Sevens in Hong Kong. There are now tens of thousands of Australian-born citizens of Asian descent at our universities. These Australian-born young people are more likely to be recruited for their good grades and work ethic rather than their cultural and language skills. They may just drift off as they did in the 1990s.
• It is obviously too late for chairs, directors and CEOs to acquire Asian language skills, but it is not at all clear that they are recruiting executives for the future with the necessary skills for Asia. It is hard to break into the cosy directors’ club. That club need a drastic shake up.
• Maybe we don’t need an Asian language or indeed much business sophistication to dig up and sell iron ore and coal to very willing buyers, but we certainly do to sell wine, elaborately transformed manufactures and services, particularly tourism.
• Tourism from Asia has boomed but we don’t get enough repeat business. We skip from one new market to another — first Japan, then Korea and now China. The Australian Tourist Commission spends a lot of money on marketing extravaganzas like Crocodile Dundee and Oprah Winfrey when it should be looking to improve the product. Too often the non-English speaking tour groups float around in Australia in a cocoon run by their own countrymen, shielded from Australians who should be employed to service them and help them with an enjoyable Australian experience.
• Success in Asia requires long-term commitment but the remuneration packages and the demands of shareholders are linked to short-term returns. Corporate governance in Australia is failing to equip us for the Asian century.
• Australian business people remain “male, stale and pale” with the same limited life experience and interest as the people they recruit.

China and the US — running with the hares and hunting with the hounds

As Malcolm Fraser pointed out very succinctly in his Whitlam Oration in 2012, “unconditional support (for the US) diminishes our influence throughout East and South-East Asia”. Telling the Chinese that they are our most valued trading partner while blocking their investments and accepting US Marines in Darwin to contain their influence is not sustainable. It is quite bizarre and quite contrary to developing sound relations with China that we think that we can “run with the hares and hunt with the hounds” like this. It will inevitably catch up with us.

Diplomatic initiatives

Diplomacy is about persuasion and the most effective approach to persuading someone else and gaining their cooperation is through offering an idea that satisfies their own interests without seriously prejudicing our own. There are very few people in Australia who have the faintest idea what, for example, Indonesia’s interests may be. When is the last time we heard a minister, politician or business leader talking about Indonesia in these terms? Indonesia is making great strides. Our portrayal of Indonesia is invariably about cattle, Australian drug runners in Bali and asylum boats.

Public sector

The Australian public service, particularly the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (including Austrade), has done much better than the business sector. But it is nowhere good enough.Our diplomatic skills are in serious decline

Conclusion

Donald Horne in the 1960s said that “Australia is a lucky country run by second-rate people who share its luck”. That is still true. And most true of our businesses and media today.

The key is for Australia to be open… open to new people, new investment, new trade, new languages and new ideas. And stop deferring to Washington on almost all major issues.

There is a major new player in town, China, that is not going away.

We are both enriched and trapped by our Anglo-Celtic culture.

This was a speech delivered to the Asian Studies Association of Australia on July 13, 2012

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Scott Ritter analyzes the huge changes occurring worldwide, led by Russia and China's leadership in pursuit of peace and multipolarity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_es8Xxxk8w 

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A three-day informal Arab-Iranian Dialogue has just taken place in Doha (Qatar). The conference, mostly held behind closed doors, acquired special significance because it took place shortly after events showing that the world may be ready to turn a new page in its history.  First, the top leadership of both countries – Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud and the Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei not only positively perceived the idea of Russian President Vladimir Putin to create a multipolar world, but are also actively implementing this plan. Second, both leaders vigorously advocate limiting the overwhelming and negative role of the United States in the entire Gulf region.

The Iranian participants included former officials and high-ranking representatives of universities and semi-official institutions. They offered different points of view on Tehran’s regional policy. The majority expressed a new desire for interaction, reconciliation and cooperation. For the first time, they agreed to the idea of holding negotiations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on Iran’s nuclear program. They showed flexibility on some regional issues, which was even more evident during the negotiations on the sidelines of the main event.

It should be recalled that the relations of the Arab world with Iran were complicated during the era of Mohammad Reza Shah, and especially after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. Since then, Tehran has been paying increased attention to its foreign policy and spreading the ideas of the Islamic Revolution in neighboring countries, especially the Arab world. Harsh, unjustified sanctions by the United States and European countries forced the Iranian leadership to militarize the Iranian economy in order to protect the country’s sovereignty, which led to the impoverishment of its people and brought the once prosperous country to the brink of collapse. But Tehran has successfully overcome all the obstacles of the Western world on its way to sovereignty and is following the path of protecting the Iranian people’s own interests. Many independent countries, led by Russia and China, are helping Iran in this.

The Arab League summit, held in Jeddah on May 18, came forward with an initiative of regional de-escalation. For that purpose, it revisited its positions on Iran, attempting to defuse some of the regional crises where Tehran has been involved, including Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, encouraging dialogue and reconciliation. Inviting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a close ally of Tehran, to this Summit was part of that effort. Saudi Arabia chaired the summit and will lead the Arab League until the next summit is convened in 2024, which will give it a chance to shape the implementation of the decisions made in Jeddah.

