The decision by Abe Shinzo to resign in late August over continuing health problems set off something of a proverbial bomb among regional analysts and Japan watchers who had come to view the Abe government as a bastion of stability and sensible governance in a region increasingly fraught with disagreement and confrontation.  Following speculation on a likely successor, the emergence of former Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide as the frontrunner came as a fait accompli, particularly when the LDP voted Suga in as LDP president on the 14th of September, followed two days later with Suga’s victory in the three-way prime ministerial election playoff between himself, Kishida Fumio and Ishiba Shigeru.  

As Chief Cabinet Secretary, Suga himself was certainly known to Australian diplomatic and political staff, but his profile in general had been largely limited to a domestic one.  Being the scion of an ordinary middle class family with a farming background, Suga was not raised as part of a political dynasty and has no record of having studied or worked abroad in his youth.  Suga has also not overtly expressed an interest in diplomacy or written about foreign affairs at length. Hence his selection as prime minister has fuelled speculation on what Australia might expect him to do as the leader of Australia’s ‘special strategic partner’ in the north.

A majority of Australian content about Suga focuses on Abe Shinzo’s achievements with Australia and the expectation that Suga will seek to continue the trend towards closer security ties begun by his predecessor.  Others have speculated that since Suga is expected to call a general election in 2021, it is still far too early for Australia to have much invested in a relationship with Suga until he is able to firmly cement his place as PM through popular endorsement. This would explain why, after being selected as PM, most Australian commentary has concentrated on Suga’s role as one of Japan’s longest serving Chief Cabinet Secretaries but without any analysis as to whether this would prove beneficial to Australia’s interests in forging closer ties with Japan.  To date, one of the most revelatory pieces of information concerning Suga and Australia is that he has a fondness for Bill Granger’s pancakes, which is certainly interesting as trivia but not exactly grounds for hope for a close bilateral relationship.

More substance has been provided by newly (re) appointed Defence Minister Kishi Nobuo (Kishi served as defence minister under Aso Tarō) and re-appointed Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu.  Motegi is better known to Australia, having been brought in as the successor to Kono Tarō in September last year, and who has spent the past year advocating for the bilateral relationship as part of the Abe and Suga governments. Motegi appears to have a good, steady working relationship with Marise Payne, which bodes well for progress in bilateral and multilateral discussions at regional fora.  Kishi Nobuo is, as is commonly known, the younger brother of Abe Shinzo, and has something of a history of interaction with Australia. As Deputy Foreign Minister he visited Australia briefly in 2017, and met with representatives of the Australian parliament during their visit to Japan.

Furthermore, during his time working for the Sumitomo Corporation he was dispatched to work in Australia with responsibility for procuring trade in food products.  This would have given Kishi direct experience of Australia’s corporate and political culture, as well as giving him a unique link to Australia. Many of Japan’s foreign and defence ministers have histories of having worked and/or studied in either the US or Europe, but very, very few have had any interaction with Australia before entering politics and being promoted into ministries.

As Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga did not speak all that often about Australia, but when he did it was generally positive, with a view to advocating Abe Shinzo’s position of Australia being Japan’s ‘special strategic partner’. That view did not change even when Japan missed out on being selected for the Future Submarine Program, which Suga described as being “greatly disappointing” but which would not change Japan’s desire for closer relations with Australia.  It is also telling that Suga chose to speak with Scott Morrison first among all world leaders – itself unprecedented in Australia-Japan relations, and an indication of just how much Suga is prepared to invest in the growing relationship between both countries.  That level of attention to Australia has apparently be reciprocated by Scott Morrison, with his positive tweet concerning Suga’s visit to Vietnam and Indonesia on his first overseas trip as PM. 

Whether this camaraderie continues remains to be seen, but it does indicate that Canberra and Tokyo are far more attuned to one another’s activities and share more interests than at any other time in the history of bilateral relations between both countries.  The fact that Scott Morrison is considering visiting Tokyo in November, which would constitute his first overseas visit anywhere since the Coronavirus hit, is evidence that the dynamic between both countries is changing.  

In addition, Canberra recently announced the appointment of Jan Adams as the next ambassador designate to Japan.  Adams is one of Australia’s most experienced diplomats, with an extensive work history in north Asia, including as Australia’s ambassador to China. The fact that she has been chosen for Tokyo is indicative of the level of importance that Canberra has placed in its relationship with Japan, as Adams has the ear of both Marise Payne and PM Morrison and is a champion at negotiating trade deals.  Although her work will be more focused on strengthening the security relationship between both countries, her presence in Tokyo will help to draw more Japanese investment into Australia, thus helping to offset some of the losses felt as a result of China’s economic punishment of Australia and the desire by the Australian government to diversify Australian exports away from over-reliance on the Chinese market.  

The translation below comes from a general introduction to Australia written by Takeda Isami and titled “A history of the Australian story – the reality of a multicultural middle power”.  The content of the book, as will become apparent, is fairly general and seeks to educate Japanese readers on some of the basic facts underlying modern Australian society.  I thought it would be worthwhile to translate the chapter related to the White Australia policy, as it is interesting to get a perspective on the policy from those in other nations that would have been subject to it if it still existed.  As is often the case with Japanese historical writing, it doesn’t always try to follow one train of thought but moves around as the author’s whim dictates.  But it is undoubtedly eye opening in just how Japanese authors view a policy that has become synonymous with racism and discrimination, and give a Japanese reaction to it and how it operated.    
 
Takeda Isami, “Monogatari – O-sutoraria no Rekishi: Tabunka Midoru-Powa-- no Jikken”, Chūkō Shinsho,

The ‘White Australia’ (Hakugō shugi) Nation

What was “White Australia”?

