Dr John Chipman
Pallam Raju, thank you very much, especially for that final vote of confidence in this process. We will go forward in the same way as before. I will take a group of comments and questions.
Dr Tim Huxley
My question is directed towards Minister Lee Sang-Hee. The Republic of Korea has an ambitious programme to expand and modernise its nature, which is being re-equipped with advanced submarines, heavily-armoured surface combatants – notably the KDX‑class Destroyers – and even light aircraft carriers which in the future might carry joint strike fighters. I wonder if you could say something about the rational behind this naval programme, given that the main security challenge to the Republic of Korea is still a land-based threat from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Mariot Leslie
I am from the British Foreign Office. I was very struck by those three very rich and rather complementary presentations, drawing out some very similar themes, it seemed to me, from the non-military types of threat now to security. These included things like globalisation, new technologies, state failure, the rise of non-state actors, and so on. My question though perhaps was particularly directed at Mr Pallam Raju, although I would be interested in comments from other people as well. I was struck by your very telling remarks about the growing interdependence between states as being part of the solution to security threats. I was also struck by some of your comments about the challenge to all of us from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. I would be extremely interested in hearing from you what you think the world community, or perhaps countries in the Asian region, need by way of new thinking, new approaches, and possibly new instruments, at a time when energy security quite clearly is going to drive a much greater demand for civil nuclear power.
Professor Dr Dewi Fortuna Anwar
I would like to direct my question to Mr Fitzgibbon. First, I would like to congratulate you on your appointment as Minister of Defence, and welcome you to your first Shangri-La Dialogue here. As you know, prior to the elections of the Rudd Government, the general public rhetoric is that Mr Rudd is much more oriented towards Asia than the previous Howard Government. Can you enlighten us, in the context of the forthcoming White Paper, the major differences or major departures, if any, from the previous Howard’s policy, in terms of security and defence at large, and particularly with reference to Asia? Are there any new nuances in how Australia intends to deploy its troops in the region? Also, could you talk about its relations with the US? Thank you.
Kishore Mahbubani
In defence planning, it is important to think of the unthinkable. This morning, Secretary Gates gave us a very powerful statement that the US will stay in Asia. There are enormous economic pressures building up in the US. If these economic pressures continue to pile on, at some point in time the American electorate will ask, ‘Why do we need to have such a sizable military presence over here?’ The question is: does South Korea, Australia or India, in their contingency planning, think of the possibility – to quote a new book by Fareed Zakaria, ‘The Post-American World’ – of an Asia Pacific without a strong American presence?
Dr Jonathon D Pollack
I want to congratulate all the speakers for first-rate presentations but I would like all or one of them to comment on the following point: it strikes me that all the speakers today, with the singular exception of Secretary Gates, have focused significant attention on the continuing question of international terrorism and counterterrorism. This dialogue – and I have been privileged to participate in all but one of them – of course began in the shadow of 9/11. Many of our early deliberations and discussions were about whether or not you could shoehorn, if you will, international terrorism into a classic defence-planning template. I think that the operative conclusion was that you could not. It is striking how all the states represented on this panel are talking about capacity building in these areas, but very much with local or regional circumstances in mind. I wonder if any of our panellists wants to comment on the degree of proportional attention that each of your countries attaches to questions of terrorism in relation to it seemingly being – I do not want to say a lesser priority in American thinking – at least, on the face of it, significantly less prominent in American strategic deliberations compared to previous meetings of this dialogue.
Mario Joyo Aguja
All of the presentations this morning recognised the different security threats in the region, and many of them are actually new and non-military in nature, which is challenging the traditional role of the military in the different nation states. Minister Fitzgibbon of Australia emphasised the need for greater consultation in the white paper development as a way of facing these uncertainties in the region, even within the nation states, to build a common consensus about what a security threat is. Unfortunately, there is still an ongoing animosity between those who have at traditional hold on the security sector – the military – and those who have a traditional hold on the civilian sector – members of parliament – in the process of forging and defining what security is. How is Australia making this engagement productive? Militaries are saying that they need money but the civilians are saying that there are other interests and concerns. How do you forge all these concerns because these are basically common concerns as far as the nation state is concerned?
