Australian Foreign Policy: July-December 1995

Colin Brown

During the second half of 1995 two issues dominated Australian foreign policy: the relationship with Indonesia and nuclear weapons testing. Other issues which also claimed akention included APEC and relations with members of the South Pacific Forum - especially Papua New Guinea As general elections loomed, the opposition parties began to give some indications of the policies they would take to the electorate.

Indonesia'

For several years the Australia-Indonesia relationship had been fairly benign; during 1995, though, and especially in the latter half of the year, it became rather more tense, for a variety of reasons.

International Coun ofJustice

First, there was the International Court of Justice case brought against Australia by Portugal earlier in the year, in which it was alleged that the Tmor Gap Treaty Australia had concluded with Indonesia was invalid. The Court reached a decision in early July and found, in line with the Australian argument, that it could not proceed with the case in the absence of the Indonesians. ReaIistically the best that could be said about this decision from Canberra's point of view was that Australia did not lose. The decision was certainly no great vindication of the Australian position.

East Timorese Refugees

Second, the status of a substantial number of East Tmorese visitors to Australia who had applied for refugee status needed to be resolved. Foreign Minister Gareth Evans had always asserted that the determination of refugee status was the task of the Refugee Review Tribunal, not the government. But the government felt free to make representations to the Tribunal. In October, it was revealed that the Immigration Department had argued to the Tribunal that any East Timorese born before 1975 were Portuguese citizens, and thus could not claim asylum in AustraliaZ Keating confirmed this position, asserting that although AusvaIia recognised Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor, the Portuguese claimed they had sovereignty - and thus by implication accepted the East Timorese as their cit i~ens.~ In fact at least as early as March, some of the East Timorese had been found by the Refugee Review Tribunal to have been Portuguese citizens, and thus ineligible for asylum.

Needless to say, the government's position drew strong criticism, much of it charging that it reeked of the same hypocrisy as its earlier simultaneous acceptance of Indonesian

//

146 Australian Foreign Policy: July-December 1995

sovereignty over East Timor and the right of the people of East Tmor to self- determination. In fact the government’s position was not inconsistent. Whether or not Australia recognised Indonesian sovereignty over East Tmor did not of itself have any impact on whether Portugal claimed the people of East Tmor as its citizens. Politically, though. the move was very difficult to sustain, and only served to strengthen the government‘s critics in their perception that it was prepared to sacrifice the interests of the Timorese to the relationship with the govemment in Jakarta

Deaths of Journalists

Third, 1995 saw the hventieth anniversary of the deaths of six Australia-based journalists at Balibo and Dili, in East Timor.

Jakarta consistently maintained that the journalists killed at Balibo had been caught in crossfre between Fretilin forces and Tmorese supporters of integration with Indonesia, aided by Indonesian “volunteers”. In Australia this argument was not generally given much credence, a more popular interpretation being that the journalists were killed by Indonesian regular troops to prevent their involvement in the fighting becoming public knowledge. Successive Ausualian governments maintained that they had no evidence that this was the case, and thus that they had to accept the Indonesian version of events. This did not stop persistent rumours circulating in Australia to the effect that Canberra did in fact know what had happened to the Balibo journalists, through the interception of Indonesian military radio traffic from Timor by Defence Signals Directorate personnel based near Darwin. But, so the argument went, the government could not acknowledge this fact without compromising the work of the DSD, and provoking a confrontation with the Indonesians. There the matter generally stood.

In late 1995, several East Timorese came forward to assert that they had first-hand evidence of how the journalists died. Guilherme Goncalves, a former Indonesian Governor of East Timor who twenty years earlier had signed a Ietter saying that the journalists had been killed accidentally, now recanted, and said that that story was a fabrication.

Initially Evans maintained the standard Australian Government position on the matter: “There is no piece of intelligence that we had at the time or have had since, or hard information from any other source, which tells us precisely how the five were killed”.4 Nevertheless he did go on to say that he had asked the Indonesian Government to investigate Goncalves’ new claims. Predictably the Indonesican Government declined to conduct such an investigation.

In Ausualia the calls for a new investigation were being picked up by politicians of a wide range of political persuasions. The Australian Democrats gave notice that they would seek to refer the matter to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. A cross-factional ALP delegation reportedly had a private meeting with Keating to express their concerns, and Alexander Downer, Shadow Foreign Minister, called on the Australian Government to conduct its own investigation into the affair.

In the face of this pressure, Evans conceded that some action had to be taken. A departmental investigation, though, was quickly ruled out when the two Timorese whose allegations had sparked off this round of the debate said they would not appear before such an inquiry, because they did not trust the Department in the light of its treatment of Timorese refugees. They insisted on a judicial i nq~ i ry .~ This the govemment ruled out on grounds of cost. Eventually, in late November, Evans announced that an inquiry into the deaths would be undertaken by former National Crime Authority chief, Tom Sherman. The inquiry was due to commence in February 1996. J,akarta’s reactions to the inquiry

Colin Brown 147

were predictably cool. A spokesperson for the Indonesian Department of Foreign Affairs said (almost certainly with no sense of irony) that “We consider the issue is already a dead one”.6

Irian Jaya

Although East Timor dominated the human rights agenda for Australia during the year, Irian Jaya continued to be a matter of concern. In April, the Australian Council for Overseas Aid (ACFOA) had submitted a report to the government outlining a worsening human rights situation in the province, especially around the Freeport Copper Mine site. In response to these allegations Evans instructed Alan Taylor, Australian Ambassador to Indonesia, to visit the temtory, and to report on developments. His report confirmed that human rights violations were continuing. It stated explicitly that: “we conservatively estimate ... at least 22 people have been killed by ABRI [the Indonesian military] in and around the Freeport concession since June 1994“.7 Evans accepted the thrust.of the report, and called on the Indonesian government to put in train measures to remedy the situation.