Australia was previously known as the “Hakugō shugi” nation.  Hakugō (the pronunciation of the characters in Kanji) means “White Australia”, or more specifically, “Australia for white people”.  It refers to the creation of a society with British origins and primarily made up of Caucasians.  When casting an eye back over world history, it was the first instance where a policy of racial discrimination was adopted at the federal level and made Australia synonymous with racial discrimination. 

A policy of racial discrimination that placed Caucasians at the apex of society was not something unique to Australia, and shared aspects of its idealism with other colonies settled by immigrants from the United Kingdom including New Zealand and Canada.   However the ‘White Australia’ policy, which legalized racial discrimination, was deemed indispensable to the creation of the nation. Australia, through various forms of media, strongly advocated this policy.

The terms ‘Hakugō shugi’ (‘White Australian-ism’) and ‘Hakugō seisaku’ (‘White Australia policy’) were not based on legal definitions but were, at best, common terms of reference used by both politicians and the media.  The legislation that enabled the White Australia system was called the “Migration Restriction Act” (1901).  Japan itself had immigrant restriction laws which placed restrictions on what activities migrants could undertake based on whether they were permanent or temporary migrants. Hence a more accurate translation of these would be ‘migration restriction laws’. 

The Australian Migration Restriction Act didn’t suddenly spring to life in 1901, however.  Australia’s colonies had their own legislation which, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, sought to ban Chinese or other persons of colour from settling there.  The Migration Restriction Act merely consolidated these various migrant acts into one overarching piece of legislation, and was the end result of already well-established practices.  It was the culmination of a demand for answers to problems that beset the nineteenth century.

So why did Australia deem it necessary to introduce a national policy with such a striking name? Looking at it from the point of view of the present day, it is impossible to avoid the policy’s association with racism. Yet to Australians at the time of its introduction, it was a core strategy essential to the protection of the nation. Australia, which began as a small, overwhelmingly Caucasian society, had seen a rapid influx of foreign labourers of Asian extraction in the nineteenth century which threatened the very foundations of Australian society (or so it was believed).          

There were no tourists at that point in time, and those seeking to enter the country were either white labourers looking to permanently immigrate or else non-white (coloured) non-skilled labourers brought into the country on contracts of a few years’ duration.  Most of the coloured labourers were Asian, and a majority of these were Chinese. In modern society, the term ‘coloured’ is discriminatory and is not used, with ‘non-white’ the preferred alternative. However historical records from the time used ‘coloured’, it shall be the term used here.  Also, since ‘non-white’ is a modern term, it won’t be used in order to avoid confusion.  Incidentally, the term ‘coloured’ continued to be widely used up until the end of the Second World War.    
The Chinese did not come as immigrants, but by and large sought to enter Australia as ‘contract labourers’ in order to undertake simple laboring tasks.  In Japan, it was common knowledge that Australia sought to limit the intake of Asian migrants, but in truth this policy was predominantly aimed at ‘contract labourers’.  With the passage of time, many of these Chinese labourers began to operate grocery businesses, laundries, furniture, and small scale farms in the vicinity of major cities.  This then led to a rapid growth in permanent settlement. 

During the colonial period, laws had been introduced to prevent such settlement. Yet these were undeveloped, and so Chinese societies began to spring up within the central districts of Sydney and Melbourne. Since there was no movement of labour from either Central or South America, or from Africa, a majority of the labour movement into Australia was confined to either the Asian region or the South Pacific.  Most of the labourers were either Chinese, Japanese, or Indian, or else Kanaks from the South Pacific.    

In order to deal with the large inflow of Asian labourers to the country, itself a prelude to Chinese settlement, a large number of Australians agreed with a proposal to severely limit the intake of coloured people into the country, focusing on Asians in particular.  The end result of this was the formation of ‘White Australian’ society.  As far as Australia was concerned, this society was the ideal, and was adopted into the creation model for the Commonwealth.  The legislation banning on principle the entry into Australia of Asian labourers became the Migration Restriction Act, which was the first Act passed by the newly formed federal Australian parliament.

The formation of the Migration Restriction Act – a Christmas present

The Christmas present awaiting the people of Australia at the turn of the twentieth century was the Migration Restriction Act.  On the 1st of January, 1901, the Commonwealth of Australia was formed, with the first order of business for the new federal parliament being the said Act.  It was introduced to Parliament by the first Prime Minister, Edmund Barton (January 1901 to September 1903). Following extensive debate about the “coloured question”, it unanimously passed both houses on the 23rd of December and was signed by the governor-general just in time for Christmas. 

Under the law, during the colonial period the resident governor, and then once federation occurred the governor general, was responsible for signing any legislation.  Any unsigned legislation was not considered to be in effect.  Approval by either the governor or governor general meant that the legislation had been formally approved by the British government. For more than half a century following its creation, the Migration Restriction Act carried on its task of legally excluding any potential Asian labourers or those wishing to immigrate to Australia.
The ‘coloured question’ debated by parliament was predominantly one based around arguments concerning Chinese, Japanese, Indians, and Kanaks.  The large number of Chinese were regarded as a problem; the Japanese, while fine people, were considered a threat; while the Kanaks were regarded as a problem from the point of view of abolition of the slave trade.  The debate ultimately concluded by restricting all coloured migration, yet it did point to the problem of characteristics peculiar to each group. Debate on Indian migrants was the most lax, but this had more to do with the fact that debate on the Chinese, Japanese and Kanaks had come before it and not because of any perceived lack of urgency in debating about Indian immigration.

Abolition of the slave trade

One particularly interesting point about these debates was the occasional reference to America as an example of what not to do.  Australia was conscious of and had a history of referring to the American experience during the process of building the United States, with one particularly controversial subject being slavery.  There was a shared view in Australia that the growing seriousness of the ‘negro problem’ in the US meant that Australia should not follow in America’s footsteps by introducing its own system of slavery.  Even today, there are few people of African origin living in Australia.  The reason their presence never became a political problem was because of the harsh lessons learned from the US. 

