Malcolm Turnbull in mainstream on foreign policy

It would be the greatest misfortune, not least for Malcolm Turnbull himself, if Hugh White’s bizarre interpretation of Turnbull’s foreign policy views were to become lodged in the public mind. White has monstrously verballed Turnbull in a bid to recruit him to White’s own oddball theories.

Turnbull is part of the leadership resource of this nation and his views on foreign policy deserve to be analysed conscientiously. This is not a judgment on Tony Abbott’s leadership. He and the government have recovered from the aborted spill motion. The last Newspoll had them highly competitive. Nonetheless, the Coalition leadership is in play and it’s right to try to think through what different leaders believe on foreign and strategic policy. Turnbull is well informed about international ­affairs. His core expertise ­internationally is economics.

That’s a good beginning. It’s not everything. Several years ago I thought Turnbull’s approach smacked of economism, the idea that economics would determine everything. I wrote one column sharply critical of Turnbull for understating the strategic challenge of Chinese military assertiveness.

Turnbull is very smart and he is not static. He talks to a wide range of people, among many others Kurt Campbell, the assistant ­secretary of state for East Asia in the first Obama administration. Turnbull’s strategic views have evolved, as have everyone’s, with the emergence of new facts and new patterns of behaviour.

His most comprehensive statement on these issues came in January in a speech to the ­Australian American Leadership ­Dialogue. It was a sophisticated lecture that considered the economic and strategic implications of the economic growth of Asia and the rapid pace of technological change.

In a balanced consideration of China, Turnbull commented, inter alia, that “this maritime muscularity (of China in territorial disputes) is very different from the approach to various disputed land borders a decade ago which saw, for example, the settlement of the border between Russia and China ... there seems little doubt that the tough line on the disputed islands and reefs has been quite counterproductive. It has done no more than remind China’s neighbours of the importance of a strong ­continuing American presence as a counterbalance to China.”

Considering the US role in Asia, Turnbull commented on the continuing dynamism of the US, remarking that Californians understood the demands of a ­contemporary economy because their “technological imagination has in large part created the ­modern world”.

On the US strategic role, Turnbull said: “All of these challenges and currents of change, dynamic and unpredictable, will be helped to a better resolution by strong and continued American engagement in the region. The Obama administration’s pivot to Asia is a vitally important, stabilising, ­reassuring factor in the peaceful development of our region.”

He went on: “The main game (for the US), the highest stakes, the most to win or lose is in the Asia-Pacific. That is the new centre of the global economy and America, a Pacific nation, has as much skin in this great game as any of us in Australia.”

That is a profound judgment from Turnbull. America has as much at stake in Asia as Australia does. These are not the words of someone undervaluing the US ­alliance or imagining the US is about to withdraw from Asia, or wanting it to withdraw or partly withdraw. Had Abbott made these comments White no doubt would condemn them as shocking Cold War militarism, unreconstructed America-centric strategic backwardness, aiding the encirclement of China and no doubt leading inevitably to war, White’s favourite analytical end point.

So it’s hard to work out White’s interpretation of Turnbull as standing outside the mainstream of Australian foreign policy. It could be that by early flattery White hopes to gain some rhetorical concessions from Turnbull for White’s own potty theories.

White claimed in a Fairfax column recently Turnbull’s views were “a long way from the bipartisan mainstream”. In evidence for this utterly preposterous misreading of Turnbull, White offered four arguments: Turnbull’s recognition of the importance of the rise of Asia; that this rise poses challenges to Asia’s US-led security order; that Turnbull is not so sure the US knows exactly what to do about it; and, finally, that Turnbull in the past has criticised excessive pro-American statements by ­Australian leaders.

As with all White formulations, it is equal parts banality and absurdity. The first three points are utterly banal. Every sophisticated Australian at least since Harold Holt has been making one or other variation of those points.

As to the fourth point, it is stylistic rather than substantial, and in any event White has to go back to 2011 to find a Turnbull quote to give some credence to his tendentious claims. In other words, White is not examining evidence conscientiously but just cherry-picking bits and pieces of quotes to find scraps to support his interpretation of Turnbull.

White has a lot of form in this sort of thing. A year or two ago he was arguing John Howard as prime minister used the commitment to Iraq to provide political cover for distancing his government from the US on China. This was all elaborately ­interpreted by White after ­examining the entrails of his own opinions. I took the simple ­expedient of asking Howard whether he was doing this.

Howard ridiculed this interpretation and commented: “Hugh White has become obsessed with the idea of choice (for Australia between the US and China) and he looks around for historical evidence which just isn’t there.”

White wants Canberra to argue for the US to scale back its presence in Asia and he wants a grand US-China settlement that cedes vast areas of Asia — such as the whole of Indochina — to Beijing as a sphere of influence, regardless apparently of what Indochina wants. He wants us to abandon any concern with human rights and a million other completely dotty thought bubbles.

Even when launching White’s book some years ago, Turnbull said he rejected its main thesis. It is monstrous of White now to so misrepresent Turnbull in an effort to recruit him to the larger White craziness. Turnbull has his ­individual approach, but he is ­certainly part of the mainstream.