With the Indo-Pacific’s centrality to global prosperity and security, the cost would extend far beyond us and reach into every region, writes foreign minister Penny Wong.
Despite being part of the region, Australia has not always listened to the countries of South-East Asia and the Pacific as carefully as we could have. Our government has been working to change that. We take an approach that puts listening above lecturing.
As I said last year at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: “We are not hostages to history. We decide what we do with the present. And we decide what we do to help shape the region that we want.”We want to live in a region and a world that is peaceful and predictable. Where our countries and peoples can co-operate, trade and thrive. Where our relations are based on partnership.
Our region is home to the largest military build-up anywhere in the world in that period, with limited transparency and reassurance. North Korea conducted more than 60 ballistic missile launches last year. And last August, five Chinese ballistic missiles were reported to have fallen in Japan’s exclusive economic zone.If conflict were to break out in the Indo-Pacific, it would be catastrophic – for our people and our prosperity.
This has been a genuinely collaborative effort between three close and long-standing partners. And we are fast approaching a decision on the optimal pathway forward for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, which will, of course, be discussed at our ministerial meetings this week. To be truly effective in the region, we need to offer countries choices. After all, not being forced to choose means having real choices. Choices in areas that count – such as investment, innovation, education, energy transition and more. Choices that help countries protect their own sovereignty. And we need to engage transparently, and as equals, from common ground.The strategic challenges I have outlined are not ones faced only by our region.
And I reflect on [UK Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs] James Cleverly’s observations on why a peaceful, prosperous island nation engages with foreign policy. In our modern, tightly woven world, what happens in Europe reverberates in the Indo-Pacific. And what happens in the Indo-Pacific reverberates in Europe. No region – indeed, no country – is an island. Australia understands this.
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