As we will see later on, Australia in the nineteenth century did make use of a ‘type’ of slavery.  This was an age in which many Kanaks were arranged to be brought from the Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides (modern Vanuatu) to Australia, where their indentured labour on Queensland sugar plantations became the norm.  However the emergence of a political view that refused to countenance the incorporation of a slavery system made up of coloured people led to debates in parliament, with those opposed to the importation of Kanaks eventually winning the majority of votes. This signaled the end of the colonial era slavery system.  Moreover, as a result of the ban in principle on migration by coloured people to Australia, a side product of this was the simultaneous adoption of the South Pacific Islander Labourer Act (1901) which was the final nail in the coffin of slavery. The Act essentially abolished slavery, hence both it and the Migration Restriction Act were landmark pieces of legislation.

The mechanism for excluding Asians

In what way were Asians excluded from entering Australia as a result of the Migration Restriction Act? The mechanism for entry into the country was extraordinarily simple.  If you were Caucasian, you could enter the country without question. If you were a person of colour, you would be refused entry.  It was plainly obvious that refusal was based on the colour of the applicant, yet a condition for entry was the educational level achieved by the applicant.  This came in the form of a language dictation test.  The mechanism at work here saw Asians and other people of colour having to take a test which nearly all of them failed. 

The test was not conducted in English, but in one of a number of selected European languages and consisted of 50 questions in all.  If the Asian person applying was proficient in French, the test would be conducted in German.  If they were proficient in French and German, then they would be presented with questions in either Italian or Spanish.  The words used in the dictation test were prepared from a wide variety of sources, including some European minority languages.  It was a system that ensured that even if the applicant was a well-educated Asian labourer, they would fail to pass.    

Before the test was established, it may have been possible to gain entry by passing the dictation test, but what needs to be understood is that in reality passing the test was nigh impossible.  The adoption of this customs system as a national strategy made the White Australia policy an infamous example of racist policy making. 

A racially discriminatory system that selected immigrants based on their skin colour was bound to cause friction in the colonies, which was why Britain first adopted a system of educational selection (re: discrimination) for the South African colony of Natal in 1897.  It signaled the birth of the Natal system of discrimination against coloured people based on tried and true methods and an amalgamation of laws. This system was then suggested to Australia by British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain. Australia later adopted the Natal system as a migration control mechanism.  The dictation test itself lasted until 1958, meaning that this system lasted over half a century.

Why was this test applied to Japanese migrants?

It is a little known fact that the original draft of the Migration Restriction Act had Japanese applicants in mind when it incorporated the use of an English language dictation test as part of its provisions.  The English language test took into consideration the ‘face’ (or pride) of Japanese applicants, and was proposed by Prime Minister Edmund Barton after mulling over both anti-Japanese sentiment in Australia and British-Japanese relations.  Hardline supporters of the White Australia policy were opposed to including an English language test, which is why it ended up being substituted with European languages. 

In the background to Barton’s proposal lay a number of conflicting issues.

Firstly, Joseph Chamberlain sent secret correspondence to Prime Minister Barton in which he demanded that Barton consider the situation in the Far East. At the time, Britain was engaged in highly secret negotiations with Japan concerning the creation of a Japan-UK Treaty (ratified in January 1902).  Clearly Barton must have been paying attention, because the final stage of treaty negotiations happened to coincide with the introduction of the Migration Restriction Act (December 1901).  Chamberlain never explicitly mentioned the negotiations, but given the special place occupied by Japan in British thinking, Barton certainly understood their implications.  It goes without saying that the Japanese government made its objections to the introduction of the Act known to the Australian government via its embassies in London and Sydney.

Secondly, Japanese labourers were needed domestically.   The Japanese had a relatively high level of functional English language ability and there was a growing demand to bring in Japanese labourers to contribute to the development of the nation. This was certainly something of which PM Barton was well aware.  

Thirdly, Australian and British trading companies made their objections to the law felt.  If the Japanese weren’t able to enter Australia, these companies warned, then there was a possibility that this would cause problems in the sale of Australian wool, dairy products, and meat products to Japan and other Asian nations. This could then jeopardize the burgeoning wool trade.  It was just because of these concerns that a decision was made to incorporate an English language test into the Act.  This illustrates the existence of a political decision that would make a special exemption for the Japanese while continuing to exclude both Chinese and Kanaks.

Despite such a highly placed decision, Barton’s proposal was ultimately overruled by the voices of hardline supporters of the White Australia policy.  There are two reasons why the proposal ultimately failed. First, the Labor Party, with its call for White Australian nationalism, made their objections to exemptions for any persons of colour felt and refused to compromise. Moreover, speeches by the influential conservative politician Alfred Deakin, who was standing for election in Melbourne, ended up burying Barton’s proposal.  Deakin, who plainly believed that the ‘superiority’ of the Japanese made them dangerous and thus in need of exclusion, was the leading figure in the debate about the threat posed to Australia by Japan.  He would later go on to become prime minister.

Second, if an English language test was used, there was a danger that this would shut out migrants coming from the European continent. This was more of an issue related to the proposed system itself.  While the government had no intention of using language dictation tests on migrants from Europe, if for the purposes of conformity an English language test was incorporated into the Act, then this would place European migrants at a disadvantage and run the risk of extinguishing European interest in migrating to Australia.  It was for these reasons that the English language test was abandoned and a test using European languages employed instead.  

Exceptions exist for everyone - The acceptance of wealthy Asians

Despite introducing the White Australia policy, the Commonwealth government did not entirely shut off Australia to Asians.  There were exceptions made for a variety of countries. 

So what sort of Asians were able to meet the criteria for these exceptions? Namely, those with financial power, technical know-how, and/or character.  Character by itself was not enough, so it had to be backed up by either financial power or technical ability.