The Prime Minister’s response was to treat the matter in a rather less serious manner. When asked whether he expected to raise the Irian Jaya situation with President Suharto on his September visit to Indonesia, he gave a very equivocal answer. Downer seized the opportunity and tried to take Keating to task in Parliament, calling his attention to an apparent difference between his approach and that of E ~ a n s ’ . ~ Keating responded by asserting that he was not going to flag publicly the agenda for his discussions with Suharto. He did say, though, that he had raised human rights “at every meeting, I think, with President Suharto”; he also noted that the Embassy in Jakarta had investigated the affair in April and that its report and Australia’s concerns would be conveyed to the Indonesian auth~rities.~ It is likely that Keating did raise the matter with Suharto at their September meeting; it is equally likely that no changes in policy or practice will result.

Ambassador

The announcement in April that the Indonesian Government proposed to nominate retired General Herman Mantiri as Ambassador to Australia, succeeding Sabam Siagian, had been greeted with an increasingly loud banage of complaints in Australia, because of remarks Mantiri had made three years earlier about the November 1991 killings in Dili. Initially, Evans seems to have believed the matter was of no great import. But by the end of June the public outcry against Mantiri’s nomination had become politically too great to ignore. Evans now shifted his public position somewhat, asserting that Jakarta had been warned that unless Mantiri apologised for his remarks, his position in Australia would be “very uncomfortable”.10 He also regretted the fact that Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas was not in Jakarta handling the affair, implying that if he was, Jakarta would have proved to be more understanding of the dilemma Canberra faced. 11

The best that Mantiri was prepared to do, in response to the request for an apology, was to say that he regretted the Dili incident “from the bottom of my heart”. “There’s not a single Indonesian”, he said, “who’s not very sorry about what happened at that time. No one is not sorry about that incident.”12 Needless to say this did not placate those calling on the government to reject his nomination. By early July, Evans was clearly feeling the heat, and began publicly to put more pressure on Jakarta to reconsider its nomination. What he thought of the chances of this happening is not clear. But journalist David Jenkins, a leading commentator on Indonesi‘m affairs, on 4 July 1995 expressed the view that:

148 Australian Foreign Policy: July-December I995

It is highly unlikely that Indonesia will withdraw General Mantiri’s nomination. Why, Jakarta will ask, should we lose face when Australia has already accepted the appointment?l3

Yet on 7 July, that is exactly what Foreign Minister Ali Alatas did, announcing that the nomination had indeed been withdrawn, and that there would be no tush to find an alternative Ambassador: the post would be allowed to remain vacant for some time. Calling the Ausualian “furore” over the appointment “irrational“ and “entirely out of proportion”, he asserted that the appointment had become:

entangled in the rivalry among political parties in Australia in which agitations and demonstrations by political groups and irresponsible elements taking advantage of the situation will continue unabated.14

Officials in Jakarta apparently attributed Evans’ changed stance to his pending move to the House of Representatives, with its much more rough and tumble approach to politics.15 Sabam Siagian agreed, adding that Evans probably also had too heavy a workload. “Perhaps”. he thought, “it’s a bit too much for one person”.16

It was not until December that Jakarta announced the nomination of a career diplomat, Wiryono Suryohandoyo, as Ambassador. Quite predictably, one of the first questions Wiryono was asked by Australian reporters after news of his appointment broke was his understanding of the events of 12 November 1991. Equally predictably, he said that it was not a massacre, which implied a deliberate killing of innocent people without due cause, but rather an “in~ident” .~~

Evans was the major Australian loser from this affair. He clearly misjudged the extent to which opposition to Mantiri’s appointment would be aroused in Australia, and having done so chose not to tough it out, but instead sent increasingly vigorous messages to Jakarta about the inadvisability of the appointment. As many commentators pointed out, the time for Evans to have made strong representations to Jakarta was before the matter became public, not afterwards. Evans asserted that he had in fact done this: that these protestations had had no discernible effect does not say much for his powers of persuasion in Jakarta. The Leader of the Opposition, John Howard, was able to make capital out of this point. In Evans’ defence it must be noted that if he failed to pick the public mood, most experienced journalists and Indonesia-watchers failed as well.

