If Tsai Ing-wen (left) wins the presidential election in Taiwan this week, she will become Northeast Asia's first elected female leader. If, as expected, Tsai loses a close election, South Korea's Park Geun-hye could take this mantle in December 2012.

A Tsai win would be significant for gender and political leadership in East Asia too, as she would be the first elected female leader not the wife, sister or daughter of a powerful national political leader.

Photo by Flickr user davidreid. 

Last month, I wrote a post about concerns on the pan-blue side of Taiwan politics (more inclined toward the cross-Strait status quo) about James Soong's plan to run in next year's presidential election and split the pan-blue vote, as happened in 2000.

Rumours are rife of attempts on the pan-blue side to get Soong to not follow through with plans to run for president, in order to not let history repeat itself. The pan-green side (more favourable towards formal independence) seems quite happy with Soong's plan.

However, an opinion poll published yesterday in the pan-blue-leaning China Times suggests that the 2000 scenario of a split pan-blue vote leading to a pan-green victory is not likely. This poll shows that support for Soong is at only 10%. In 2000 he won 37% of the vote.

Even more interesting are the results when Soong is not included. These show President Ma's margin over pan-green challenger Tsai actually decreasing from 4.1% to 3.3% as, oddly, more of Soong's votes are redistributed to the pan-green side than the pan-blue one. This suggests that, if Soong does run again, history could reverse itself rather than repeat.

One cannot read too much into one poll this far out from the election, but it is certainly does whet the appetite for what should be an exciting, unpredictable and important election. Taiwan's active betting markets are trying to work their way through the presidential election permutations as well.

Photo, of Taipei, by Flickr user http2007.

History from 2000 may repeat itself in 2012, due to the political choice of one man, James Soong.

In 2000, the 'pan-blue' (rock the cross-Strait status quo boat less) side of Taiwan politics lost the presidency. Despite gaining a clear majority, its vote was split between two candidates, James Soong from the PFP and Lien Chan from the KMT. This allowed the 'pan-green' (more favourable towards formal independence) side of politics and its sole candidate, Chen Shui-bian from the DPP, to win with a plurality of 39.3%.

Taiwanese flags and the KMT party flag (centre). (Courtesy of Flickr user Taekwonweirdo.)

In 2004, James Soong switched tack completely and joined Lien Chan's presidential ticket as the vice-presidential candidate, unifying the pan-blue side of politics against the unified pan-green side under the incumbent Chen Shui-bian. Chen narrowly won re-election by 0.22%. In 2008, the pan-blue side again ran one candidate, the KMT's Ma Ying-Jeou and who easily beat the pan-green candidate, the DPP's Frank Hsieh, while Soong stayed out of the fray.

James Soong has recently declared his interest in running again in the  January 2012 presidential campaign as the PFP candidate against the KMT incumbent Ma Ying-jeou and the single pan-green candidate, the DPP's Tsai Ing-wen (who is off for a political tour of Japan).

Unsurprisingly, the KMT is not happy with Soong's return to the fray on the pan-blue side but in opposition to them. If Soong can gather the necessary 257,695 signatures needed to register as a candidate, Taiwan could witness a repeat of the 2000 election. Definitely worth watching.

Yoshihiko Noda has become Japan's third prime minister in less than two years, its sixth in five years and 17th since the beginning of the Heisei era in 1989. Should we expect Noda to last longer than all of his predecessors since the charismatic maverick Junichiro Koizumi, who survived his full term? Or should we expect the prime ministerial merry-go-round to spin again soon?