The peak in Asian permanent migration to Australia in the early 20th century occurred immediately before the introduction of the White Australia policy (i.e., 1901).  Thereafter, for over half a century, the number of permanent migrants continued to fall. In 1901 there were 30,542 Chinese residents in Australia.  By 1921, this had fallen to 17,157. Later in 1947 numbers dropped through the 10,000 line to 9,144.  Japanese migrant numbers also fell dramatically, from 3,554 in 1901 to 2,740 in 1921 to 157 in 1947.  The main reason for this was the outbreak of conflict between Australia and Japan during the Second World War.  The smallest drop in numbers was experienced by the Indian community.  From 4,681 in 1901, their numbers fell to 3,150 in 1921. Thereafter their numbers remained fairly steady, dropping to 2,189 in 1947. 

While there were dramatic falls in immigrant numbers, they never fell to absolute zero.  Asians continued to live in the Australian community, and while they might have temporarily departed the country, they were still allowed to re-enter.  These were the people that Australian society decided had economic merit.  Major exceptions were made for entrepreneurs with large amounts of collateral, trading companies that were contributing to exports, and experts that possessed detailed technical knowledge.  Kanematsu Shōten made a considerable contribution to Australia-Japan trade (previously known as Kanematsu Goshō, it underwent a name change in 1990 to Kanematsu).  Many divers who were involved in collecting pearls for the company came from Wakayama Prefecture and were classified as ‘technicians’.   
 
Half of those Asians that entered Australia were men, with very few women allowed.  The reason for this was evident.  It was to prevent the mechanism that gave birth to Asians, which would then naturally increase the number of Asians in the country.  From the nineteenth century through to the early twentieth century in Australia, Caucasian women on average gave birth to 5 to 6 children.  As there was a strong fear that Asians were capable of creating larger households than Caucasians, passage to Australia was limited to singles.  However a small number of wealthy immigrants and technical specialists were allowed to bring their wives with them. 

The restrictions were easiest on the Japanese, followed by the Indians, and then finally the Chinese.  The Chinese not only made up the largest ethnic Asian community, they also had the largest disparity in wealth and education, with the largest number of unskilled labourers.  At the time, most of those working below decks on Australian and British ships were Chinese.  Whenever a ship with Chinese crew weighed anchor in either Sydney Harbour or the Port of Melbourne, customs procedures dictated that all Chinese crew had to possess an identification card (with picture attached) and had to submit to giving finger prints.  These conditions were not imposed on either the Japanese or Indians.  This meant the problem of smuggling involving Chinese ship crew members had become common enough to warrant customs measures specifically aimed at the Chinese.   
     
The standards applicable for granting exceptions for Asians gradually changed as well. After Australia became a ‘white’ country following the passage of the Migration Restriction Act, the bureaucratic measures applied to implement the Act became exceedingly complicated.  When seeking to re-enter the country after travelling abroad, Asians who possessed a residency card would be permitted to enter. This was later changed to proof of ownership of property in Australia.  Furthermore, if accompanied by a spouse after returning from overseas, there were times when entry might be granted or refused.  For example, there were cases in which entry was permitted but limited the spouse to only six months’ residency in Australia. Yet it was also possible to extend the period of residency to a year.  Exceptions were also made for wealthy Chinese entrepreneurs to enter with their wives and families. So one can only conclude that the bureaucratic measures concerning entry were applied randomly.

Why did the Chinese become the target of exclusionary measures?

The concept of White Australia had the Chinese as its main target.  Both anti-coloured and anti-Asian movements were so limited in the scope of their activities that they could effectively be described as anti-Chinese movements.  Other people of colour, such as the Japanese, Indians, and Kanaks, merely existed of the periphery of these movements.  As such, it would be worthwhile to examine the processes that were employed to expel the Chinese from Australia. 

From the nineteenth century onwards, the process of expulsion was divided into three stages.  The first stage involved economic causes, the second stage then shifted to social causes, while the third and final stage involved political causes. 

(1) Economic causes – The group that felt most threatened by the Chinese from the very outset were blue-collar Caucasians.  The involvement of the Chinese in the development of gold mining in Australia, which they undertook for low wages, led to a large drop in the wage standards of Caucasians working in the same industry.  We can summize that the lead cause for the expulsion of the Chinese at this stage was the appearance of ‘poor whites’ and their economic grievances.  From the 1870s through to the 1880s, the employment of Chinese labourers began to diversify, which was accompanied by an increase in complications concerning Chinese labour.

In 1878, Australia experienced a large scale strike by ship workers.  The impetus for this strike was the decision by the Australasian Steam Navigation (ASN) to hire Chinese labourers to crew their ships. Both British and American steamship companies had opened up international competition and the routes to and from Australia were fair game.  The same steamship companies began to employ the Chinese in order to secure greater international competitiveness for themselves.  At the time, the average wage of a Caucasian stoker was 6 pounds a month.  By contrast, a Chinese stoker earned half that at 2 pounds, 75 shillings a month. 

The ASN ran fixed cruise lines along the east coast of Australia, centered on Sydney, but travelling to Melbourne and Brisbane.  It also opened up routes to New Zealand, New Caledonia, and Fiji.  As these routes were also used for delivering mail, the colonial governments of both New South Wales and Queensland provided subsidies to the ASN, thus making the company quite influential.  When a route to Hong Kong was opened up in 1878, arrangements were made to hire a Chinese crew, who then boarded the ship and were brought back to Australia. It soon became clear that the jobs of white crew members had been snatched away by the Chinese.  The ship workers’ union then set about organizing the first mass strike, which paralyzed the fixed shipping routes. 

We must not forget the existence of those white labourers who had their employment taken away by Chinese workers and those entrepreneurs and industrialists who had hired Chinese in the first place and then reaped the rewards.  It helps to explain why these unemployed whites became the spearhead of the Chinese expulsion movement and were the most fervent supporters of the White Australia policy.  As far as these white labourers were concerned, expulsion of the Chinese meant the total expulsion of all Asian labourers from Australia.  They would not countenance any other arguments.