Mark Fitzpatrick
I would like to follow up Mariot Leslie’s question about strategies for countering the proliferation threat the world faces, a threat that was exemplified by recent revelations about North Korean assistance to a secret plutonium production programme in Syria. One of the strategies that many of the countries represented here today have been pursuing is that of strengthening cooperation in their capabilities to interdict shipments of proliferation-related material and technology. Australia is one of the leaders in this effort through the Proliferation Security Initiative (PRI), a US-led initiative that is marking its fifth anniversary. There has been much discussion in both Korea and India about also participating in this effort but there have been no decisions yet. I wonder in the panellists could enlighten us on those deliberations and on the future of such collaborative efforts in Asia.
Senator Joseph Lieberman
Let me first quickly respond to what Dr Pollack said. It is an interesting point that the three excellent statements made by the panellists here, as well as those made in the second panel, spent some time focused on the threat of terrorism. Ironically, as Dr Pollack said, Secretary Gates seemed to do that less. I think the Secretary was trying to make the point – perhaps trying to alleviate concerns that America is distracted from the Asia-Pacific region – that the reality is if 9/11 had not occurred there is no question that, due to all the dynamic growth occurring in this part of the world, Asia-Pacific would be the primary focus of American foreign policy. The tragic event of 9/11 intervened. Perhaps Secretary Gates did not focus on terrorism because he was trying to make the point, which I agree with, that the US, notwithstanding the intervention of 9/11, has enough resources, is strong enough, and is engaged enough in Asia-Pacific that we must involved.
My question is about how we are involved. To make a long story short, American foreign policy – and I support it – is that we work through allies, friends and strategic partners, even as we work to build relations with others, most significantly the People’s Republic of China – to use Lee Kuan Yew’s wonderful phrase – to try to get it right. The three countries represented here are three great democracies. They are tangible evidence, as I mentioned earlier, that more people live under democracy in the Asia-Pacific region than anywhere else in the world. We have very strong relations with the three governments here. Indeed, the four of us often work together – there is a sub-question there that I will leave for a later time. The question I want to ask relates to what General Ma said in his very important statement this morning, which acknowledged the value of balance of power. Nonetheless, General Ma expressed a concern about alliances, if you will. My direct question to each of you is: is there any reason for the PRC to be concerned about either the bilateral relationships that the US has with the three nations you represent or the trilateral or quadrilateral work that we occasionally do together?
Rear Admiral Michael McDevitt
As it turns out, my question follows right on from the senator’s comments and it is for Minister Fitzgibbon. You made a point that the white paper on Australia’s future that you are working on is going to emphasise greater engagement in multilateral forums throughout the region. Is the current trilateral dialogue that exists between the US, Japan and Australia likely to be revisited once again to see if it could be expanded? I understand that attempts to expand it to include India have gone nowhere recently. Do you see that being revisited once the white paper process is complete?
Dr John Chipman
I will give each of the panel three minutes. To Minister Lee, the key questions were: what is the rationale behind your naval procurement policies? What is the attitude you take towards terrorism? Can you say anything about your views on the North Korea-Syrian link of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and how ready are you to commit to some form of collaboration with the Proliferation Security Initiative?
Lee Sang-Hee
First, the reinforcement of Korean Navy takes place within a whole frame of national defence. Therefore, as I mentioned in the previous presentation this takes place while reorganizing a conventional quantitative armed force-emphasized structure into a modern qualitative technology- emphasized system and definitely Navy is included in this. Our Korean Navy is currently under threat by North Korea and as previously explained, since more than 90% of our trade and oil being distributed through the sea, we need to secure a maritime supply route and as Korea having its three sides surrounded by waters may forecast various trouble factors, thus we attempt to improve our… that naval strength in light of self-defence perspective. Please understand that this is for national defence. Secondly, our government holds a fundamental principle that WMD of North Korea must not be disseminated and we strive internationally and also we clearly recognize the necessity of PSI. Therefore, Korea is participating as much as possible by considering several security situations and will continually investigate time and appropriateness to participate.