In March, Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed, with the help of China, to resume diplomatic relations after a seven-year rift. This diplomatic breakthrough sent shockwaves through the region and across Western capitals and paved the way toward the reconciliatory positions adopted at the Arab League Summit.  Going beyond the mere resumption of diplomatic relations, the two countries stressed in a joint statement issued in Beijing their commitment to the “sovereignty of states and noninterference in their internal affairs,” referencing two important principles underpinning the conflict with Iran. The fact that Tehran agreed to undertake this commitment was another breakthrough in establishing friendly ties between the countries located on both shores of the Gulf.

On both shores of the Gulf, there is great yearning to go back in history to when the region lived in relative peace, security and stability. For centuries, the same ethnic groups and families have lived in the Gulf region and maintained rich cultural and prosperous economic ties. The states share the same space geographically and have equally important common economic and strategic interests, which obliges them to settle their various differences. With regard to still disputed issues there should be a clear way to resolve them politically and peacefully, in accordance with international standards and norms of interstate relations. It may be hard but it’s doable. Unfortunately, self-centered, aggressive intentions of Western countries, led by the United States, stand in this way.

The Arab Summit stressed that Arab regional security is indivisible. Security in the Gulf is an integral and important part of Arab security, and the security of Arab States is no less important for the Gulf. Iran, according to Western analysts and politicians who actively pursue their own interest and promote their point of view, allegedly wants to establish its dominance and the security of its borders. It is also unclear why the GCC states are concerned about Iran’s involvement in the affairs of Arab states such as Syria, Lebanon or Yemen. The Middle East is a single organism, and the participation of some states in the affairs of others is a normal diplomatic practice. After all, no one objects when Riyadh is actively involved in the affairs of other Arab countries, the latest example being Saudi assistance to Sudan in resolving its internal conflict.

Naturally, there are also disagreements between Iran and its Gulf neighbors over international security cooperation. The GCC states are active members of important security partnerships, including the Combined Maritime Forces, which coordinate the work of 38 countries to combat illegal activities of non-state actors, such as piracy and smuggling. Conversely, Iran actively speaks against any foreign presence in the security sphere, using populist arguments about ending colonialism and foreign domination. It strongly opposes the aggressive actions of the United States in and around the Gulf, considering them a continuation of the European policy of colonialism, with such examples as American aggressions against Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, from which those countries to this day are unable to recover and establish a normal life.

It is necessary to lay a solid ground for the success of concrete negotiations on critical by agreeing upon rules governing relations between the states of the region and on confidence-building measures in order to maintain de-escalation. These issues can be discussed along five interrelated vectors. The vector of policy and diplomacy comprises the discussion of regional issues, such as Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, in order to promote political solutions in accordance with UN resolutions and achieve political goals without the use of force or threats. It also covers the proliferation of nuclear weapons, missiles and drones, especially among non-state actors.

The security vector covers the fight against terrorism, sectarian militias and other armed groups operating outside the law. Interestingly, it is precisely such illegal groups that the United States provides weapons and support with in their fight against official governments. The economic vector explores trade and investment opportunities, including in the field of renewable energy. The sustainable development vector considers possible cooperation in efforts to reverse climate change and rehabilitate the marine environment in the Gulf. Finally, the cultural vector includes discussions to revive historically rich Arab-Iranian cultural exchanges. To ensure the success of this interaction, both official and non-governmental channels, including business groups, universities and research centers, should be engaged in discussions.

It is worth noting that specifically Russia and the BRICS countries not only encourage this policy, but also provide every possible support to the countries of the Arab world and Iran. A striking example of this can be the results of the meeting of foreign ministers that just ended in Cape Town (South Africa) to prepare for the summit of heads of state in August. About 20 foreign ministers of non-BRICS countries were present, including those from Iran and Saudi Arabia, which actively express interest in joining this international organization.

The Foreign Ministers of Iran Hossein Amir Abdollahian and Saudi Arabia Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah held productive talks on the sidelines of the “Friends of BRICS” meeting. Amir-Abdollahian expressed satisfaction with the good progress in relations between the two countries and said that the ground had been prepared for reopening of embassies and consulates in each country. Iran and Saudi Arabia have mutually appointed ambassadors to Riyadh and Tehran. Amir Abdollahian and Faisal bin Farhan met for the first time in Beijing on April 6 to discuss key details of the resumption of relations after a landmark agreement signed by the heads of the security services of Iran and Saudi Arabia. During the meeting in Cape Town, Faisal bin Farhan said that the two countries had quickly passed the stage of appointing ambassadors and were moving towards a “new stage” that would serve “the interests of the two nations and the entire region.” The chief diplomat of Iran also thanked Saudi Arabia for the organization and provision of conditions for Iranian pilgrims’ travel to Mecca and Medina for the Hajj. According to Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah, Saudi Arabia is keen to develop future cooperation with BRICS to achieve collective prosperity.

The great successes achieved by the GCC countries and, above all, Saudi Arabia over the past decades in the fields of economy, social development, education, culture and art can become more significant, comprehensive and sustainable as soon as Iran and its Arab neighbors are able to restore the necessary trust and the spirit of cooperation and integration. Then Iran could get the same integration benefits that the GCC states already enjoy, and easily overcome the suffocating sanctions of the malevolent United States.

Viktor Mikhin, corresponding member of RANS, exclusively for the online journal “New Eastern Outlook.”

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https://journal-neo.org/2023/06/16/the-arab-iranian-dialogue-as-a-prerequisite-of-these-countries-entry-into-the-brics/

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