Australia is in a unique position to show leadership and initiative on the vexed question of North Korea. Using its seat on the Security Council, Australia might seek to broker an ongoing UN-based dialogue between the United States, China, South and North Korea and Japan.
Australia has a respected record within the international community for addressing and negotiating outcomes on difficult issues, including nuclear proliferation, law of the sea, the Antarctic, apartheid, the environment and the visit to China in 1971 by Gough Whitlam, which helped pave the way for other Western states to end China’s international isolation.
At the time Whitlam made his famous foray into the Middle Kingdom, it was a dark and tortured communist state, just emerging from the bloody and cruel Cultural Revolution instigated by Mao Zedong. Following the Whitlam visit, China slowly and unevenly began the process of engagement with the rest of the world and of modernisation of industries and cities.
“Australia once had the capacity to undertake creative and front-footed diplomacy. It is worth a try …”
Maybe with the right sort of diplomacy, North Korea might also be gradually induced towards more positive engagement towards the rest of the world. Anything to do with diplomacy and North Korea is high risk, but Australia once had the capacity to undertake creative and front-footed diplomacy. It is worth a try, and there is not a lot for Australia to lose should it not produce results — and a lot to be gained if it does. Australia could be right for the job, as the US uses North Korea as a cover to deploy sophisticated weaponry close to China, South Korea is a beneficiary of the American presence and limited largesse, China has bigger fish to fry, and Japan is fed up with both North Korea and China.
North Korea is like the pound dog; there is little to be gained by kicking it when it bites or barks. It needs to learn some new responses through rewards rather than attempting to match its own bad behaviour. The big stick has been wielded, and it only provokes bared teeth and a frantic straining at the leash. North Korea has been subject to 14 adverse Security Council resolutions, a record close to that of apartheid South Africa.
Australia might institute, through the Security Council, a permanent forum for dialogue on an ad hoc basis for discussion to occur even when a crisis is not underway. Australia needs to also concentrate efforts on the US, seeking to curb its aggression and posturing, not only with respect to North Korea but also Iran. The US has little concept of how other states view it. Additionally, it finds it very hard to process criticism. Australia has a role in helping to protect the US against itself.
Using the Security Council as a base of authority and as a means of expressing leadership, Australia might seek to engage members of the UN General Assembly on the issue on an ongoing basis. Although North Korea engages in posturing, it would take very little for a miscalculation to occur and for an exchange of arms to spiral out of control.
Naturally South Korea and Japan would need to be engaged in close dialogue, but in this process China would need to be a close ally of Australia — and that would be no bad thing for our relationship with both America and China. It would serve to demonstrate to the US that while we have its best interests at heart, we are not a mere cipher of its greater aims and ambitions.
The world has a choice: more of the same or a North Korea gradually brought into the community of nations.
“The US has little concept of how other states view it.”
So true. And if they ever realise they’ll be appalled.
Australia is in a unique position of being able to play off the US and China against each other. I believe we should be a near-neutral ally to both rather than continue down the historic path of currying favour with the USA. It’s like a woman with two suitors ie: the minute one appears to have an advantage the other tries harder to please.
“just emerging from the bloody and cruel Cultural Revolution instigated by Mao Zedong.”
The same cultural revolution that turned a backwards dirt farming nation into one of the most educated and industrialized nations on earth?
Mao: The Unforgotten Story is not fact, its so inaccurate that historical experts of the Cultural Revolution released a tome called “Was Mao really a monster?” to counter the slanders of the book. Most Chinese who lived through the Cultural Revolution also consider it one of the greatest moments of history and their lives. When else in history did you have MILLIONS of people in the streets holding mass public debates? When else in history did you actually have workers seize the means of production and start producing, often for free, products for their community?
The fact that Wikipedia doesn’t even acknowledge the January Storm, which is the most democratic moment in human history, is a travesty.
The History of the Cultural Revolution has been rewritten by westerners who want to utterly demonize any other political system and sadly, the most by China’s own Communist Party who want to demonize Mao to continue their reforms. It’s actually funny that the West totally ignores that the Maoists were purged from the CCP for pushing democratic reforms and essentially all the people in Tienanmen Square were Maoists protesting the Deng Reforms and asking for democracy.
I recommend you read “The Battle For China’s Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution” by professor Mobo Gao of The University of Adelaide, who actually lived through it and saw the Cultural Revolution transform his village from a famine ridden hell hole into a developed, educated town.
Also nobody seriously can think that the US will ever allow North Korea to make “peace” with the world. North Korea is Socialist and that is all that matters to the US. North Korea could be the most wonderful, utopian society on earth and the US would still push sanctions on it. Look at Cuba or Venezuela who have had sanctions on them for essentially no reason other than the fact they have an economic system the US doesn’t like.
Also according to Malcolm Fraser, modern Australia actually has quite a bad reputation for essentially being a American lap dog who has no mind of its own.
The last time an Australian Prime Minister stood up to the US, the CIA got involved and he wasn’t Prime Minister for much longer.
In the words of KH:
“On the eighth, another senior defence official held a meeting with Kerr in which he briefed the Governor-General about allegations from the CIA that Whitlam was jeopardizing the security of the American bases in Australia. The same day, the CIA in Washington informed the ASIO station there that all intelligence links with Australia would be cut off unless a satisfactory explanation was given of Mr. Whitlam’s behavior. The Agency had already expressed reservations about releasing intelligence information to certain government ministers.
If this had been a Third World country, the CIA would likely have already sent the government packing.”