Interestingly Keating came out of the affair largely untouched, despite adopting a much less trenchant line than Evans. As late as two days before the withdrawal of Mantiri’s nomination was announced, Keating was expressing to Parliament his regret that:

so much of the Australia-Indonesia relationship has centred on Tmor ... We do want to maintain a broad relationship with [Indonesia]. I do not see the character of General Mantiri’s appointment being such as to rupture that relationship.18

Flag-burning

The issue of Australian involvement with the training of Indonesian troops has always been a sensitive one in Australia. In 1995, for the first time, Indonesian Special Forces (Kopassus) troops were invited to take part in the annual Kangaroo series of exercises in northern Australia In August, in direct response to the Kangaroo exercise, demonstrators in Melbourne burnt a number of Indonesian flags. This triggered an angry response in Jakarta, the more so because the incident took place while Indonesians were celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of their independence. A group of Indonesian demonstrators burnt an Australian flag outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, sparking off a series of tit-

Colin Brown I49

for-tat flag burnings in the two countries that dragged on, at least on the Australian side, until the end of the year. These burnings - colourful, dramatic and ideally suited for the thirty second grab needed for television news broadcasts - produced some curious and not entirely predictable Australian responses.

Many journalists and other commentators read the events as signifying a long-term crisis in Australia-Indonesia relations. One very senior journalist urged his readers:

Don't for a moment believe the odd soothing noises out of Canberra on Jakarta. Things are at least as bad as they have been for several years. And they are likely to get worse.19

Some politicians reacted even more strongly. Defence Minister Robert Ray proposed that the burning of the flags of friendly nations be made illegal. Ray's judgement on the relationship with Indonesia has always been open to question: earlier in 1995, he purported to see no potential problems in expanding Australian training of Indonesian troops, or in promoting the sale of military equipment to Indonesia. But in proposing the flag-burning ban, he was taking an even more radical stand. Moreover, it was one which had the potential substantially to undermine one of the most important bases of Evans' diplomacy towards Indonesia on matters such as Timor: that in Australia there is freedom of political expression, and thus that the government has no capacity to prevent demonstrations against Indonesia so long as the law is not being violated. Ray seemed to be suggesting that the way around this problem was simply to change the law. Which, of course, is precisely what many Indonesian officials had been urging Canberra to do for some time, in order to limit or to prevent altogether protests outside the Embassy and other Indonesian diplomatic properties. Evans had always resisted such moves, on the grounds that they would not accord with the Australian tradition of freedom of political expression - yet here was Ray suggesting the opposite. Ray's remarks quickly attracted the criticism they deserved, not only from opposition members but also from members of the government. Within a month or so, to all intents and purposes the proposals had disappeared.

Defence Agreement

In December, Keating announced that Australia and Indonesia had concluded a defence cooperation agreement.20 Negotiations for the agreement had apparently been going on for over a year; the fact that no word of these negotiations had slipped out speaks volumes for the degree of secrecy which had been.m*dii;tained. Keating made much of the agreement, arguing that it showed the extent to which Australia was part of the region, had overcome its old fears about its neighbours, and was now putting in place the cornerstones of Australian security for years to come. The entourage he took to Jakarta for the signing ceremony - including the Deputy Prime Minister Kim Beazley, the Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence - attests to the significance the Prime Minister accorded the agreement.

Yet the agreement itself was light weight, ambiguously worded and of symbolic rather than practical significance. In effect, it simply committed Indonesia and Australia to consult if the security of the one was put under "adverse challenge".21 There was no question of the one country being committed automatically to come the aid of the other. A number of Australian commentators seem to have read into it much more than this. One of the most bizarre scenarios, offered by a retired senior government official and apparently meant seriously, had Ausualia being drawn into war with India on the side of Pakistan, because Pakistan had called on its fellow Muslims in Indonesia for help in fighting the

150 Australian Foreign Policy: July-December I995

Indians, and the Indonesians then in turn called on the Australians to help them. This is, to say the least, a most unlikely scenario. Another observer, an aspirant politician, argued that the Treaty could see Australian troops fighting over the Spratly islands “and, conceivably, Indonesian mops on duty in Darwin in the event of serious civil disturbances”.22

Criticisms of this kind can safely be ignored. Yet there were some important and substantive questions to be asked about the agreement and probably the most emotive point made in Australia concerned the secrecy which had characterised the agreement‘s negotiation. Keating was stating little more than the obvious when he said that secrecy had been necessary; had the negotiations been public knowledge, there would certainly have been widespread opposition in Australia. But this surely raises important questions about the extent to which governments ought to be acting in ways rejected by significant proportions of their constituencies. There is little doubt that there was considerable disquiet in Australia about the agreement and its implications for Australian policy on human rights in Indonesia. Alexander Downer supported the Treaty in general, but criticised the secrecy which surrounded its negotiation. It was odd, he suggested, that the Treaty was apparently kept secret from our closest ally, the United States. Further, he rejected Keating’s argument that i t would help the East Timorese.23 Many other commentators argued that the agreement represented an endorsement of Indonesian policies in East Timor and Irian Jaya A glance at the “Letters to the Editor” columns of the major daily newspapers suggested that letters were running about four to one against the agreement, most writers showing a very substantial degree of hostility towards it, and distrust of the Indonesian Government‘s policies and motives.

