Albanese’s whirlwind week, from attending the Quad summit to responding to China’s sudden overtures to climate-affected Pacific islands, highlights the complex brew of foreign policy issues facing the new Labor government
Britain’s Labour prime minister Harold Wilson famously said, “a week is a long time in politics”. For Australia’s Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese, his first week has been a whirlwind – with ramifications for the Asia-Pacific.
On May 20, he was still campaigning for voters to oust Scott Morrison’s government. By Saturday night, Morrison had acknowledged defeat. Early on Monday morning, before the final results were in, Albanese was sworn in as Australia’s first Labor prime minister in a decade – so he could rush to Tokyo to join his counterparts from Japan, the US and India in the second Quadrilateral Security Dialogue summit.
At Albanese’s elbow was his foreign minister, Penny Wong, also sworn in on Monday morning, who had to rush from Quad diplomacy in Tokyo, after spending a night back in Australia, to Suva in Fiji, where she addressed the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and tried to blunt the impact of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s surprising and unprecedented 10-day, eight-nation diplomatic tour through the central Pacific.
Albanese’s Labor Party campaigned against the Morrison government on climate change and domestic issues linked to inflation and rising living costs. Few imagined that he and Wong would be diverted with such brutal urgency into so complex a brew of foreign policy challenges.
Australia’s new PM Albanese vows to rebuild unity and trust after Labor Party election win
Australia’s new PM Albanese vows to rebuild unity and trust after Labor Party election win
The brief for the Tokyo Quad summit was familiar enough, even if there had been little opportunity to rehearse. The new Labor government will not diverge far from the Liberal coalition on the US priority to use the Quad to “contain” China with new institutions like the still-sketchy Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.
Nor is there much to differentiate it on regional security issues, whether on the Aukus submarine deal under the Australia, Britain and US security alliance, or Five Eyes intelligence sharing, with the US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand.
The main difference in Tokyo was probably a matter of style. As James Laurenceson at the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney observed, Quad partners should expect from Albanese less provocation: “less bombastic talk, more practical action, and more emphasis on non-hard power responses like diplomacy”.
On Quad concerns over China’s rising economic and regional influence, there is also little distance between Labor and Liberal positions.
Australian winemakers squeezed by Chinese tariffs leave tonnes of grapes to rot
Australian winemakers squeezed by Chinese tariffs leave tonnes of grapes to rot
Despite a congratulatory message from Beijing to the new government – ending a two-year diplomatic freeze – Labor is likely to continue to chide China over Xinjiang, the South China Sea, Hong Kong and “interference” in Australia. It is unlikely to reverse the ban on Huawei and ZTE from Australia’s 5G
In spite of China’s tariff war, which has savaged exports except iron ore, Albanese is likely to continue to play hardball. As he said, heading into Tokyo: “It is China that has changed, not Australia.”
The second issue of Albanese’s whirlwind week was news of Wang’s grand Pacific tour, starting in the Solomon Islands and including Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and East Timor.
This sudden set of Chinese overtures strikes at the heart of Australian security, what most Australians regard as their key foreign policy “turf”. It raises questions about US hegemonic naval control of the Pacific, unchallenged for seven decades.
Chinese foreign minister starts Pacific tour, offering security and free trade pacts
Chinese foreign minister starts Pacific tour, offering security and free trade pacts
It pulled Wong to the heart of government action even before the final election results are counted. It is a foreign policy crisis almost wholly of Morrison’s making, but one for which Wong is perhaps uniquely well equipped.
Why is it of Morrison’s making? Because of what many Pacific Island leaders regarded as his “very insulting and condescending” attitude to the Pacific community, and his obstinate refusal to properly to acknowledge the climate crisis.
Over the past decade, climate has become the top foreign policy concern of the Pacific island communities, which are experiencing the challenge of rising sea levels yet lack the funds to defend themselves.
Wong has the credibility to address the issue not just because the importance of tackling the climate crisis was a pivotal campaign difference between the Labor and Liberal parties, but because she was Australia’s first minister for climate change from 2007-2010.
During campaigning, Wong claimed Morrison’s management of Pacific relations was the biggest foreign policy failure in the Pacific since the second world war.
Flying back from Tokyo, she told journalists: “After a lost decade, we’ve got a lot of work to do to regain Australia’s position as the partner of choice in the Pacific, in a region that’s less secure and more contested.”
China confirms signing of Solomon Islands security pact, as US warns of regional instability
China confirms signing of Solomon Islands security pact, as US warns of regional instability
Whether Wong has the capacity to blunt Wang’s Pacific overtures is unclear, but she will be spending much time over the coming months island-hopping across the Pacific. As Laurenceson noted, Wong is likely to look beyond Washington and London for insight into Australian challenges.
For the world, the biggest shift arising from the Labor victory is Australia’s stance on climate change. Its promise is to cut carbon emissions by 43 per cent by 2030 – compared with Morrison’s 26-28 per cent target – and have renewable energy account for 82 per cent of power generation.
That promise will not only please Pacific islanders, but also improve Australia’s standing ahead of the UN climate change conference in Egypt at the end of the year.
Almost unnoticed during this firestorm of a first week, Albanese was warned by one economic adviser to expect a “proverbial s***-sandwich” at home, as inflation, debt repayment, cost of living and spending pressures converge. If that is true, the foreign policy challenges of his first week may not feel so daunting after all.
