Australia and Japan face the biggest strategic and economic challenge in balancing our alliances and competing superpowers in the Indo-Pacific since the signing of the post-war agreement in 1957 as the US presidential election is held at a time of unprecedented Chinese aggression.
This is the simple message, less diplomatically expressed, from the highly respected former Japanese ambassador to Australia Sumio Kusaka, who has called for an urgent expansion of the already strong Australia-Japan relationship in the face of China’s “bullying” and US “isolationism”.
It is also why Scott Morrison was considering a personal visit to Tokyo to former prime minister Shinzo Abe and is still considering a quarantine breakout to visit the new Prime Minister, Yoshihide Suga. It’s why Foreign Minister Marise Payne went to Washington DC, it’s why she went to Tokyo this week to meet counterparts from Japan, the US and India, and it’s why she’s going to Singapore.
Australia, Japan and our regional partners all fear that whoever wins the US election, the president will be totally occupied with domestic US economic recovery, adopt even more isolationist policies and allow the Pax Americana in the Pacific to diminish and cede to China’s hegemony.
Kusaka, who served in Canberra before becoming ambassador in 2015 and has strong links with Australia, recognises that Donald Trump won some “quiet credit” in the region for standing up to China in the South China Sea territorial disputes and supporting Taiwan. He also acknowledges the US President’s unpredictability made it difficult for allies in the Indo-Pacific as he conducted his US First campaign against China.
The fear is that if re-elected, Trump will be more introverted in dealing with the pandemic-induced recession and more likely to demand that US allies and friends “carry more of the burden”. Joe Biden as US president is less of a known quantity when it comes to China but has shown far more interest in domestic issues and dealing with the US economy than tensions over the Taiwan Straits.
Kusaka highlights these dangers and sensibly points to practical steps Australia and Japan can take on strategic issues — ensuring India joins a four-way strategic alliance with us and the US — and on trade and economic initiatives involving China and the US as well as regional multilateral organisations such as ASEAN and the regional trade grouping that would include Taiwan.
He also correctly suggests Australia and Japan work more closely to act as a buffer against China’s Belt and Road incursions in the Pacific, something the Prime Minister is already committed to with the Pacific Step Up investment program.
Kusaka says these are his personal thoughts, but these personal thoughts lay bare much of the hidden thinking of regional leaders in the middle of a pandemic facing an aggressive China and an uncertain US leadership.
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