Yet precisely why Indonesia signed the agreement in the first place is an intriguing question, given how little it had to gain from it. Just as much as its predecessors, the Suharto Government has prided itself on the fact that, alone among the states of Southeast Asia, it had no defence treaties with foreign powers. Although, as indicated earlier, this agreement was not in fact a defence treaty, nevertheless its conclusion clearly represented a new policy direction for the Suharto Government, and for reasons which can only be the subject of spec~lation.~~ The agreement certainly seems to confirm that the much-vaunted close relationship between Keating and Suharto was real enough, the more so since it seems that negotiation of the treaty was in the hands of the Prime Minister and his advisers, not those of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Nuclear Testing

The second major foreign policy issue Canberra dealt with in the second half of the year was the possession and testing of nuclear weapons. The primary target of Australian anger was France which, in September, started a series of nuclear weapons tests at test sites in the South Pacific. Australian reaction to these tests was strong and, in large measure, bipartisan. Chinese testing at their facility at Lop Nor in Xinjiang province drew a rather more muted and controlled response, and thus some domestic criticism for the government as a result. The Chinese tests certainly did not provoke the degree of public expressions of opposition that the French tests did. More broadly, Canberra continued to argue that in principle nuclear weapons should be dism(ant1ed.

The government pursued a number of policy lines in the attempt to exert pressure on the French to stop testing. First, action to hinder or penalise French commercial and official representatives in Australia were initiated or supported. For the most p.ut the initiatives for these actions did not come from Canberra: some came from state

Colin Brown IS!

governments, but most from private individuals or companies, or from organisations such as trade unions. Thus, for instance, diplomatic bags and mail for the French Embassy were delayed, French goods were boycotted and some French aircraft denied refuelling. Perhaps the most notable action that Canberra did take came in early August, when Defence Minister Robert Ray announced that the French aerospace manufacturer Dassault Aviation would be excluded from bidding for the contract to supply the RAAF with trainer aircraft to replace the ageing Mac~his.~s This was, Ray acknowledged, something of an empty gesture, since the French aircraft was not a front-runner for the contract. Nonetheless the decision caused a rapid and angry reaction from France, the French Ambassador, Mr Guard, being withdrawn to Paris for consultations.

But there were limits to the actions Canberra was prepared to contemplate. It refused, for instance, to folIow the New Zealand example and send an unarmed naval vessel to Mururoa to join the small fleet of protest vessels there. Such a gesture, Keating argued, was essentidly empty: naval vessels were for naval purposes, not for symbolic gestures.%

Several Australian politicians were not as reluctant to establish an Australian presence in the region, announcing plans to sail to Mururoa atoll, the nuclear test site. But their protest, while perhaps important in some symbolic sense, was also characterised by embarrassing blunders. The plan to sail to Mururoa, for instance, failed when a suitable and seaworthy vessel could not be chartered. At least thirty Australian politicians did make their way to Tahiti by more conventional mecans to join in the international protests, but a large contingent of them returned to Australia on 6 September, arriving less than an hour before the first test detonation took place. Delegation leader, New South Wales parliamentarian Franca Arena, asserted that the group would have stayed longer, had they known when the explosion was due to take place.27

More significantly, perhaps, the government also refused to cease selling uranium to France, despite numerous calls on it to do so. An AGB-McNair survey showed three out of four Australians wanted a halt called to uranium sales to France.28 Even Jacques Chirac himself suggested Australia take this course of action, if it were serious about opposition to French testing. The government's position, srated repeatedly by Evans, was two-fold.

On the one hand, sales of uranium to France were governed by a regulatory regime which guaranteed that it could be used for peaceful purposes only: there was no possibility. Evans argued, that any of this uranium could have been used for weapons' production. This argument was weakened somewhat when John Carlson, the Director of the Australian Safeguards Office which has statutory responsibility for overseeing the sales of Australian uranium, told a Senate inquiry that he could not guarantee that in fact no Australian uranium had been used in the test-e3$0sions.~~

On the other hand, Evans pointed out that in a commercial sense, if uranium sales to France were stopped the French would benefit significantly and Ausualia would lose. The world market price for uranium had dropped substantially since the contracts with France had been signed. If the French were not contracted to buy Australian uranium, they could purchase it from other sources and save themselves considerable expenditure. The Australi'an government would then be faced with a compensation claim, perhaps for as much as $80 million, from Australian mining uranium companies who would have lost their market. All in all, there is little doubt that Canberra was caught in a difficult position on this matter; and faced with a choice between principle and commerce, the latter won out"

The second strategy Canberra adopted was to try to secure wider international support for opposition to French testing. Not surprisingly, the South Pacific Fomm was solidly supportive of the Australian position. MEAN Foreign Ministers adopted a resolution in July urging a speedy conclusion to French tests, and agreed on a draft of a treaty which

152 Australian Foreign Policy: July-December 1995

would ban the testing, storage and basing of nuclear weapons anywhere in Southeast Asia30 Ambassador to the United States, and confidant of the Prime Minister, Don Russell, led a delegation of Pacific nations to lobby members of the US Congress against the Fren~h.~1

In the United Nations General Assembly, Australia co-sponsored a resolution deploring all nuclear testing and urging an immediate halt to all such tests. France was not the sole subject of this action: all testing was to be condemned, including that by the Chinese. The resolution was voted on in mid-November, when it was adopted by ninety- five votes to twelve, despite a major lobbying campaign by the French. Evans greeted this decision as a “major rebuke” to both France and China, one which they would ignore “only at high cost to their international reputation^".^^ The fact that both countries had thus far given little indication that they were worried about their “international reputations” does not seem to have registered with Evans. Downer criticised the UN result on the grounds that although ninety-five states voted for the resolution, eighty did not, either abstaining, voting against or not voting at all. The result, he asserted, was deep embarrassment for Australia: “the time has come”, he said, “when the Government must be held to account for its childish and dishonest boasts”.33