At first glance, it looks like Noda may face a short and disorienting ride, for three main political reasons:

1. He faces a 'twisted parliament' where his party, the DPJ, controls a large majority in the Lower House but not in the Upper House. While Noda was overwhelmingly voted in as prime minister in the Lower House, he did not gain a majority in the Upper House and was forced to a run-off that he won by 3 votes.
2. He faces a split party where the largest but not majority faction (the Ozawa/Hatoyama group) backed Banri Kaieda, who won the first round of votes for party leader but lost to Noda in the run-off. In the first round, Kaieda picked up 143 votes against Noda's 102. In the second round, Noda triumphed with 215 votes against Kaieda's 177. The anti-Ozawa groups that supported Prime Minister Naoto Kan backed Noda against Kaieda. In an effort to heal this split, Noda has nominated Ozawa supporter Koshiishi Azuma to be the next DPJ Secretary General.
3. Noda faces a deeply alienated electorate that seems unwilling to give new leaders much initial support. In a recent opinion poll, the ruling DPJ received 21% support, while the opposition LDP garnered 23%. Forty-six percent of respondents supported no party.

I hope Noda does last longer than his most recent predecessors, particularly as he has consistently backed raising Japan's value added tax, a politically risky but fiscally necessary policy. However, each of these three reasons by itself is a significant challenge. Put them together and Noda may not last long on the prime ministerial merry-go-round.

Photo by Flickr user Knowsphoto.

2010 was a very good year for the concept of ASEAN centrality, and 2011 promises to be so as well.

The ADMM+8 (ASEAN Defence Ministers plus those of the US, PRC, ROK, Japan, Russia, India, Australia and New Zealand) met for the first time under ASEAN auspices last year, and the US and Russia agreed to join the East Asia Summit. ASEAN and its host this year, Indonesia, should be proud when they conduct the first leaders' meeting of the East Asia Summit this year.

Yet 2012 already looks more challenging. It is a presidential election year in the US, an election that will be fought on domestic economic issues. In the heat of the election race or soon after, President Obama will face the electorally unpalatable choice of attending his fourth APEC in Vladivostok, his second East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh, both or neither.

Given that the US hosts APEC this year and the US President has only ever missed one APEC leaders' meeting, the attraction of not passing on Vladivostok may be quite strong. The fact that Russia is hosting APEC for the first time simply adds to its diplomatic attraction; one would not want to slight Moscow unnecessarily. Passing on Cambodia and the relatively unknown East Asia Summit might be more attractive than the President having to go to both regional confabs, neither of which have any purchase in voter land.

Another complication: China's Defence Minister attended the annual Shangri-la Dialogue for the first time this year. If this becomes an annual practice, then the fact that the ADMM+8 process is now scheduled to meet only once every three years could dampen its (and ASEAN's) claims to centrality on regional security.
 
With triumph comes challenges. ASEAN centrality is in a good moment now. How long will this last?

Photo by Flickr user aurelio.asiain.

This year, Indonesia will host (probably in Bali) the first meeting of the newly expanded East Asia Summit, soon after the US, maybe for the last time, hosts APEC in Honolulu. One of the big questions is: how will the inclusion of the US and Russia in the East Asia Summit affect this still-quite-new regional organisation?

For watchers of diplomatic protocol and Chinese foreign policy, the larger and more powerful membership of the EAS has already led to a change in Chinese participation.

From 2005 to 2010, Premier Wen Jiabao was the Chinese leader who attended the East Asia Summit (along with the other ASEAN-centred organisations China is involved in at the leader's level, ASEAN+1 and ASEAN+3). This year though, President Hu Jintao, China's top leader, is expected to attend the East Asia Summit. Hu Jintao also attends APEC and the G20, which also include Russia and the US.

Seems while the US attendance at the East Asia Summit and its signing of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation is an acknowledgment of ASEAN centrality, the expected change of China's attendance at the East Asia Summit is an acknowledgment of the centrality of the US and Russia in Chinese strategic thinking and associated diplomatic protocol.

Photo by Flickr user Globovision.

Six and a bit years ago, the Boxing Day tsunami and its aftermath showed that Australia and Indonesia, despite the problems that bedevil the bilateral relationship, are true neighbours.

As a relatively new Australian at that time, I was quite taken aback by the speed and size of both the official response and particularly the public response that included a quickly organised telethon, shown live by all three major commercial tv stations.

