Australia’s Foreign Relations – A Conversation with Bob Carr

Bob Carr: Kiribati might have two decades before they’ve got to evacuate the islands. But what Australia is doing is quite strategic.ere any facts in the South Pacific? And which did you notice?

We’re lifting their English language skills and equipping them with technical qualifications up to Australian standards so they can come here, or go to New Zealand, not as desperate environmental refugees but as sought after skilled migrants who will fit in well.

Kiribati is a sliver of land. On one side it’s a little wider than a road and, on either side, it’s two blocks of land. You stand with President Tong, a very thoughtful, educated leader, and he points out how the water is washing over a village. It wasn’t there before. It’s going to take away drinking water and the village will become uninhabitable. There are 100,000 people in Kiribati.

I think the Melanesian and Polynesian worlds are of enormous fascination once you get injected with a little substance called “the Pacific”. This ocean continent – that’s what it is, an ocean as big as a continent –with its mosaic of cultures. You can understand the fascination of Australians who become hooked on Pacific island romanticism. Australia plays a very important role there and it’s hard to envisage it without Australian aid.

Gerard Henderson: As regards the Pacific, we tend not to focus on romanticism in Papua New Guinea. How are developments going there?

Bob Carr: With difficulty. The Pacific Island Forum is a community of democracies. Whatever the shortcomings of those of us who live in the Pacific, we trust our people. Late in 2012, Papua New Guinea – the most ethnically diverse place on earth, topographically and with enormous challenges – held an election. They trusted their people. It was a rough and ready election, by our standards, but the people chose Peter O’Neill and gave him a good majority. There was a government.

If you have a democratic election in Papua New Guinea, you can have one anywhere in the world. It was a great advertisement for democracy. In Fiji, they have a nation that runs by military coup, a military government. You have to be in the military to be in this government. The judiciary is stacked which is a rebuke to the ethos of our Pacific Island community, the nations of the Pacific Island Forum. That’s why it’s in Australia’s interest, and in the interest of New Zealand, Vanuatu, and Samoa and the others, to see a restoration of democratic norms in Fiji.

Now, the interim government in Fiji has said it will have elections in 2014. There’s a debate about the constitution. I could understand some of their objections to the draft constitution served up by the constitutional commission. But our interest now is in seeing that those elections are so democratic that even the losers will be forced to accept the outcome, which – if you think about it – is not a bad test of a fair and free election.

Jacquelynne Willcox: Can I take you, in a sense, to another stretch of water. This afternoon, the Japanese coastguards said that some Chinese ships had entered its area. It’s been a volatile few weeks – how stable is that region? What happens if there is a skirmish, as some watchers are predicting? A skirmish between China and Japan.  What happens, what would America do? And if America did enter some sort of skirmish in support of Japan, what would happen to us? Would we have to then honour ANZUS?

Bob Carr: This is the most cunning question I’ve had in 10 months as foreign minister there’s a …

Jacquelynne Willcox: You’re so sweet.

Bob Carr: No it is! I’ll tell you – this is the most cunning question. This is the question I’ve been waiting for, that I’ve been preparing for since my first day in my job.

Jacquelynne Willcox: You could have just called me, Bob! Just call me

Bob Carr: When I became Foreign Minister, I told the department that I wanted a list of all the stumbles of previous ministers. It didn’t do me any good, I went out and made my own stumbles over elections in Papua New Guinea. However, one of the big warning signs that occurred to me on looking back was Alexander Downer after being asked about possible war in the Taiwan straits. Would the ANZUS treaty obligate Australia’s involvement? He gave an answer, I forget what his answer was, but it consumed the media and consumed him for two months.

Can I give my practised reply?  It is a hypothetical question but The ANZUS Treaty obliges Australia to consult. Let me deal with the earlier question about the tension. The situation between China and Japan is very worrying. The amateur historians among us remember that World War I nearly started with a naval incident. The Tangier incident in 1905.

There is no doubt that both sides know the future of East Asia lies in peace and they have an enormous amount to lose. But in a conflict between a fishing boat and a naval vessel, anything can happen. So, it is deeply worrying. We take no sides on the territorial disputes, neither do any other powers. We know what America has said about their defence treaty with Japan being activated by a dispute over the islands. What is really involved here, and in the South China Sea, is the disturbing possibility that the good news out of  East Asia will be in jeopardy – three decades of good news about economic growth improved social indicators, longer lives, healthier lives, more women going to university, more women in leadership, fewer women dying in childbirth all of these wonderful indicators that have emerged from all of East Asia over the last 30 years.

This happiness story stands to be replaced by a story about territorial disputes with the present possibility of a misunderstanding and a descent into armed conflict. You’re very right to underline it.