As we will see later on, the same labour questions would be applied to Afghans plying their trade with their camels.    Afghans were brought into the country together with their camels in order to contribute to overland transport. Yet this resulted in the halving of revenue available to Caucasian carriage drivers and the laying off of auxiliary staff. Transport companies that plied the dry, desert areas of the country also knew that horse drawn carriages belonging to whites had no chance of beating the Afghan camel trains.  While this is but one example, it is no exaggeration to say that the problem of Asian labourers was on a scale that covered the entire nation. 

(2) Social causes – Social causes refers to the display of hostility by Australian society as a whole to the Chinese residing in that society.  Since the Chinese were limited to living in certain regions, and given that their communities were concentrated in those regions, smaller region towns located near gold mines tended to have larger Chinese populations than the local Caucasian community.  The different lifestyles and cultural habits of the Chinese gradually drew the ire of the Caucasian residents to the point that the very existence of the Chinese community was regarded as a problem. 

As these Chinese communities occasionally harboured smallpox victims, the Chinese were regarded as the leading cause for the outbreak of the disease.  Smallpox was an infectious viral disease that also affected the poor white districts of Sydney, but the Chinese became the target for criticism.  In caricature pictures drawn at the time, the Chinese were represented as strutting about in groups with long braided hair and smoking opium pipes.  The message such pictures sought to convey was that this scene should not be tolerated by Australian society.  In the same way that the human body sought to expel any foreign matter from it, white society began embrace feelings of loathing towards the presence of ‘yellow races’.  This was the point at which economic reasons for anti-Chinese sentiment switched to social reasons, and the White Australia policy began to be more widely accepted by those with similar values.

(3) Political causes – The final stage of the adaptation of the White Australia policy involved the political classes.  The ideal picture of white society had been sullied by the presence of Chinese labourers, and there were real fears that their existence would prove fatal to the plans to create an ideal society.  It was a sentiment widely shared among white society.  Given that Chinese labourers had brought down the average wages of white blue-collar workers, the Chinese created economic problems. This gave rise to a consensus among the citizenry that society could not allow this problem to fester, and so moves began to find a political solution.  The Chinese question proved to be an elixir that gave rise to a sense of unity among whites, and the ‘White Australia’ policy became the focal point for a Caucasian-driven large scale social movement. Within the parliaments of various colonies, attention was given to legislative procedures aimed at expelling the Chinese, with both Chinese exclusion laws and coloured exclusion laws arranged separately.  The sense of unity among whites transcended colony borders and fermented, eventually transforming into the push for federation.  All of this political will found its final expression in the creation of the Commonwealth.  This unity then brought about the amalgamation of all of the above laws into the Migration Restriction Act (1901).

The influx of foreign labourers

• Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Kanaks –

News of an increase in Chinese immigrants, and labour movements in the nineteenth century

Why was there such a large increase in Chinese immigrants to this new continent in the nineteenth century? 

The biggest reason lay in the abolition of the slave trade.  Britain announced the end of slavery in that country in 1833. About the same time, the East India Company ceased to hold a monopoly over trade with China. This made it possible for other private British enterprises to freely enter the Chinese market.  The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 also announced the end of slavery in the United States.  All this coincided with the abolition of the British transportation system in the 1840s, in which criminals were previously sentenced to exile abroad.  Meanwhile Australia was suffering from a critical shortage in labour necessary to cultivate the new continent.   

One measure adopted to resolve the labour shortage problem was to use the Chinese.  The Chinese were employed in great numbers in various fields of endeavour, including the development of gold mines.    The Arrow War (also known as the 2nd Opium War of 1856-1860) resulted in the defeated Qing Empire signing the Treaty of Peking (Beijing) with Britain and France.  The treaty included clauses that gave public approval to foreign agents employing Chinese labourers within the treaty ports.  This provided a legal basis for British merchants and trade companies to then begin sending large numbers of Chinese labourers to Australia, the US, and Canada. 

The Asia-Pacific saw a rapid escalation in labour movement centered on China during the nineteenth century.  The 1850s bore witness to the discovery of gold in both the US and Australia, which heralded the beginning of the era known as the “gold rush”.  As in the United States, investors and developers in Australia began examining the systemic importation of Chinese labourers as a cheap source of labour to help develop gold mines.  In response to this, British and American shipping, trading, and HR companies located in Hong Kong, Macau, and Amoy (Xiamen) began to send vast numbers of Chinese labourers, referred to as ‘coolies’ (on account of the Chinese characters used to describe their work – 苦労) to Australia and the United States. Some of those companies included, from the British side - Jardine Matheson, John Squire, Glover, and P&O.  The Americans, with their interests centered on Shanghai, were represented by companies such as Russell & Co.  Jardine Matheson, who established themselves in Canton in 1832, shifted their head office to Hong Kong in 1841 and thereafter became well known for their trade in opium.

These US and British representatives engaged in fierce rivalry with one another in the China trade ports.  Using British agents, a majority of those Chinese labourers sent from Hong Kong, Macau, and Amoy aboard transport ships ended up on the east coast of Australia. However others sent to West Australia first went by way of Singapore, which was geographically closer (to southern China).

The spread of Chinese cuisine

The international movement of labourers naturally led to movement in cuisine culture.  Half of all those Chinese who left China were from the modern province of Guangdong (Canton), and their cuisine would go on to dominate the Chinese enclaves, or ‘towns’, that sprang up in both the US and Australia.  While there were certainly plenty of labourers stemming from Fujian province, the majority were from Guangdong.  Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane all witnessed the formation of ‘Chinatowns’ within their precincts, while the US saw these emerge in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, Piccadilly Circus in London in the UK, and in Paris. The Chinese in Britain and France, unlike those who went to Australia and North America, were not contracted labourers sent to work in gold mines. 