What would appear to have been a logical opportunity to focus attention on the Australian opposition to French testing was lost when the Governor-General. Bill Hayden, addressed the United Nations General Assembly in September. Unusual in itself - such set-piece speeches are usually made by an Australian politician such as the Foreign Minister - the speech attracted more attention in Australia by reason of what Hayden did not say than by what he did. The text of his speech indicated that he would be condemning the French tests but the speech he actually made did not include those remarks. When questioned in the House of Representatives about this omission the Deputy Prime Minister, Kim Beazley, pointed out that Hayden had only had five minutes to address the session, but that the text of the speech would be what would appear in the formal record of proceeding^.^^

The Minister for Pacific Island Affairs, Gordon Bilney, led an all-party delegation to Europe, where it met with government officials in France and several other members of the European Union. They received a polite reception, but had relatively little impact. The role of Bilney in the whole affair is in fact a little curious. Although the logical person to lead the mission in terms of his ministerial responsibilities, and despite having by all accounts led it well, in Australia he seems more frequently to have played the role of conciliator of the French, at pains to point out that the Australian Government’s quarrel was with the French Government, not with French businesses or individual French citizens. “We welcome”, he even noted, “and continue to support France’s presence in the South PacifT.35 At least one observer suggested that the key to understanding Bilney’s performance lay in Australian efforts to gain election to the Security Council in 1996, and possibly Evans‘ wish to position himself to take over from Secretary-General Boums- Ghali.s6 According to this theory, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had initially kept quiet on the French nuclear testing issue, in order not to upset any potential supporters of the Australian candidacy. The Department was allegedly critical of the anti- nuclear campaign being mounted by the Australian media, and wanted things quietened down. The government was finally made more critical of the French after representations made by the High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Neil Blewett. Bilney’s “softly- softly” approach was intended to regain the diplomatic initiative. But, so the argument went, the vigorous criticism of France probably gained Australia more support than the more diplomatic approach.

Colin Brown 153

A third strategy followed by the government, though with little enthusiasm and less success, was to challenge the legality of the testing process through the International Court of Justice. New Zealand had brought a case against France in 1973 on the grounds of the damage its then-current policy of atmospheric testing was doing to the Pacific environment. France pre-empted the decision in the case by moving its testing underground, and then declaring it would not recognise the jurisdiction of the Court anyway. The New Zealand Government decided to try to re-open the case, arguing that the environmental issues were still valid, even though the tests were now being carried out underground. The Australian Govemment took the view that this case was most unlikely to succeed and thus distanced itself from it.

But Australia mounted its own case, arguing to the International Court that the Nuclear Non-froliferation Treaty should now be regarded as having the status of customary international law. As a result, Evans argued, it should be regarded as illegal for a nation to acquire, develop, test, possess or otherwise use or threaten to use nuclear weapons. Moreover:

This prohibition must apply equally to nuclear-weapon and non-nuclear-weapon states. If humanity and the dictates of conscience demand the prohibition of such weapons for some states, it must demand the same prohibition for aII.3’

This argument immediately drew fire from the Opposition. Downer was particularly critical. If the Court accepted Evans’ argument, he asserted, this would immediately call into question the ANZUS Treaty. How, he asked, could Australia continue to conduct military exercises with US forces which might be equipped with nuclear weapons: such an action would be illegal.3* Moreover, he said, the whole argument was a dangerous one, since even if the Court accepted it, the nuclear powers would almost certainly ignore any such ruling.39 Ironically, this argument echoed one made earlier by the Defence Minister. Senator Ray. Shortly before Evans left for New York to attend the General Assembly meeting, Ray had asserted in the Senate that Australia did not want the International Court to rule that nuclear weapons were illegal. In the unlikely event that this did happen, he said, “in every possible and relevant way this would contradict the stated doctrines of those nuclear weapons states and be extremely unlikely to be accepted by them”.40 By the end of the year, no ruling had been issued on the matter.

Chinese Testing

In comparison with the f m and public action fakdagainst the French -by government and the community at large - relatively little was done about the Chinese testing at Lop Nor. It must certainly be acknowledged that China is less vulnerable to international pressure than France, and that Lop Nor is substantially less accessible to foreign politicians and the international news media than Mwroa and Tahiti. China is substantially more important to Australia, politically and economically, than is France. Nonetheless it is striking that, with the exception of some rather ritualistic protestations, the government took little action against the Chinese, and were under little pressure from the opposition to do so. When the Chinese conducted their second test of the year, in August, Keating condemned it and Evans called in the Chinese Ambassador, but there was no suggestion of further action being taken.41 The Australian Ambassador to Beijing was not recalled for discussions. The public anti-nuclear outcry which was so much a feature of the protests against French testing was, with few exceptions, singularly absent in the case of the Chinese. A piece of cloth “resembling the Chinese flag” was burnt outside the Chinese Embassy in Canberra, but no one suggested a boycott of dim sum or mao tai. Both Beazley and Howard argued that one thing the Chinese had going for them

154 Australian Foreign P o k y : July-December 1995

was the fact that hey at least were conducting their tests at home rather than overseas.42 Whether the non-Han Chinese people of Xinjiang province would have appreciated this argument is unclear, nor whether they would have accepted Australian Democrat Senator Vicki Bourne’s imaginative suggestion that “before the Chinese invasion” Lop Nor had been in Tibet.43

For all its protestations, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the govement adopted a substantially different policy on Chinese nuclear tests than it had done on French tests; a difference which, while perhaps lacking in morality did at least have a basis in dollars and political advantage.