Joel Fitzgibbon
I am going to submit that I was asked four questions – I hope I have that right. The first was about our enhanced engagement in Asia. The second was about, in proportional terms, our focus on terrorism. The third was about the trilateral and the question of a quad, and the fourth was a question about consultation on the white paper, both within and outside Australia. On the question of greater engagement in Asia, it is no secret that our prime minister is fluent in Mandarin but it would be a mistake to believe that that is the extent of his expertise on China or indeed on the Asia-Pacific region. His undergraduate studies were in this area. He has lived his life looking north to Asia and he is very focused. How will that manifest itself in action? You will see a greater focus on multilateral forums through the region. The former government – and I am not here to criticise – had a very deep focus on bilateral arrangements. As important as they are, we see them as an enhancer to multilateral arrangements. No doubt you will see a substantial step-up in tempo in ministerial engagement in the Asia-Pacific region, which has already been evident. I have to be quick so that is very vague – we can come back to it if you like.
The focus on terrorism is a very good question. There are those who will argue that in some sense terrorism has been a distraction in military or defence planning. I cannot pre-empt Australia’s coming white paper but you can be certain that all the capabilities available for dealing with acts of terrorism will be capabilities drawn on the force structure determined by our broader strategic circumstances. The focus will be on, typically, the defence of our national interest, how we work in an interoperable way with our partners in the region and how those capabilities are drawn upon to deal with the issue of non-state actors. Of course, we will have a deep focus on working with other agencies in those processes.
The trilateral arrangement between the US, Australia and Japan is a longstanding one between friends. We are all strong democracies sharing strong values, and we have had those shared values over a long period of time. We think it is an important relationship. It remains strong and we will continue to work at it remaining strong, but at this stage there is no discussion about developing it into anything more formal than it already is, and nor has there been any serious discussion internally in Australia about going to a quadrilateral arrangement.
On greater consultation, we are doing very well in this internally. How does it work externally? We are very keen to engage with other nation states and we are working on that. How do we promote some of the things we have been talking about this morning in terms of government agencies or a whole-of-government approach? We do that actively, for example, in Timor-Leste, where at the moment we are very active in trying to secure greater cooperation between the defence force and the police force there, making them work together. I do not know if that answers the question but I will just touch on that and if there is time I would be happy to come back to any of those questions.
M.M. Pallam Raju
I would like to respond to the issue of the containment of WMDs in the region. At the moment, India strongly supports the Six-Party Talks specifically with regard to North Korea. We will, as a responsible nation in the region, cooperate in every meaningful manner towards the containment of WMDs in the region. The Indian Navy plays a very significant role in the Indian Ocean region securing the sea lanes of communications, containing piracy and other kinds of sea threats, and responding to natural disasters, like it did during the Asian tsunami. If the Indian Navy’s presence in the region can be utilised towards containment of WMDs, we definitely can play a more meaningful role and a more comprehensive role. We believe that we can play an effective role in doing this kind of thing and we will do that. What were the other points?
Dr John Chipman
There was a specific question about whether you were ready to announce that you would formally join the PSI. Senator Lieberman was also very interested in learning how the bilateral relations that you have with a variety of countries in the region and also with the US can be squared with wishing to build confidence with the PRC. There was also interest in your views on the place of terrorism in the formation of your own defence and security policy.
M.M. Pallam Raju
The PSI is a very good initiative but we do have other domestic political considerations. There is some resistance; we are working on that and I hope that we will be able to definitely play a role in that. As I said earlier, as a responsible nation in the region, we will do all that we can towards ensuring peace in the region. If we look at the region, there is the presence of many non-state actors and there are many terrorist threats. We are trying to have a dialogue with each of our neighbours in working together to contain terrorism. We will continue to do that and whatever bilateral treaties we have with other nations should not be construed as ganging up against another nation. We have no such intention. Whatever role we have played has been with the benign intent of securing the region and we will continue to do that.
Dr John Chipman
Let me thank the three speakers for their addresses and for engaging with the delegates in the way they have just done. Thank all of you for this morning’s debate.