Gerard Henderson: And then, cutting across, you’ve got the tension between Japan and North Korea and the apparent beginning of some tension between China and North Korea.

Bob Carr: Well, a few immediate responses. As Australians, we have to express our solidarity with South Korea and Japan. They’re very close partners of ours and both foreign ministers were grateful to hear what I have said, what any Australian Foreign Minister would have said – “We stand with you, we express our solidarity with you”.

I spoke to Ban Ki Moon today and said Australia will support a firmer set of sanctions against North Korea. We’re hoping that can emerge from the Security Council debate in the next week. China’s role is to be encouraged here. It’s a constructive role to be acknowledged. China is the only country with the remotest possible influence on North Korea. All the evidence – from the state owned media in China – is that China has attempted to exert that influence.

China is, of course, a great influence on stability in North-East Asia. The Chinese do not want a Japan or a South Korea intent on strengthening their military capacities. I’ve got a keen interest in something related to this, in Australia leading a world debate about human rights in North Korea. It’s the most repressive part of the planet. I don’t think there’s a more repressive real estate in the world than that of North Korea, with a network of concentration camps with an estimated quarter of a million people, all identifiable on planet earth – vast establishments, 50 miles long, 30 miles wide, with mines and hydro electricity in them and people forced to work as slave labour. If you can believe the testimony of that handful of people who have escaped from the North Korean Gulag, this is North Korea. One part of our response to North Korea and its actions with missiles and nuclear weapons that challenge security is to see if the world remains focused on the uniquely repressive nature of this totalitariam regime.

Jacquelynne Willcox: Can I take you to Mali? Or to Africa? Or to what some people are calling “Africanistan”? Given that people are likening Mali to Afghanistan. Is that accurate? That people should liken what’s happening in Mali now to Afghanistan? Are there any similarities? And, as a rejoinder to that, what do we make of this sort of rag-tag group of very serious, well armed, militia that seem to want to go from one region to another with no real ties to those regions and as one diplomat said recently, funded by French ransom money.

Bob Carr: First of all I think the analogy with Afghanistan is well taken. Not only do you have an Islamist insurgency, but you have criminality, criminal networks, human trafficking and drug dealing, and trans border crime. The first response has got to be to separate the Tuareg insurgence, who aren’t Islamist, from the Al-Quaeda linked forces. The French and the government of Mali appear to be intent on doing that. I suppose that’s classic counter insurgency – you attempt to shear off one part of the insurgency from the rest, to split it, to divide it. That’s a valid response and an encouragingly strategic one.

The other encouraging thing is to see West African forces, about to be covered by United Nations mandate, playing a role. This is very encouraging and has echoes of the East African involvement in Somalia. We’ve got to stand in admiration of the French intervention. It probably reflects a unique French association with Africa and its former dependencies, but nonetheless, in this context, it provided leadership for a world that does not want a large area of the Sahel taken over by Islamists.

Gerard Henderson:  As you know, the British assisted the French with Lifte. Have we been asked for any kind of assistance short of military engagement, lifts, supplies, things like that?

Bob Carr: We’ve done two things. We’ve provided humanitarian assistance and we were doing that before this current crisis. We’re a big donor to the Sahel. Last year we provided $44 million across the Sahel, which is that band of sub-Saharan Africa. The second thing we have done is to provide a monetary contribution to equipping the West African forces. These are armies without boots or uniforms. Being without boots doesn’t disqualify you from being an army – the Confederates nearly won the American Civil War before the boot factories of Massachusetts lent a competitive edge to the north. But armies really do need to be equipped. And we’ve made a $5 million contribution to doing that at a pledging conference in Addis Ababa

Jacquelynne Willcox: I noticed that Cardinal Pell wrote an article recently about what he called Christian communities in Syria, in particular, but also in those troubled spots in the Middle East. He discussed what was happening to them and how repressed they were. Christians and Jews are groups that have been forgotten, largely forgotten, in what has been happening in those areas. What do you say about those and what we should do for those groups?

Bob Carr: That’s a very great concern of mine. I’ve met the leadership of some of the Christian churches with members in the Arab world. I’ve met the Armenians who are very concerned about their community in Syria. Last Friday, I met Bishop Daniel who was speaking for the Coptic community. When I met Egypt’s President Morsi, in the middle of 2012, I told him of the very large Coptic community in Australia. And I added that our Australian Copts were very praiseworthy of his strong statement that he would be a president of all Egyptians regardless of religious faith. President Morsi replied at this point that there was probably a “but” now coming and I said there was. Both the Coptic community in Australia and the Australian government would like to see him continue his efforts for the Copts in Egypt.