Canberra Commission

A further element of the government’s international strategy on nuclear weapons was Keating‘s announcement, in late November, of the establishment of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. The fifteen-member body, including scientists, politicians and retired military officers, was tasked with drawing up a programme of “practical steps towards a nuclear weapons-free world, including the related problem of maintaining stability and security during the transitional period and after the goal has been accomplished”.44 It was planned that the Commission would report to the Prime Minister by 31 August 1996. The Opposition indicated that, in office, it would retain the Commission, though Downer’s announcement lacked any great sense of enthusiasm for it45

APEC

Since its inception, APEC has loomed large in the foreign economic policy objectives of Australian governments; this was partly because the APEC negotiations seemed to offer Australia a much more secure economic future than the one it was currently experiencing, and partly also because Canberra could mount a fair argument that it was the parent of the APEC concept. With the successful holding of the Bogor Summit of APEC leaders in 1994, and the Agreement to eliminate all trade barriers between APEC countries by the year 2020, things seemed to be developing Canberra’s way. Malaysia had always expressed its reservations about the Bogor Agreement. and insisted on its own particular interpretation of its provisions, but generally the APEC discussions seemed clearly to be moving in the right direction..

Then in the middle of the year, in the run-up to the next APEC Summit to be held in Osaka, some rather more serious challenges were posed to the Bogor Agreement, coming in particular from Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan. These countries started to argue publicly that what they regarded as “sensitive issues” - and here they meant, in particular, agriculture - ought to be quarantined from tariff cuts. Keating, in a speech to the CEDA, took a vigorous stand on the issue, arguing that the Osaka meeting ought not merely to ignore these calls, but should set specific targets and dates for tariff liberalisation. Making exceptions for agriculture or other “sensitive issues”, he argued, would “paralyse” APEC.46 Subsequently, Keating was to tell a Japanese television interviewer that had the Japanese insisted on these exceptions - or “gone to water” on the Bogor agreement, in Keating’s words - Australia would have withdrawn its support for Japan‘s campaign to be allocated a seat on the United Nations Security Council.

In the event, in the discussions leading up to the Osaka meeting agreement was reached which enabled at least the facade of un‘animity to be retained. As Michelle Grattan noted

Colin Brown 155

in the Age, the problem had just been papered over: it had been resolved linguistically rather than ~ubstantially.4~ As if to confirm this point, after the meeting Mahathir reiterated his established line: that compliance with the programme of tariff reductions was voiuntary. He noted: “we certainly do not believe it means we have to abolish tariffs altogether by the stated dates”.48

South Pacific Affairs

Australian relations with the members of the South Pacific Forum came under pressure from at least two quarters. First, at the Forum meeting in Madang (Papua New Guinea), in September, Australian proposals for a regional code of conduct to govern logging operations was rejected. Logging was an issue on which Australia had been pushing hard to achieve regional consensus. Speaking prior to the Forum meeting the Minister for Pacific Island Affairs, Gordon Bilney, had asserted that:

In the forestry sector in particular there will be nothing left for future generations in one or two island countries unless something is done urgently to reduce logging to ecologically sustainable 1evels.49

The three countries most likely to be affected by the Australian proposals on logging - Papua New Guinea, the Solomons and Vanuatu - asserted that by its actions Australia was seeking to impose its values and policies on Pacific nations, and that this was unacceptable behaviour. The matter was made no easier by Keating‘s issuing of what seemed to some Forum members to be a thinly-veiled threat to cease aid contributions to the Solomons Islands, the state Canberra saw as having the worst logging practices. Eventually, the Forum accepted a revised version of the Australian proposal, in which the powers of enforcement were reduced and made subject to enabling legislation in each member country. In turn, Keating ruled out the use of aid as a means of ensuring compliance with these measures.

Second, Australia’s relations with Papua New Guinea, the largest of the South Pacific nations, went through a stormy period. For some time, Australia’s aid policies to Papua New Guinea had been causing concern in Port Moresby: in particular the shift to programme aid rather than budget support. and the general reduction of the aid programme. In August, the Papua New Guinea Deputy Prime Minister accused Keating of breaking a promise to provide an additional $20 million in aid. Australia, he said, wanted to keep Asian business and investment capitaldt of Papua New Guinea, in order to preserve the position of Australian commercial interests in the country. According to one observer, Australia-Papua New Guinea relations had sunk to a new Iow.50

Bilney argued that this was not so; that the aid package was dependent on the production by Papua New Guinea of an appropriate and acceptable plan for the use of the funds promised, and that thus far this had not been done. Nevertheless, the same day Finance Minister Ralph Willis announced a $69.4 million loan to Papua New Guinea to assist with economic restructuring, in line with proposals made by the IMF and the World Bank. But this loan was agreed upon on 5 July, he asserted, and was thus not related to the recent criticisms of Australian aid.51 Prime Minister Julius Chan subsequently noted that the “hiccups” in relations with Australia had been resolved: Keating went on from Madang to Kokcda where the local people made him a paramount chief.