In a very similar vein, the Taiwan government and public have responded overwhelmingly to Japan's triple disaster. 

By some measures, it claims to be the largest provider of assistance.

Photo, of a Japanese friendship garden, by Flickr user Photon Phisher. 

I'm glad my short post on Prime Minister Gillard's foreign policy has sparked a few responses. This is exactly why I wrote it. Thanks Graeme for your thoughtful post, but alas, it was not me asking the incorrect question but the Xinhua journalist. Journalists ask and we answer.

Alison Broinowski's response led me to scratch my head. In her desire to, again, criticise Australia's alliance relationship with the US, Alison seems to reduce Australia's bipartisan policy of engagement with Asia to engagement with the People's Republic of China.

Many East Asian states are strengthening their security relations with the US and with each other as their economies become more intertwined with that of the PRC. Apart from the DPRK and Myanmar, it is hard to see who is not doing this. Australia in this sense is very much in step with Asia. Our deeper security engagement with the US actually strengthens Australia's Asian engagement policy. Thankfully, like her Coalition and (most) Labor predecessors, Prime Minister Gillard has 'stood up' and accepted this synergy.

Photo by Flickr user US Embassy Canberra. 

Julia Gillard's address to the US Congress gives a partial answer to my earlier question (what is Prime Minister Gillard's approach to foreign policy?) and, luckily, makes no mention of asylum-seeker processing centres in East Timor or elsewhere.

It seems PM Gillard is associating herself with the mainstream of Australia's foreign policy traditions:

• Strong on the alliance, including our alliance-linked contribution to Afghanistan and the importance of values in foreign relations.
• Strong on free trade, particularly in agriculture, and in favour of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
• Pro China engagement (she is visiting China soon) with some reservations.
• In favour of the G-20 and East Asian regionalism.

When it comes to this speech on Australian foreign policy, one cannot claim that the Gillard Government is being dominated by its junior coalition partner, the Greens.

(Above, part one of Gillard's speech. Here are parts two and three.)

Early last month, I was interviewed by Xinhua for a story about Prime Minister Gillard's upcoming visit to China. The interview left me bemused, as I could not provide an answer to its main question: what is Prime Minister Gillard's approach to foreign policy?

My inadequate answer ping-ponged between pleas that it was too early to tell (begging the question: when is the right time?) and that it would be less frenetic than her predecessor's whirlwind. 

At the end of the interview, I could not help but feel that I had not satisfied the interviewer. I was not satisfied myself that, after more than six months of the Gillard Government, I was still largely in the dark about what the key principles, goals and preferred methods were for this Government's foreign policy. A month later, the situation remains the same.

I'm hoping readers and contributors to The Interpreter might help me find the elusive answer.

Photo by Flickr user Rantz.

The US has often been criticised in Asia for not taking regional architecture seriously enough — strangely, some even argue that this implies the US does not take Asia seriously.

Comments yesterday by a top Pentagon official suggest that, when it comes to the ADMM+8 (ASEAN Defence Ministers plus those of Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea and the US), which first met in October last year, this is not the case. Actually, very much the opposite:

Robert Scher, the top Pentagon official handling Southeast Asia, said that the Hanoi meeting "fills a critical gap" as the region needs more communication on security issues along with "candid discussion where we may disagree."

"We really need to capitalize on the momentum generated following the successful inaugural" meeting, Scher, a deputy assistant secretary of defence, said at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank.

"We should also look and consider whether or not we want to have these ministerials on more than a once-every-three-year basis," he said.

The ADMM agreed at its first meeting to only meet once every three years, and shied away from tackling any tricky issues, instead focusing on issues of common interest. Not too much ambition there. Clearly, the US is hoping for more regular meetings and for this new forum of regional defence ministers to move beyond issues they can all agree on. Fingers crossed.

Mike Green and Nicholas Szechenyi's CogitAsia post on Japan's forthcoming National Defense Program Guidelines demonstrates the policy challenges for Japan and its partners stemming from the fact that Japan is in the midst of epochal political, strategic and fiscal pressures.