I think the Western world has got a stake in seeing that the minorities in the Arab world do not suffer or perish in this period of transition that’s being described as the Arab Spring. The challenge is acute in Syria, given that there may be a Muslim Brotherhood government or even one with Salafist elements emerging out of any ceasefire in a transition. I spoke to the US Secretary of State Kerry on Sunday. I raised with him, among other matters, the interest the Western world for protecting minorities in the Middle East. Not just Christians and Jews, but also the Kurds and even Islamic minorities who are also threatened in many parts of this world.

The Saudi foreign minister has reminded us that the Sunnis in Iran face severe discrimination. And the Middle East has been able to boast an overlap of cultures historically. It would be tragic if the Armenians or the Catholics in Syria, the Copts in Egypt, or the Chaldinians and Assyrians in Iraq were to be doomed by the turmoil we’re currently seeing. I’ve raised it with others – with the French, with the British. This is going to be a continuing interest. I raised it with German foreign minister Westerwelle. Australia has a stake in seeing that these cultures are protected, not least because they are represented in Australia.

Gerard Henderson: And a lot of conflict in these regions is Sunni-Shia conflict..

Bob Carr: Yes. One can’t overlook the fact that you’ve got Arab on Arab violence. That’s the essence of what is happening in Syria. No one else can be blamed for it. One way of understanding what’s happening in the Arab world is that it’s a breakdown in a certain model that was settled on in the early 1950s. That model ended up being one of an Arab dictatorship for life, an inherited dictatorship for life. If you think about the transitions that were underway in Libya, the transition that took place in Syria and the one that was planned in Mubarak’s Egypt – these have been transitions from father to son of dictatorships. That model has broken down. Some people say that what we’re witnessing, in the rise of Muslim brotherhood governments, is a return to an historic Middle East and the Arab nationalism created by Nasser and his followers – a pan-Arab nationalism that was itself an aberration.

Gerard Henderson: There is a view that in the current circumstances Israel isn’t defendable on the 1967 borders, and that there’ll have to be some accommodation around the settlements on the outskirts of Jerusalem. But you seemed to be saying, with Mr Hague, that all settlements would have to be removed.

Bob Carr: We’re saying that the two sides have got to talk without preconditions. That’s our view on the Arab-Israel peace process, the Israel-Palestinian peace process. UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, when he was here in January, was very possessed with the notion that this can only happen with American leadership, and it won’t happen any other way. He was intent on both of us saying that, and pressing that point with the Americans. He sees, as I do, that settlement activity capable of rendering a negotiated settlement which creates a Palestinian state, subject to security guarantees for Israel, is impossible.

Our view, and the view of the world, is that all settlement activity is illegal, in its very nature. Under the Geneva Convention a conquering nation can’t lay out settlements for its own people on conquered territory. But there are big and symbolic issues that have to be settled and can only be settled by a brave Israeli leadership and a brave Palestinian leadership. Our job is to keep nurturing the hope of that settlement, because the only alternative are more cycles of violence between these two peoples.

Jacquelynne Willcox: Minister, can I take you back to China? The Prime Minister has been largely congratulated for her plans to attend the Chinese Economic Forum, after some lapse. Why the lapse? And, then, why the attendance?

Bob Carr: I’m not sure whether Julia Gillard was planning to be at the last economic forum. It happened just as I took on this job so I don’t know the pre-history of it. But she’ll be at this one. And we’re hoping that when the Chinese leadership transition is complete, in March, then the leadership can give some attention to it, and that they’ll see some appeal in a proposition that she’s put to Hu Gintao. This is for regular consultations at the senior leadership level between  the Australian leadership and the Chinese leadership. We see that as desirable and as one measure of the interdependency we both enjoy, and the opportunities for advanced cooperation that we should be both reaching for.

Jacquelynne Willcox: Prime Minister Gillard recently talked about cyber security. Will she be discussing that do you think, with the Chinese?

Bob Carr: I think it’s a natural subject on the agenda given that it’s growing in the security perspective for both of us. It’s on the agenda and we can be candid with the Chinese. For example, on that recent national security paper which highlighted the role of cyber security, the capacity for a nation to move in and destroy banking records would have a devastating effect on any society. We have been able to list such issues for candid discussion with the Chinese. Indeed, the Chinese were comprehensively briefed. Their leadership, their foreign ministry in particular, and their think tanks and their military – through our national security paper.

Gerard Henderson: With the tension in the region, do some of our traditional allies and friends come to the Australian government with their concern about China? If you look at the region, Japan has concerns about China, along with the Philippines, Vietnam and some others. Do we dialogue between these nations and China or do we treat China a one off? And, secondly, there has been a suggestion that perhaps Australia should join ASEAN, do you have a response to that?