156 Australian Foreign Policy: July-December 1995

China

Apart from the issue of nuclear weapons testing, Australian relations with China were put under strain on two other points.

The first related to the holding of the International Women’s Conference in Beijing in August-September. A meeting of Australian delegates was closed down by security personnel, and many Australian delegates complained that they were W i g spied on by the security forces. ’hen two Australian women of Tibetan origin. seeking to advance the cause of Tibetan independence at the conference, found themselves surrounded and jostled by a hostile crowd of Chinese officials and Tibetan Chinese, from which they were rescued by Ausualian Ambassador to China, Michael Lightowler. A fonnal complaint was made to the Chinese authorities over the incidents2

The second incident involved Australian businessman James Peng, sentenced in late September to eighteen years‘ jail and deportation after having been found guilty of corruption involving $24O,OOO. Evans met Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen at the United Nations in New York, and asked that Peng be deported immediately rather than at the conclusion of his jail term, though without success. Speaking to CNN, Evans said:

We will try and not let this case intrude too much on the bilateral relationship which is important to us both and in the larger region, but inevitably when people are treated in this way it does result in a dilution of c0nfidence5~

Opposition Policies

In October, with an eye to the looming general elections, Opposition Leader John Howard made two major speeches which spelled out several of the parameters which could be expected to shape Australian foreign policy under a coalition government The two central themes were Australia’s relations with Asia, and with the United States.

The fmt speech was on defence policy, in which it was firtnly asserted that the government had grossly neglected relations with the United States; and that under a coalition government, those ties would be substantially ~trengthened.5~ Four priorities were enunciated: an extension of the opportunities for American and Australian forces to exercise and train together, greater collaboration in research and development activities; greater US access to Australian military facilities; and the pre-positioning of US military equipment in Australia Howard argued, in addition, that the Keating Government had paid too much attention to Southeast Asia, at the cost of Northeast Asia. It was in Northeast Asia, Howard argued, “where lie the most pressing Asia-Pacific security concerns which may have an impact on our more immediate region”.55

The second speech was given to the Australia-Asia Institute at the University of New South Wales.” Burdened with a perception in the eyes of at least some observers that the coalition was less attuned to Asia than the government, Howard asserted vigorously that “enhancing Australia’s relations with Asia will receive the highest foreign policy priority from a coalition government”.57 The theme of closer ties with Northeast Asia was revisited, although bilat.mil ties with states including Indonesia and Malaysia were also emphasised, along with multilateral objectives such as APEC.

Keating n a t d l y attacked both of these speeches, On defence, he argued that Howard was espousing a 1950s policy: one where Asia represented a threat to Australian security, from which only the United States could rescue its* The government, he asserted, “is seeking Australia’s security in Asia. ’Ihe Opposition is seeking security from A~ia”.~g Defence Minister Robert Ray took a slightly different stand, suggesting that Howard had

Colin Brown 157

stolen the government’s 1994 Defence White Paper philosophy, but produced policies which were shallow and gratuitous.

In response to these criticisms, Howard pressed the argument that the ALP had not “discovered Asia”. Rather, in his view, “the foundations of Australia’s relations with Asia were established by coalition governments’*.a There was now a bipartisanship on policy towards Asia; the coalition, in office, would seek to enhance the relationship further. Australia did not have to choose between “Asia“ and the “rest of the world“. ‘We believe that a sensible foreign policy must take into account Australia‘s global interests, while recognising that Asia is fundamental to that policy.”61

The one issue on which the Coalition did take issue with the United States was trade policy, and explicitly the Export Enhancement Program (EEP). Tim Fisher, leader of the National Party, was particularly critical of US trade policy, calling it “piracy”.62 But he stopped short of calling for any concrete action to be taken against the Americans.

Conclusions

The period under review had not been a particularly good one for the government. On the two major issues pursued - the relationship with Indonesia and nuclear weapons testing - the ledger was, at best, evenly balanced. Evans’ previously effective control over the relationship with Indonesia slipped noticeably. He badly under-estimated the public outcry against the Mantiri appointment and his handling of the Timorese refugees issue - while perhaps well-founded in legal terms - was difficult to defend in public. The enquiry he instituted into the deaths of Australian journalists in Tmor seems unlikely to prove satisfactory to any of the parties most closely involved with the issue. It is unlikely to produce a report which the journalists’ supporters in Australia would find satisfactory, given its limited information-gathering capacity - it will not be permitted access to Indonesia, and is unlikely to be able to persuade government critics that it has had full access to intelligence reports. Yet its report can hardly fail to find that the Indonesians had some responsibility for the deaths, which Jakarta will necessarily deny. Quite why Evans established the enquiry is unclear.

Keating did rather better. Evans took most of the criticism for the handling of the Mantiri affair, even though Keating was even less critical of the appointment than the Foreign Minister had been. Then Keating pulled a rabbit out of the hat with the security agreement, upstaging Evans. But whether the agreement will ultimately prove to be to the political benefit of the government is unclear6ting’s commitment to the Indonesia relationship is well-known. But i t is equally obvious that on this issue he has run far ahead of public opinion in Australia. Although Keating may well believe there is no country more important to Australia than Indonesia, clearly such a view is not held by the Australian public at large. Though it may be the case that elections are neither won nor lost on foreign policy issues, the government runs the risk of there being a backlash against its Indonesian policies.