Chinese society in London was predominantly made up of sailors from Shanghai. In contrast, and in order to compensate for a loss in labour strength stemming from WWI, Paris had a history of ‘coolies’ coming from Canton to work in construction projects.  Paris in the present day also plays host to a large Vietnamese refugee community, which has contributed to the diversification of the food culture in the resident Chinatown.  Sydney’s Chinatown, which was built on a foundation of Cantonese cuisine, began to adopt elements of Peking cuisine from the 1980s onwards.  However Cantonese cuisine still remains the dominant Chinese food culture in Sydney.  

Not migrants, but contracted labourers – the labour allocation system

While it is generally agreed that the racist White Australia policy excluded Asian migrants from Australia, in reality the law targeted Asian labourers, not migrants.  The image of Asian labourers as it was conceived then is similar to that of the Asian labourers that you see working in Japan today.  From the 1970s through to the 1980s Asian migrants began to be accepted by Australian society as a whole, yet even before this time Asian immigration was not really considered a problem. 

Migrants and foreign labourers are by and large motivated to move for economic reasons.  However, while migrants can pre-qualify as either temporary or permanent, labourers rely on pre-determined periods of contracted employment, thereby making their circumstances completely different.

Asian labourers that worked in Australia during the nineteenth century were referred to as “contract labourers”. Following the lead established by the Chinese, these included Indians, Afghans, and Japanese, and eventually broadened to include Melanesian workers from the South Pacific known as Kanaks.  These labourers tended to be employed by and divided up between select private industries, all of which contributed to the development of Australia’s labour power from the 1860s through to the 1880s.

Indians and Afghans were brought by the British from the Indian subcontinent in order to contribute to the development of the interior region of Australia known as the ‘outback’.  While the Chinese were predominantly sent to work developing gold mines, the Japanese went into industries such as pearl diving and to plantations where they harvested sugar cane. The Kanaks were also involved in sugar cane harvesting, and many of them were employed by plantations.     

In the British territory of Fiji, Indians, who were referred to as the ‘vanguard’ of ‘Australian imperialism’, were employed by sugar cane plantations. 

However by the close of the nineteenth century, the existing system of division of labour began to collapse and Chinese workers began enter a far broader range of occupations.  While previously confined to working in gold mining, by 1891 most Chinese in Australia were market gardeners with mining dropping to second place. Many of those Chinese became permanent settlers, thereby actively contributing to the diversification of the labour force while initiating the process whereby they could build wealth. 

This year, 2018, was a year of achievements in the Japan-Australia relationship, although many of those achievements have yet to bear fruit. We saw the 2+2 visit in October, followed by the visit to Darwin by PM Abe in November. Not only this, we saw the annual Japanese participation in Exercise Southern Jackaroo, the first ever involvement by Australian minesweeping craft in a trilateral exercise in Japan together with the United States, and the postponed (but soon to be held) Exercise Bushido Guardian, the first ever fighter training exercise involving the RAAF and the JASDF to be held in Japan. While the Reciprocal Access Agreement (which is essentially a Status of Forces Agreement) has yet to be completed, despite a number of opportunities to do so, it does look as though both sides will aim to have that piece of bilateral legal history shored up by the time Australia heads into yet another federal election in mid May (or early March, depending on with whom you talk).

2019 will be one of signature years for Australia-Japan relations (in a way that 2007 and 2014 were) if there is a change in government in Australia, and equally if both sides do get the RAA done and dusted. While Labor has always maintained a fairly healthy relationship with Japan, and is committed to continuing the momentum built up over the past few years, whether it remains as enthusiastic about the relationship remains to be seen.

The topic of parliamentary party relations with Japan is something that has become an interest to me, and prompted me to take a look at some of the agreements made between both countries over the past 40 years. The end result of that is the list below:

July 2014
Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement (JAEPA)
Coalition

July 2014
Agreement Concerning the Transfer of Defence Equipment and Technology
Coalition

March 2013
Information Sharing Agreement
Labor

January 2013
Defence Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement
Labor

December 2011
Memorandum of Understanding on International Development Cooperation
Labor

February 2008
Convention on Taxation
Labor

March 2007
Japan-Australia Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation
Coalition

February 2007
Australia-Japan Social Security Agreement
Coalition

August 1997
Australia-Japan Partnership Agenda
Coalition

May 1995
Joint Declaration on the Australia-Japan Partnership
Labor

March 1982
Australia-Japan Nuclear Energy Cooperation Agreement
Coalition

November 1980
Australia-Japan Scientific Research Cooperation Agreement
Coalition

June 1976
Basic Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation (the Nara Treaty)
Coalition

November 1974
Australia-Japan Cultural Agreement
Labor

July 1957
Australia-Japan Agreement on Commerce
Coalition

 
While the above chart presents a fairly simplified visual key to the course of bilateral relations (as some of the agreements were initiated under Labor only to be finalized under the Coalition, while the same could be said about the Democratic Party of Japan and the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan), what is evident is most of the historical agreements between both countries have been reached under a Coalition/LDP government alignment.   The question then arises as to why this is the case. Is the Coalition more ideologically aligned with the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, thus leading to the higher level of agreements created when both of those governments have been in power, or have other factors played a role in this state of affairs? Note that of the above agreements, the only one that was reached without the LDP was that in December 2011, when the DPJ briefly ruled in its own right before being removed in December 2012. 

This question really goes to a broad range of factors affecting the bilateral relationship, but also to the nature of political parties in both countries.  It also points to the political leadership in both countries and the ideology of the individual leaders or members of cabinet.  To get to the root of this issue, it would be necessary to delve into the background of negotiations behind the agreements, to see how they were regarded by either side at the time.  Another issue of note is to examine whether the agreements themselves substantially impacted on the bilateral relationship, leading, for example, to greater levels of co-operation, which itself would indicate how dedicated either side was to promoting bilateral ties. 

