Scott Morrison makes it on the global stage

Scott Morrison and US President Joe Biden in New York this week. Picture: AFP

Scott Morrison has had an intense and successful week, arguably as intense at least as any modern Australian prime minister.

Whether the week ends up being as successful as his predecessors depends on his skill as a global negotiator, the worth of his arguments and the depth of the fear of China in the Indo-Pacific. The success of the daggy dad on the global stage is a surprise for many but the results of this week’s announcements, incomplete as they may be, suggest a wider success and influence for Australia of which only many could have dreamt.

Indeed, it is a measure of Morrison’s success and opportunity that the new term for the dynamic region of growth and strategic importance is the “Indo-Pacific” and not the Asia-Pacific.

This geographic shift is not just a question of India’s long-awaited arrival in the neighbouring family of the Pacific but the realistic recognition that China’s influence stretches well beyond the Pacific and into the Indian Ocean and African continent.

While the US may have ignominiously withdrawn from Afghanistan, as it did from Vietnam, it is clearly not shifting its attention away from the Indo-Pacific as the Chinese threat to freedom of travel on the open seas grows.

It is clear the Chinese hectoring and attempts to isolate Australia have actually served to bolster our position with US President Joe Biden and our most influential regional friends such as Japan and Singapore.

As Morrison said this week: “Biden gets it.”

The French government is disappointed, furious and angry but this week’s historic advances on relations with Europe, India, Japan and the US in relation to Chinese assertion cannot, and should not, be overshadowed by the French drama over the cancellation of a failing commercial contract.