Evans had been slow to take up the nuclear testing issue, and even when he did take it up, appeared to lean rather more favourably towards China than France. Yet on this matter he was probably not far out of step with the community as a whole, some of whose members had set about the French in ways which, under other circumstances, could have been expected to see reference being made to legislation forbidding discrimination on grounds of ethnicity or national origin. Keating had taken the more popular anti-French line virtually from the start. It is of interest, however, that the government did not choose to criticise the French colonial presence in the South Pacific in the context of the nuclear

158 Australian Foreign Policy: July-December 1995

testing. Presumably this was to allow full attention to be focused on the main issue, and to avoid the French charge - made anyway - that Australia was trying to dominate the region. But given the government’s previously strong anticolonial stance, it is somewhat surprising that it did not point out that if it were not for the fact that France retained its South Pacific colonies, it would hardly be carrying out nuclear weapons testing there.

It may well be that a major reason for Evans‘ relatively poor performance was the upcoming elections, in which he was committed to trying to move from the Senate to the House of Representatives. Although the seat for which he would stand was relatively safe for Labor, the election process for the House is much more personal and rough and tumble than that for the Senate. He may even have been contemplating the possibility of leaving the Australian Parliament altogether, to take a position in the United Nations. Whatever the reason his performance was less sure and less deft than it usually was.

The opposition did not do significantly better. Howard‘s statements on defence and foreign policy looked as if they represented some turning away from Asia, towards the United States. Notwithstanding Howard‘s vehement denial that such was in fact the case, his statements are likely to draw such a conclusion in many parts of the Asian region, and probably to rekindle interest in his attitudes towards Asian migration to Australia. Downer’s criticism of Evans and Keating for their alleged failure to press Indonesia sufficiently vigorously on human rights issues was a claim for the moral high ground in foreign affairs. But it is relatively easy for a shadow foreign minister to take such a stand: to take it as Foreign Minister would be much more difficult.

At the end of the day, it may well be that both the government and the opposition were increasingly distracted by the prospect of general elections, which would have to be held in the first half of 1997.

NOTES

1

2 WestAustralian, 11 October 1995. 3 Age, 11 October 1995. 4 Australian, 17 October 1995. 5 Herald-Sun, 30 October 1995. 6 7 8 9 Ibid. 10 SMH, 29 June 1995. 1 1 Courier-Mail, 1 July 1995. 12 Australian, 1 June 1995. 13 SMH, 4 July 1995. 14 Aurtralian, 7 July 1995. 15 Age, 6 July 1995. 16 SMH, 10 July 1995. 17 CT, 13 December 1995. 18 Age. 6 June 1995. 19 Greg Sheridan, Australian. 23 August 1995.

The following remarks draw on my chapter ‘*Indonesia” in Russell Trood and Deborah McNamara, eds, The Australia-Asia Surv9,1996-97 (Sydney: Macmillan, forthcoming 1996).

Canberra Times (hereafter q, 1 December 1995. Sydney Morning Herald (hereafter SMH). 11 November 1995. House of Representatives, Hanrard. 31 August 1995.

Colin Brown 159

20 For the text see , e.g, Age, 19 December 1995. 21 As an aside, one could question how a country’s security could come under favourable

challenge. 22 Col Friel, Spokesperson, NT Greens, CT, 26 December 1995. 23 CT, 18 December 1995. 24 Cf, Jamie Mackie, “Not so hard for Suharto”, Age, 21 December 1995. 25 Cf. Australian, 2 August 1995. 26 CT, 23 July 1995. 27 CT, 7 September 1995. 28 0, 19 September 1995. 29 CT, 21 November 1995. 30 Age, 31 July 1995. 31 CT. 4 August 1995. 32 CT, 18 November 1995. 33 CT, 18 November 1995. 34 House of Representatives, Hunsard. 24 October 1995. 35 CT, 30 August 1995. 36 Godfrey Wiseman, CT, 4 November 1995. 37 Age, 1 November 1995. 38 CT, 1 November 1995. 39 Age, 2 November 1995. 40 Senate, Hanrard, 21 September 1995. 41 Age, 18 August 1995. 42 Cf. Cr, 18 August 1995, Australian, 19 August 1995. 43 0, 18 August 1995. 44 0 . 2 7 November 1995. 45 Cf. CT, 28 November 1995. 46 Age, 27 September 1995. 47 Age. 18 November 1995. 48 CT, 21 November 1995. 49 CT, 25 August 1995. 50 Pilita Clark in Age, 30 August 1995. 51 Age. 31 August 1995. 52 Cf. Age, 2,6, 7 September 1995. 53 CT, 30 September 1995. 54 Cf. e.g, Age, 6 October 1995. 55 Age. 6 October 1995. 56 Cf.Age, 13 October 1995. 57 Age, 13 October 1995. 58 Age, 7 October 1995. 59 Age, 19 October 1995. 60 Age. 20 October 1995. 61 Age. 20 October 1995. 62 CT, 15 November 1995.