Of particular note (from an Australian perspective) is how the relationship was regarded by successive Japanese governments. While Japan and Australia have co-operated with one another for over 60 years, most of this co-operation was concentrated in the trade arena, which until recently was the dominant factor in bilateral relations. It is only the emergence of China as a regional power and the relative stagnation of the US commitment to this part of the world that has prompted the new enthusiasm for security ties between both countries.  

Another factor that would need to be considered is the history of political attitudes to labour relations in both countries, which could be another factor that has determined how closely each government felt it could work with either their Japanese or Australian counterpart.  While the immediate postwar period saw an increase in union representation in Japan, that was superseded by the ‘boom years’ in which corporate interests were given priority in exchange for job security, with the gradual loss of influence in corporate decision making that came with this development.

One further matter is that of environmental concerns. Labor was, of course, the party that decided to take Japan to the ICJ in order to have its scientific whaling program declared illegal under international law, a point that has not been forgotten in the halls of Nagata-chō. While Japan is still reliant on Australian exports of raw materials to meet its energy needs, particularly coal and gas, the gradual social movement towards renewable energy in Australia, and Labor’s enthusiastic embrace of that technology, might impact on the trading relationship, especially if Labor decides to use legislation to curb gas exports to (rather optimistically) lower electricity prices in Australia. While there is little indication that Labor would follow through with this, it has been raised by Labor leader Bill Shorten in the past, and there is every reason to think that the policy could be revisited if Labor win power and find themselves being hemmed by electricity concerns.

So there is much to expect in 2019, and hopefully it will mean an enhanced rather than a diminished bilateral relationship.  What will be assured is the continued need of both countries to keep the US focused on this region, and on that there will be no let-up in consultation and joint action. In the meantime all I can offer is to wish you, the reader, the very best in the year to come.

Last Friday’s visit to Darwin by Prime Minister Abe was one of those “blink and you’ll miss it” moments in bilateral relations.  Shoved between the East Asia Summit in Singapore and the APEC Leaders’ Summit in Port Moresby, PM Abe managed to find the time to swing by northern Australia in order to conduct discussions with Prime Minister Morrison on matters of mutual importance, primarily the situation with China and its aid efforts in the Pacific along with discussions on the long-awaited Reciprocal Access Agreement. 

The fact that this agreement has not yet been finalized has been a source of some frustration for those watching the progress of Australia-Japan strategic relations. Perhaps the best way to regard the slow pace in developments might be to remember that “good things come to those who wait”. 

Nevertheless, both sides still had plenty to talk about over the 20 or so hours of the visit.

One particular item that was kept under wraps but later revealed during APEC was the Australia, the US, and Japan trilateral joint initiative on infrastructure funding for the Pacific.  PM Abe also took the time upon arrival in Australia to travel to the Darwin Cenotaph to pay his respects and lay a wreath in memory of those who perished during Japan’s air raids on the city in February 1942. As was highlighted during the visit, this gesture followed on from a similar one he made at Pearl Harbour in 2016. Given Abe’s political background and heritage, he is perhaps the most qualified of any of Japan’s recent leaders to make this gesture, which was generally well received by both the Darwin community and Australia at large.  Abe (or more correctly his wife Akie) also visited the memorial to the Fujita Salvage Operation of 1959 to 1961, located out the front of the Darwin Uniting Memorial Church, while the prime ministerial couple laid wreathes at the memorial to the crew of the I-124 submarine that was sunk outside the Port of Darwin one month before the air raid on the city. 

The visit was certainly more memorable for the above events than for the equally as important but perhaps less attention-grabbing visit to PM Abe to the Ichthys LNG project, Japan’s largest overseas investment. This mammoth project, which is expected to continue to supply LNG to Japan for the next 40 years, is the figurehead of the Australia-Japan economic relationship at present, and has been vigorously promoted by the governments of both countries since the announcement of the project in 2012. 

The only other event of note during the visit was a quick trip by PM Abe to greet the crew of the Japan Coast Guard Vessel “Echigo” during their inaugural training exercise with the Australian Border Force, along with anti-piracy maneuvers in Southeast Asian waters.  This is an extension of similar visits that Japanese Coast Guard vessels have made around the region, and marks a welcome expansion in Japan’s security apparatus to reinforce the sovereignty of regional states.

The visit itself will primarily be remembered for the Darwin reconciliation gesture, and certainly had more to offer than a visit to Tokyo made earlier in the year by former PM Malcolm Turnbull (a visit that also promised a major announcement, only for it to turn into a standard PR opportunity replete with a visit to an SDF base, a first by an Australian PM, if I recall correctly). While it might be a while before the leaders of either country undertake any bilateral visits (given that Australia is expected to have a federal election by mid-May, the results of which could see a change in government) it was a good reminder of just how close the bilateral ties are between both nations and how these “middle powers” are acting on behalf of their own and partner nation interests to bring some stability to this part of the world.

One of the things that you often encounter while working at the coalface of diplomacy is correspondence claiming to have an exclusive rights to technology that the writer, usually independently, has discovered and who wishes to sell to either the embassy or the government concerned.  The explanations for this technology can vary from detailed blueprints to sketches done, literally, on the back of a napkin.  It appears that this phenomenon is by no means recent, for it was during a routine search for information on the Australia-Japan relationship that I came across a rather unique piece of historical evidence of Australia’s entrepreneurial spirit and the desire to forge a link with Japan’s nascent naval fleet.