Bob Carr: On the first one, ASEAN wants to get its relationship with China right. That is, they want to be able as a group of 10 nations to settle on a code of conduct to govern the dispute in the South China Sea. It’s very important for ASEAN to prove it can do this after some failed attempts last year. So they wouldn’t see a role for Australia in facilitating that process. We stand ready in the background to conduct forums and discussions on how you might settle the disputes that involve China on the one hand and Vietnam, Brunei and the Philippines on the other, as well as having forums, having discussions involving academics and third parties and NGOs.

You can have resource sharing, for example. There are three or four precedents in South East Asian countries – Malaysia and Thailand for example – who say we’re not going to attempt to settle this territorial dispute. What we shall do is develop the resource jointly, and share the benefit. We urge that as a model that ASEAN and China should consider. But ASEAN would be a bit resistant to us coming in with an Aussie peace plan, and so would China which is opposed to internationalising these disputes and who is intent on having them regarded as bilateral matters of concern for the Chinese, the Philippines and the Chinese and the Vietnamese.

No ASEAN foreign minister has raised with me any interest on their side for having Australia join  ASEAN. The nations of ASEAN underline, at every opportunity, their centrality to the issues, challenges and problems of South East Asia. To have Australia start knocking at their door, saying we want to join you, would probably be inviting rejection. As Willy Brandt was fond of saying about what should happen in Germany in the late 1980s, what belongs together will come together. If, in the decades of the future, the evolution of ASEAN and Australia’s economic integration with the region pushes to something different, that will happen of its own accord.

Jacquelynne Willcox: You talked about US Secretary of State Kerry. I thought one of his cutest questions when he took over from Hillary Clinton was, can a man do the job? Can this man do the job and what should we expect to see? A closer relationship, or a more improved relationship, between the United States and Israel? And who’s the person in the Obama Administration to watch? Who’s the bright young thing that will be making a difference?

Bob Carr: That’s a good question. The US has not appointed the Assistant Secretary of State for Asia yet. Curt Campbell who stood down from the position was a very keen and watchful friend of Australia. And that’s an important position for us to watch. There have been a couple of candidates for it. It would be hard for the Obama administration in second term to be more attentive to Asia than it was in its first term. That’s our challenge. Our challenge is to engage the US and to see that the Secretary of State visits, at the first opportunity, not just North East Asia but also South East Asia. Yet you could not floor the Obama Administration for its attention to our part of the world. When I greeted Hillary Clinton at Perth airport, she’d had a 30-hour journey to get to us. And she was uncomplaining as she got off that plane, big bold sunglasses shielding the fatigue. But she was as lively, as engaged, as energetic as we could expect for the next one and a half days of talks.

Jacquelynne Willcox: Can I ask you about those visits, the American visits to us and Australia’s visits to the US? James Packer came out this week and said that for every visit we make to one another, we should also go to China. He was quite critical about what he thought was our  neglect of China.

Bob Carr: You cannot say we neglect China. But our position is that we can have an excellent relationship with both. The Australian people want that and I think they see the economic importance of China. There’s an appetite in parts of the business community to see that we enforce that and underline it. The Prime Minister will do that in April by this very significant visit to the economic forum. But our links with the United States, as I said to the Chinese foreign minister at our first meeting, are in Australians’ DNA. We’ve been searching for this alliance with the United States since the Japanese victory over Russia in 1904/1905. Alfred Deakin, then Prime Minister of Australia, said he wanted the Munro Doctrine extended to the South West Pacific. In other words, he wanted the Americans to accept some security role in the South West Pacific.

Australians were very happy with the outcome of the Spanish American War, seeing the Philippines go into American hands. And we have linked ourselves historically with the large English speaking maritime powers. It’s also bound by values we share with Americans. There are values we don’t share with Americans, like the religious attachment to universal gun ownership.

Barack Obama, speaking at the General Assembly at the United Nations in September 2012, at the time of the Arab World reaction to the YouTube video mocking Islam, gave a brilliant, inspiring speech. It was a beautifully argued defence of freedom of speech. He acknowledged the concerns of those in the Arab world that their religion had been mocked. But he returned to the capacity of the freedom of speech to resolve all conflicts. It was an American President who was able to get up in the UN and talk about this. What we see as a universal value, freedom of speech.

So, in addition to the security considerations, Australians will always have an attraction to American values at their best. Our fondness and our friendship will be tested. But there is an attraction by Australians to American values at their best which sits with our attraction to America in terms of security cooperation. But we can have both. A relationship with China is important to us economically and challenging to us, as we watch what will be robust political evolution in China. The next political transition in China, in ten years time, won’t take place according to the same rules. The Chinese leadership talking about the respect in the rule of law and the retiring, former Prime Minister of China, Wen Jiabao, talking about democracy are all the pointers to a political evolution in China. Sun Yat-Sen the founder of modern China, the initiator of the Chinese revolution of the twentieth century which has now meant so much to the world, always could see China as a parliamentary democracy.