Last year we saw a 'once in many generations' change to Japan's political system; Japan and the rest of the world are still coming to terms with this change and wondering how it will play out. This year, we are seeing this new government move to introduce a 'once in many generations' change to Japan's basic defence policy in the face of a rapidly changing security environment populated by an increasingly assertive PRC and a nuclear-tipped DPRK. It is also clear that Japan's present fiscal situation is unsustainable; a new balance between expenditure and taxation is needed.  

Each one of these changes (with the fiscal yet to really happen) is a huge social task on its own. The fact all three are happening at the same time is truly breath-taking and invigorating, but also complicates each individual change.

For instance, Japan's dire fiscal situation was a factor in the population's decision to stop trusting the LDP and opt for the DPJ in last year's lower house election. The Hatoyama-led DPJ Government's fumbling of the security relationship with the US at a time of great strategic uncertainty for Japan also clearly contributed to Hatoyama's downfall and the DPJ's underwhelming performance in this year's Upper House election.

At first glance, the action-reaction scripts for the DPRK's two recent acts of war against South Korea seem depressingly similar:

1. The North attacks the South.
2. There is an immediate global call for calm, no escalation (largely ignoring the fact that a non-military response to North Korea is itself an escalation) and, bizarrely, even to reward Pyongyang for its violence.
3. China refuses to condemn its only ally, while Chinese voices help the DPRK muddy the waters by claiming that the DPRK is somehow the victim and was goaded into reaction.

Looking a little closer, though, there seem to be four positive differences:

1. Unlike the Cheonan attack, the Yeonpyeong attack (the first military attack on South Korean land by the North since 1953) has rallied the South Korean population against the North.
2. Russia has publicly condemned North Korea.
3. The Australian Government and Foreign Minister Rudd seem to have strengthened their already strong language against the DPRK and on China's need to bring more pressure on Pyongyang.
4. The US and South Korea carried out naval drills in the Yellow Sea (with an Australian observer on board) despite DPRK and Chinese opposition.

As I come to the end of my term as the East Asia Program Director here, I am bothered by the increasingly powerful thought that the traditional way East Asia is divided into Northeast and Southeast Asia may be becoming less useful as China's power grows.

Rather, in strategic terms, the future of East Asia may be better seen as divided between those countries which have territorial disputes with China and its ally, the DPRK, and those which do not. The simultaneous tensions over territory involving China in the East China, South China and Yellow Seas reflect this division, as do the varying levels of concern over the future of US extended deterrence among its many regional beneficiaries.

Australia and New Zealand, geographically, are clearly in the second, less pressured, group along with Thailand. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines are not. I am not quite sure where to place Singapore.

For Asia as a whole, I think the modern rise or historical re-emergence of China and India is a unifying factor with strong continental dimensions. For East Asia, the rise of China is drawing new strategic dividing lines, lines that are in the water and lines that do not correspond with the traditional northeast/southeast division that so much of East Asian studies is based on.

Photo by Flickr user Jerrycharlotte, used under a Creative Commons license.

International relations analysts, particularly security analysts, often hesitate to comment on how a country's regime type shapes its approach to national security. Yet democracies and dictatorships define and approach national security very differently.

For dictatorships, national security and the national interest is regime security and regime interest. This conflation of the nation and the regime (and sometimes the individual leader) naturally makes thes dictatorships worry more about their security, and to see more domestic and external threats to their security. Beijing's response to this year's Nobel Peace Prize and its attempts to control the internet are testimony to this conflation.

Leadership transitions in dictatorships, often opaque and drawn out, also have more negative externalities for regional and global security. As Rory pointed out in his latest post, North Korea's mounting acts of war against the South seem to be emanating from the leadership transition now under way in the Hermit Kingdom. Who knows how long it will take and how many more eruptions from the DPRK we will witness along the way. 

Image courtesy of Threadless Tees.

One of the many questions that makes my mind itch is how many 'short-terms' make a 'medium term' or a 'long-term'?

