At a recent forum at La Trobe University, former Australian prime minister (1991-1996) Paul Keating, decried the AUKUS treaty and the Quad, saying that Australia was playing a dummy to be manipulated by the United States and should be more independent in its foreign policies.
John Menadue, a blogger favorable to Keating, quoted him as saying, “There will never be a peaceful, well-operating world while there are western structures like the G7”. Menadue went on to list Keating’s reasons for wanting to show China more respect:
According to the IMF, their GDP is 20 percent larger than the USA
They have 20 per cent of the world’s humanity
They have a very large navy
They have solved hunger for 20 per cent of the world’s population
They are not exporting an ideology
Menadue’s notes say that Keating sees a natural division of labor in world management, with the US having domain over the countries bordering the Atlantic Ocean and China the eastern half of the world.
Paul Keating is “in a time warp” according to Prof. John Blaxland, who spoke to Talking Canberra radio about the matter saying that being out-of-touch with the current security situation as well as Keating’s interest in the China Development Bank were possible reasons for Keating’s point of view. Blaxland dismissed Keating’s comments:
This is classic Keating, he paints a strawman and tears it down…. There are plenty of people out there who agree with him, but thankfully, the majority of Australians don’t and they’ve elected parties not aligned with his thinking….”
Blaxland countered that exclusivity in organizations such as G-7, or the AUKUS/Quad relationships wasn’t a problem, that countries often value being able to have side discussions without every geopolitical player being in the room. Besides, China is a member of many regional and international organizations such as G-20, East Asia Summit, ASEAN, the UN, and the WTO. Meanwhile there are other organizations that likewise exclude the US, such as BRICS.
Blaxland said that the Quad clearly has value for the countries involved or they wouldn’t engage with it. ASEAN countries who may not want to join the Quad, are nonetheless still “interested in what it can do for them, by giving them some wiggle room geo-politically, because they are facing relentless pressure from China to comply with Chinese wishes… or remain silent. And this is the kind of pressure that is relentless across the region.”
The severity of the Chinese threat may not be understood by the general public. Blaxland mentioned that recent prime ministers have frequently come into office with a peace-loving point of view, only to be shaken by the reality that is known by Australia’s security services. And indeed, China’s aggression has become plainer in recent years.
Blaxland also aired the concern that Keating is motivated by his board membership of the China Development bank:
Just the kind of talking points you get out of Beijing. Whose company is Paul Keating keeping these days? Why is he doing this, why is he being so one-sided in the defense of an authoritarian regime that in the last few years has revealed its fangs and been quite hostile to Australia?…. You have to wonder how much influence of his interest as a board member of Chinese bank has on his thinking. If he was a board member of an American bank would he be saying the same kind of things?
Keating has previously gone to bat for China, in promoting the China Development Bank, but also more broadly to push back on criticism of the Communist regime. In 2019, Keating attacked the Sydney Morning Herald for running what he called anti-China stories. The newspaper responded with an op-ed recalling that those “anti-China” stories were 1) about the abuse of Uighur population and 2) Chinese efforts to buy loyalty from the Solomon islands. The Sydney Morning Herald wrote:
When he calls these articles “anti-China”, Keating does two things. First, he adopts the tactic of the Chinese government, dismissing any critical coverage as “anti-China” or racist. By that metric, most of the news stories reported in the Australian media every day would be “anti-Australia”.
The SMH lamented Keating’s going “soft on China” as they saw him as having been previously a brave politician:
In office, he did great things for this country. In partnership with Bob Hawke, Keating bore great political pain and personal unpopularity to deliver the wrenching economic reforms that set Australia up for the unprecedented 28 years of continuous economic growth that we enjoy to this day. So we owe Keating recognition for the sustained determination he showed, an almost reckless political bravery that today’s class of legislators would find hard to even imagine, much less imitate.
