ADELAIDE - After her two-day visit to
Indonesia this week, US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice arrived in Australia on Thursday
for a three-day official visit - her first since
her appointment.
Although she has a busy
schedule with many official meetings, press
conferences and speeches, her main and most
crucial business is to participate at the
inaugural ministerial-level trilateral
security dialogue with two of
the United States' closest and most trusted allies
in the Pacific - Australia and Japan.
This
ministerial-level meeting has drawn the attention
of political leaders and analysts across the
Asia-Pacific region. Many view the new "triple
alliance" with suspicion. There is a concern that
this might be the beginning of a new Cold War-type
alliance in which China is cast as the adversary.
This suspicion has become even stronger in
the light of the comments made by Rice before her
departure for Indonesia. China, she claimed, could
become a "negative force" in the region.
Consequently "all of us in the region,
particularly those of us who are long-standing
allies, have a joint responsibility and obligation
to try [to] produce conditions in which the rise
of China will be a positive force in international
politics, not a negative force". Not surprisingly
then, China's military and economic rise would be
at the core of the trilateral security
discussions.
This development will not be
taken kindly in many capitals around the region.
Although China has not responded to Rice's
comment, it will most certainly make Beijing
furious. To make a particular country the main
item of discussion, as Rice has suggested, is far
from the stated aims when the process was put in
place five years ago.
The trilateral
security dialogue process was put forward by
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and
endorsed by then US secretary of state Colin
Powell and then foreign minister of Japan Makiko
Tanaka in July 2001. The proposal was made in
light of the weakening of multilateral processes
such as Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in economic and
security spheres, and growing concerns by the
three nations over both North Korea's nuclear
capability and China's intentions in relation to
Taiwan and its growing defense capabilities. These
and other security-related concerns, such as
global terrorism, led conservative governments in
Australia and Japan to link themselves with the
United States and each other.
At the time
the process was mooted in 2001, Downer emphasized
the importance of closer Australia-Japanese
collaboration as a way of fostering a stable
security regime in East Asia. Powell spoke of the
need to promote more comprehensive regional
dialogue with and between its main Pacific allies
- Australia and Japan. Both Downer and Powell
stressed that any such security dialogue by the
three countries would be purely informal and would
not develop into anything as substantial as an
alliance structure.
The idea behind this
process was to break down the tight, mutually
exclusive network of bilateral US alliances with
Japan and Australia - the "northern and southern
anchors" of the US presence in the Pacific. This
would lead to better coordination among the three
than is possible under bilateral arrangements. The
expectation was that the two spokes - Japan and
Australia - would be able to share information and
formulate a common approach in keeping with the
hub's - the United States' - policy objectives.
To this end, all that was required was a
secure and comfortable venue where the three sides
could meet privately and discuss matters of mutual
concern. This would permit the participants to
share ideas on mutual cooperation without giving
it an overt official imprimatur, which might
offend some influential Asian governments not
privy to the discussions.
However,
regional reactions to this proposal ranged from
concern to outright condemnation. China's
state-controlled media strongly condemned the
move, describing it as the formation of a US-led
policy of containment designed specifically to hem
in Chinese strategic aspirations in East Asia.
Some commentators in China dubbed the arrangement
a "little NATO" in the Asia-Pacific
region.
Southeast Asian leaders have been
generally comfortable with the existing regional
security arrangement represented by the ARF and
believe the new development will undermine it.
Others see it as an exclusive security club of
wealthy, technologically advanced states. Although
not as vocal as China's, there has been a sense of
discomfort in many Southeast Asian nations,
especially among regional allies of the US such as
Singapore and Thailand.
Despite such
concerns, the informal trilateral security
dialogue process has continued at a bureaucratic
level in the national capitals of the three
nations since 2001. Because of the subtle and
opaque nature of the meetings, it has been
difficult to get a detailed understanding of their
content, or a sense of their ultimate purpose
regarding the development of a trilateral security
dialogue process. One could only assume that the
troika of Pacific powers stayed true to its
original intent on keeping strategic dialogue
among them as quiet as possible.
Now,
though, the game has been lifted to a higher
level. The decision was made a year ago in
Washington that a regular three-way strategic
dialogue would be conducted at a ministerial
level. Wide-ranging security issues related to
Indonesia, the recent US-India nuclear deal, Iraq
and Afghanistan will figure prominently at the
inaugural meeting. Nevertheless, the issue being
watched most carefully by outsiders is the
discussion on China.
Rice has expressed
concerns about China's growing military and
economic power and its possible negative effect on
the region. She would like China to be discussed
in detail, but the Australian side sees China in a
different light. Indeed, Downer has emphasized
that the intent of the process is not to form a
"little NATO", nor does Australia support a policy
of containing China. Downer believes that China's
economic power should be harnessed to the
advantage of the region - a position quite
different from the current US thinking. Australia
has a huge economic interest in China and sees
potential for further growth. Canberra is poised
to sign an agreement to sell uranium to
China.
As far as Japan is concerned, it is
unlikely that it would favor ganging up against
China even though there are serious Sino-Japanese
frictions. It is not in the overall interest of
Japan's foreign policy openly to support a
containment policy when trade and economic
relations with China are prospering and Tokyo is
trying to improve its relations with Beijing.
The participants at this ministerial-level
trilateral security dialogue need to tread very
cautiously. There is no harm in like-minded
nations getting together and talking about issues
of mutual concerns. But this should happen in a
transparent manner and should not target a
particular nation. China can and must be discussed
at the meeting, but not just as a threat or in the
mold of a negative force. The three participating
nations should find ways and means as to how best
to engage China.
If a trilateral dialogue
process such as this one turns into a formal
alliance-type grouping, it may trigger a dangerous
response across the region. Already there are
talks about a China-India-Russia trilateral
framework. Another proposal was made by Japan this
year to establish a trilateral framework dialogue
and security cooperation with India and the United
States. A Japanese ambassador to India at some
stage even suggested a three-way dialogue process
among Tokyo, Beijing and New Delhi.
Proliferation of trilateral frameworks
with major powers participating in them would have
serious consequences on the current security
architecture. For example, they would undermine
the ARF process and smaller nations in Southeast
Asia would have no effective security forum where
they could express their concerns and feel
confident that their voice would make a
difference.
No doubt growing worries about
terrorism and about nuclear developments in the
Korean Peninsula, the Indian subcontinent and the
Middle East have placed new demands on regional
leaders. However, it is not necessarily
politically sensible for a select group of nations
to band together and exclude others - a Cold
War-type response. A cooperative and inclusive
framework rather than exclusion and containment
would be a better way forward.
Purnendra Jain is professor and
head of Adelaide University's Center for Asian
Studies in Australia.
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