This year I have been spending a lot of my time at Lowy both pondering the long–term — the future of the Asia–Pacific security order — and commenting on its short–terms —  present events like the sinking of the Cheonan and ASEAN's decision to invite the United States and Russia to join the East Asia Summit. Overall, I think the present discussion about long–term US strategic decline in Asia is often overstated and undervalues the 'win–win' nature of the US alliances and security partnerships in the region.

At the moment, the United States' strategic position in Asia is having a good 'short–term'. As commented on here and in the local media, this year's AUSMIN meeting was more consequential than usual and sent a clear signal that both sides want to strengthen their 'core relationship'. At the same time, Japan's DPJ government is reversing course and looking to strengthen its alliance relationship with the United States rather than undercutting it. Finally, President Obama is presently visiting Asia's three largest democracies and Korea. His three–day stop in India was his longest single country visit as President, and he is finally visiting Indonesia.  Not bad for one week.

BTW, congratulations to John Lee from the Centre for Independent Studies for being the subject of a Global Times opinion piece. (Ed's note: here's John's original piece in Foreign Policy.)

Photo by Flickr user skibler, used under a Creative Commons licence.

If, as expected, Xi Jinping (pictured) replaces Hu Jintao as China's leader in 2012, let's hope this partisan story out of South Korea is wrong. The Lee Myung-bak Government certainly seems to think it is incorrect.

The story claims that Xi sees Japan and South Korea as the 'disrupters of the peace on the Korean peninsula'. Oddly, he seems to exonerate nuclear-tipped North Korea from any responsibility. It also claims Xi supports Pyongyang's long-standing claim that the US and North Korea should conduct bilateral talks on the future of the Korean peninsula — a double whammy for the South and Japan.

Beijing's reaction to the sinking of the Cheonan reminded us that the 'lips and teeth' alliance between China and North Korea is as close as ever. On a related matter, South Korean authorities have arrested another spy from the North.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

I read Annmaree O'Keeffe and Alex Oliver's report (which Richard Grant has recently blogged on) with great interest. My own career has been shaped greatly by public diplomacy (I received a full scholarship to study in Japan) and I had the pleasure of watching my first ever Wallabies game in Manila on ABC Asia Pacific in 1999 as part of my cultural awareness preparations for my pending move down under. I also watched my first AFL game and remember quickly becoming dizzy and confused. 

The report triggered three thoughts:

1. Any field of significant taxpayer expenditure, especially a foreign policy one that can only be evaluated 'like a forester going out to measure how far the trees have grown overnight, without a ruler', is one that should be approached with a hefty amount of caution, given that governments face unlimited service demands and serious funding limitations.

2. The report echoed the confusion for Australia inherent in the term 'our region'. When it comes to the South Pacific and PNG, I can buy that Australia's public diplomacy goal is 'to provide credible alternative sources of information and ideas, particularly to nations which may have insufficient resources to support robust independent media'. Australia is the major power in the South Pacific, and has deep interests in the region's development and how it views Australia.

We are not a major power in East Asia and have much less ability to influence the trajectories of these societies, societies that have a much broader selection of media choices. If I remember correctly, ABC Asia Pacific was channel 50-something out of the 70-some on my cable TV package in Manila, and I only discovered it after I knew I was coming to Australia and thought I should learn something about my next home. I was a regular watcher, though, of the BBC, CNN and many Philippine news sources, all of which came well before ABC Asia Pacific in the channel listings.

3. Maybe AusAID might be a more reliable funder for the Australia Network and Radio Australia than DFAT and the ABC. While DFAT's budget, and particularly its public diplomacy one, has been having a tough time of late, both major parties in Australia are committed to boosting aid funding significantly.

Photo by Flickr user Stef Ming, used under a Creative Commons license.

The title of Hugh White's post ('Who do we think we are?') on his thought-provoking Quarterly Essay is very apt.

