Opinion & Commentary
PM Rudd’s demise signals more modest Australian foreign policy
The ousting of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd by his own Labor Party on Thursday will have taken the region by surprise. After all, it was only less than one year ago that Prime Minister Rudd rivaled Bob Hawke as Australia’s most popular leader. But even if ‘all politics is local’ as former US Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill observed, the demise of Rudd will nevertheless have an impact in the region. Having substituted a prime minister with foreign policy pretentions with Julia Gillard who is focused almost exclusively on domestic affairs, Australia is likely to play a quieter diplomatic role in Asia if the Labor Party is returned to office in the general election that will be called later in 2010.
A Mandarin speaking former diplomat with an intellectual interest in Chinese culture and civilization, Rudd’s intellectual ego lay in foreign policy. When he was elected to office in 2008, Australian experts expected that the Rudd government would usher in an enhanced era of Asian engagement with promises of ‘middle power’ activism and creativity in Asia.
He was certainly ambitious as attempts to ‘woo’ and ‘manage’ China and advocacy for an Asia Pacific Community (APC) idea demonstrated. But by misreading the regional strategic zeitgeist, Australian often pursued a counter–productive foreign policy under his leadership. By treating China as the centerpiece of his Asian policy, Australia’s bilateral relationship with Japan and India worsened. In turn, by sending mixed signals to Beijing that was simultaneously inviting and hostile, Australia’s relationship with China deteriorated to its worse levels for two decades. In attempting to impose an new institution such as the APC onto the region that would be emphasized at the expense of ASEAN, Canberra alienated old friends such as Singapore and Jakarta.
That has all changed. Australian foreign policy activism under the Rudd era will likely die with Rudd’s political demise. Remember that the more important aspects of Australian foreign policy were handled by Prime Minister Rudd himself and a small coterie of non–elected advisors. His Defense and Foreign Affairs Ministers – themselves with no background in international affairs – were there to largely do the Prime Minister’s bidding. ‘Middle power’ activism in Asia was Rudd’s vision and his alone.
With an Australian general election looming this year, foreign policy will play little role in the campaigns of the incumbent Labor and opposition Liberal Parties beyond the vexed issue of asylum seekers arriving from countries such as Sri Lanka and Afghanistan via intermediaries in countries such as Indonesia.
If Gillard wins office in the upcoming election, Australia will most likely revert to a much more modest foreign policy setting designed to avoid creating noise and controversy: focus solely on the economic relationship when it comes to China, attentively manage existing security alliances and partnerships with Asian players, and ensure that Australia is a participant in the existing multilateral institutions in the region rather than attempt to disband, change or create new institutions. Neither Prime Minister Julia Gillard nor her likely senior ministers will have foreign policy pretentions. Even if Rudd is offered Foreign Affairs as a ‘peace offering’, the former PM will not have the same authority to pursue grander ideas. For Gillard, politics is about ‘domestic’ issues. She will likely adopt the adage that while foreign policy will not ever win popularity for a government, foreign policy mistakes can damage a government’s credibility.
This will meet the approval of many Asian capitals. Kevin Rudd put forward a vision for Australia’s role in Asia that was ultimately counter–productive and rejected by the region. In contrast, Prime Minister Gillard’s diplomacy will be much more cautious. The hope is that she will be competent and cooperative, rather than over–ambitious and too head–strong. But the fear is that Australia under Gillard will be not just unimaginative but disinterested. Where Rudd’s mistake was to over–play his hand, there are suspicions that Gillard might underplay hers’.
If so, this will lead to a new problem for Australia’s standing in Asia.
Dr John Lee is the foreign policy fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies.