When I finished reading 'Power Shift: Australia's future between Washington and Beijing', I was left with an intellectual itch that Hugh's Australia (and its place in Asia's strategic order) is not the one I think I live in. This itch was made deeper and more persistent by some of the policy recommendations he draws from this description of 'who we are'.

In the section titled 'Difficult Conversations', Hugh starts by contending that China's growing power does not threaten Australia. He then calls on Australia to approach other middle and lesser powers in Asia to create a regional coalition to convince Washington that the US should join/establish a collective leadership 'concert' in Asia with China that recognises China's legitimate international and regional interests, including its increases in defence spending (increases which put even China's GDP growth rates to shame).

Finally, and most ambitiously, it calls on this East Asia-Australia coalition to push Washington to intervene more directly in cross-Strait relations in favour of reunification, to recognise China as a nuclear 'peer' and forego any ambitions to use nuclear threats to intimidate it.

Hugh nominates two reasons why the policy hard-heads in Canberra should embark on this difficult mission: (1) Australia is the oldest and closest ally of the US in Asia (the Philippines may disagree on both scores); and (2) 'every one else in Asia...except Japan...is in the same boat' as Australia. This 'boat' is the common desire for the US to end its regional primacy by sharing leadership with the PRC.

I think (2) is wrong and that (1) is but a secondary consideration, particularly if Hugh is correct and 'sentiment only goes so far in international relations.'

The Interpreter's ongoing debate over the Greens' foreign policy positions led me to look for examples of tripartisanship when it comes to Australia's engagement with Asia.

Here's one close to the heart of many Asia-watchers and engagers in Australia: all three parties — the Coalition, ALP and Greens — support greater commitment to 'Asian literacy' in Australia. Then-PM Rudd and Opposition Leader Abbott made this clear in their respective speeches to Asialink's National Forum on 'mapping our future in the Asian Century', as does this Greens policy initiative.

Of course, commitment and follow-through are not the same thing, as Michael Wesley noted in an earlier blog post.

Photo by Flickr user dawnzy58, used under a Creative Commons license. 

Thanks to Kien Choong for his question. Alas, I don't have any fully formed thoughts on it yet. 

One partial one, though, is that political parties that develop out of or closely associate themselves with particular social movements may be more constrained in their ability to 'move towards' the centre and become more pragmatic and flexible, as this could well alienate their traditional supporters. For the Greens, the fact that they only won 11.4% of the primary vote with a swing of 3.6% towards them in an election that seemed particularly favourable for them may make this tension even greater.

BTW, I agreed with the Greens' criticism of PM Rudd’s decision to dodge of the Dalai Lama and the manner of the dodging.

Photo by Flickr user najeebkhan2009, used under a Creative Commons license. 

Andrew Shearer's post on the Greens' foreign policy led me to dig a bit deeper. I chose to look at Greens' statements on Australia's relations with China and their trade policy positions in light of the fact that China is now our largest trading partner (accounting for about one-fifth of our total merchandise trade).

There has been, broadly speaking, support in the ALP and the Coalition for a pragmatic approach to both issues. Unsurprisingly, the Greens have a very different view.

On relations with the People's Republic of China, the Greens strongly criticised PM Rudd for dodging the Dalai Lama and officially objected to the invitation to President Hu Jintao to speak to the joint sitting of Parliament in 2003. Greens leader Bob Brown also questioned the moral legitimacy of Beijing hosting the 2008 Olympics. 

On trade policy, the Greens policy platform calls for Australia to withdraw from existing bilateral trade agreements when possible and supports the abolition of the WTO, IMF and World Bank unless radical reform can democratise their governance. Alas, radical reform and international institutions rarely, if ever, go together.

Photo by Flickr user Roanish, used under a Creative Commons license.

Thanks to Shen Dingli for his provocative post on the PRC's claims in the South China Sea and Taiwan, and what role Australia can play.

As one would expect, it repeats the long-held PRC advice to Canberra that the best way for Australia to engage in Asia is to differentiate itself from the US – or at least, from PRC views of what the US is doing in Asia. This, of course, is at odds with the historical record that the ANZUS alliance has been a key plank for Australia's engagement with Asia, one that is growing longer and stronger with mounting Asian concerns about the PRC's power and assertiveness.

I agree with Shen Dingli that all claimants to the South China Sea 'should abide by The Code of Conduct in the South China Sea signed in 2002, which excludes the use of force'. If only there was such a code. What the PRC signed with the ten states of ASEAN in 2002 was a non-binding, non-enforceable Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea.

The last article of this declaration states: 'The Parties concerned reaffirm that the adoption of a code of conduct in the South China Sea would further promote peace and stability in the region and agree to work, on the basis of consensus, towards the eventual attainment of this objective.' Alas, eight years later, there is still no such Code of Conduct, with many observers in Southeast Asia questioning the PRC's commitment to negotiating one.

 Last month, I blogged on Taiwan’s plans to use the signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China as the basis for seeking trade deals with other WTO members.

Singapore is the first WTO member brave enough to start exploring bilateral trade talks with Taiwan after the signing of ECFA. And it looks like the new government in the Philippines may be open to such talks as well, reversing the position of its predecessor. 

China's response to the joint statement between Singapore and Taiwan is open to interpretation.

Photo by Flickr user Jonathan_W, used under a Creative Commons license.

For the last three years, I have been involved in an on-off blog debate on the health of Australia-Japan relations and the Rudd Government's decision to escalate the whaling issue. A recent Japanese opinion poll on Australian views of Japan suggests Canberra's continued focus on whaling and the lack of sustained leadership attention on any other aspect of our most important partnership in Asia has had a detrimental effect.

The poll results show that a majority of Australians polled do not see Japan as a reliable partner, a complete reversal from the 2006 result and the worst ever result recorded by this regular poll. 

Rudd's attenuated prime ministership was bad for Australia-Japan relations and after 21 August, Prime Minister Gillard or Abbott should focus on repairing the damage done. Less talk about whales and more about the deepening economic and strategic relationship would be a start, as would dumping the dishonest if politically convenient claim that the dispute over whaling has had no spill-over effect into the relationship as a whole. 

Photo by Flickr user cfdls, used under a Creative Commons license.

I enjoyed the story Sam linked to concerning German bemusement about Kevin Rudd's sudden downfall. Last week, I was in Seoul and ran into very similar sentiments from senior government and ruling party people I met.

There was a clear sense that they firmly believed Rudd had been good for bilateral relations and that he and President Lee (who was almost toppled just months into his term) had built up a very good personal relationship based on a similar 'middle power' outlook.

Rudd and his government should be congratulated for forging stronger ties with South Korea, including the signing of a wide-ranging joint declaration on security and global cooperation and starting FTA negotiations with Australia's third largest export market. Hopefully Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott can build on this strong foundation after the upcoming election here.

If not, the sudden change of leadership in Australia could mean a loss of momentum with a key regional partner led by one of Asia's most impressive serving leaders. On this last point, here is the link to President Lee's keynote presentation at this year's Shangri-La Dialogue.

I was surprised to find that The Interpreter is being used to foment yet another face-saving myth about the ill-fated Asia-Pacific community initiative. In his reply to Andrew Shearer's post, Carl Ungerer claims 'even Andrew couldn't disagree with the fact that Rudd at most initiated that conversation.'

Well I certainly can and do disagree with this assertion. Prime Minister Rudd did not initiate 'that conversation' on regional architecture reform. Even Carl's own organisation notes this fact in the foreword to its July 2008 report on regional security architecture, by Bill Tow: 'ASPI had already commissioned a report on Asia-Pacific regional security architecture before the Prime Minister's proposal in early June for the establishment of an Asia-Pacific community by 2020.'

Long before Prime Minister Rudd surprised the region (and his own bureaucracy) with his Asia-Pacific Community speech and its 2020 timetable, regional leaders had been conversing about regional architectural reform and, since 2005, about the future place of the US and Russia in the newly formed East Asia Summit.

Ignoring this fact and claiming Rudd started the conversation is not only a myth but one that reinforces one of the fatal flaws of the initiative as a whole — its apparent (or at best unintended) arrogance that a then new government in Canberra, before even attending its first APEC or ASEAN post-ministerial meeting, was starting a conversation on regional architecture that had actually already been well advanced by others.

Last week, Taiwan became the second developed economy (after plucky New Zealand) to sign a free trade agreement with the People's Republic of China, the first such agreement between two North Asian economies.

Signing the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) is a victory for President Ma's approach to cross-strait relations and for a Taiwan economy that is already very dependent on trade and investment relations with China. In 2008, over 70% of outward-bound capital from Taiwan landed across the strait in China.

However, for Taiwan, this is not simply a commercial deal with its largest economic partner. President Ma's Administration sees the signing of ECFA, and the larger warming of cross-strait relations it represents, as a way of helping Taiwan engage more with the rest of the world and to increase Taiwan's 'international space'. Following this hopeful logic, the Ma Administration is hoping that ECFA acts as an opening for other WTO members to start trade negotiations with Taiwan.

So far, Taiwan has been largely frozen out of the shift to bilateral trade diplomacy of the last decade or so. Before ECFA, Taiwan had only signed FTAs with Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras (all part of the club of 23 countries that recognise the Republic of China [Taiwan] as a state).

This is where the gamble comes in.

Two wrongs don't make a right. They just make a bigger wrong!

The Rudd Government's cavalier anti-whaling policy and its decision today to try to take Japan to the International Court of Justice is proof positive of this maxim.

The first wrong committed was in the heated days of the 2007 campaign when the promise was made to take this action against a long-standing diplomatic and strategic partner. So far no other country has been willing to join the Rudd Government in this unilateral escalation; not even, it appears, New Zealand.

The second wrong is to now follow through with this bad promise at the same time as the International Whaling Commission is seeking a compromise to the whaling stand-off. Australia, like Japan, is now willfully isolating itself when it comes to international efforts to manage whaling.

It boggles the mind why the Rudd Government has chosen to live up to this bad promise when it has ditched other, sounder, policy promises. Ah, that is except if one remembers another maxim – expedient politics will trump sound policy, especially in election campaigns and especially when the government is doing badly in the polls. And all this promise requires is to be rude to a long-standing friend and to complicate diplomatic processes already in train to address the problem.

Photo by Flickr user Minette Layne, used under a Creative Commons license.

As with PM Rudd's ill-fated Asia-Pacific community initiative, many observers have found it hard to grasp what Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama's East Asian community is and what it would entail.

Last week, Hatoyama gave a full speech that helps clear some of the fog around the idea. Alas, this clearing again shows how different Hatoyama's vision is in scope, focus, means and origins to Rudd's APc. Hatoyama's vision is based on a cultural or civilizational view of Asia and its contrasts with the West:

I believe that one characteristic of Asians is that we do not perceive ourselves and others or humans and the environment in a western dualistic manner, but rather attach importance to the sameness between the two.

When it came to identifying the countries that are part of this future community, Hatoyama focused on China, South Korea, India and the countries of ASEAN:

From such perspectives, I have decided that Japan shall boldly advance liberalization of trade and economic partnerships with the countries of East Asia, centered on the Republic of Korea, China, and India, as well as the countries of ASEAN which historically have actively entered into free trade agreements and economic partnership agreements.

No mention is made of Australia and its trade negotiations with Japan.

Hatoyama's regionalism initiative is one that looks north and west towards the Asian continent, not east or south to the Pacific Ocean, as he notes in his conclusion:

It is incumbent upon Japan, which is located at the terminus of the Silk Road and flourished more than any other country by enjoying the blessings of a bountiful sea, to strive for a new departure in East Asia. These efforts represent a repayment made out of thousands of years of gratitude towards this region. As Prime Minister of Japan, I pledge to you that step by step I will make solid the path leading to an East Asian community.