In December 1898, Japan’s consulate in Melbourne, which was an honorary position at the time, wrote a dispatch to Tokyo concerning letters received from one Thomas Carter of Scottsdale, Tasmania, pertaining to an invention that Carter claims to have created and was willing to sell to Japan. In the correspondence, honorary consul Alexander Marks (himself a former British trader who migrated to Melbourne from Yokohama in the late nineteenth century) explained that Mr Carter, a coal and chemical engineer, had approached the consulate with an offer to sell the plans for a “submerged torpedo boat” named “Annihilator”. In his explanation for making this offer, Mr Carter stated that in his view, Japan had been treated “unfairly” in its dealings with China compared to European powers, and so wanted Japan to manufacture equipment that would allow it to successfully resist attempts by these powers, particularly Russia, to impose “unjust concessions on China” (with the implication that these could later be imposed on Japan). 

To reinforce the validity of his offer, Mr Carter enclosed a letter written and signed by the mayor of Launceston and officers from the Tasmanian military forces attesting to Mr Carter’s plan and revealing that it was of “sufficient importance to command the attention of the British Naval Authorities”.  Mr Carter followed this up with another letter a month later, in which he claimed that one of the authors of the above letter had already written to the British Admiralty and urging them to “lose no time or opportunity of securing the exclusive right of the invention”.  As such, in Mr Carter’s view, he was being “pushed for time” on whether to go ahead and sell his patent to the Royal Navy or pursue his original plan of selling the invention to Imperial Japan.

Needless to say, Consul Marks took these claims with something more than a grain of salt, mentioning in his letter that “his (Carter’s) ideas are very extravagant like all inventors” but informing Tokyo of the matter and requesting its opinion on how to proceed.   

All these details were discussed in Tokyo in February the following year. In a cable from Naval Secretary Ito Shunkichi to Ministry of Foreign Affairs Secretary Takahira Kogorō, dated for 14th day of February 1899, the Imperial Navy stated that it “had no desire” to purchase the plans for a submersible vehicle, which pretty much brought an end to the entire matter. 

Although only a minor episode in the early interaction between both countries, it is an interesting window into diplomatic correspondence as it was conducted some 119 years ago, particularly between Australia’s various colonies and the recently unified nation of Japan. One can only imagine what might have resulted if Japan had gone ahead and purchased Mr Carter’s “Annihilator”, but perhaps it came to some good use in the service of the Royal Navy. 

The response to Malcolm Turnbull’s visit to Tokyo on Thursday last week is in, and it is, in the best (or worst) traditions of foreign policy analysis, ambiguous. While there was certainly plenty of praise for Turnbull and Japanese PM Shinzo Abe’s advocacy for the continuation of talks on the future of the TPP-11, with the possibility of an agreement being concluded in March, the real focus of the media on the visit was what it might portend for the future of Japan-Australia security relations. In the end, it didn’t amount to much – essentially an announcement that discussions on the conclusion of a reciprocal access agreement (which the Australian press insists on calling a ‘visiting forces agreement’) would continue, with another vague timeframe of ‘as early as feasible’ being put forward for the possible conclusion of the agreement.

As a result of the lowering of expectations (what one commentator called ‘noteworthy but not newsworthy’), foreign policy analysis has chosen to view this visit as a ‘missed opportunity’, or at the very least evidence that Japan and Australia still have some way to go before they become truly close security partners. 

However one curious aspect of media commentary on PM Turnbull’s visit was the prevalent use of the term “alliance” to describe the relationship between Japan and Australia, despite it being obvious that Japan and Australia are not allies in the strict legal sense of the term. If “ally” somehow corresponds to “partner, colleague, or like-minded practitioner”, then Australia certainly has a lot of “allies” (to be fair, Australian politicians themselves sometimes use this term apparently without too much thought when they wish to describe close relations with another country, irrespective of whether an actual alliance exists with the country in question. Japanese commentators are more precise, preferring the term ‘quasi-ally’ and its ambiguity rather than any direct reference to an ‘ally’). 

Other points raised in commentary wondered that if Australia was planning on becoming a major defence exporter, why didn’t it send Christopher Pyne to Japan along with PM Turnbull in order to further promote Australian defence exports? While timing issues and the fact that Pyne was already slated to visit India for talks with India’s Defence Minister ahead of the Raisina Dialogue might have played some role in diverting Pyne to the subcontinent, the fact that PM Turnbull visited Narashino base and was talking about the SDF use of the Bushmaster seemed like an opportunity missed for Australia’s defence industry, especially given the fact that Pyne has been very active in zipping about to other countries in the region selling the merits of Australia’s defence technology – but not Japan. 

Nevertheless, the visit produced some significant outcomes showing how far the defence relationship has come between Japan and Australia.  For starters, this year will see the first RAAF-JASDF exercise conducted in Japan (might it also be possible for Japan to participate in EX Pitch Black? Possibly, but two air force exercises in one year might be a bit much for both sides).  Furthermore, in a first for an Australian PM, PM Turnbull was invited to visit the Narashino base, which is the principal base for Japan’s special forces units, and he sat in on a meeting of Japan’s NSC.  As the press noted, these are privileges that are not bestowed on too many foreign leaders when they visit Japan, so clearly PM Abe wanted to make it clear to the Australians that he is prepared to actively include an Australian aspect to Japan’s defence apparatus at the highest levels.

The question now is whether Australia reciprocates this enthusiasm. Ever mindful of the watchful eye of China, PM Turnbull was very forthcoming in praise for China’s efforts vis-à-vis North Korea, and did not seek to portray China’s efforts in the South China Sea in a negative light, even suggesting that the situation there might be resolved (which sounds a tad over-optimistic). Meanwhile Turnbull and Abe were scathing in their comments towards North Korea, even suggesting that the world must not take the sudden thawing in North Korea’s attitude towards South Korea as an indication of a willingness by the North to discuss nuclear weapons. On this aspect of regional relations, at least Japan and Australia are seemingly in lock step.

Still, Turnbull’s presence at the Narashino base is a portent for what PM Abe might expect when he visits Australia next year – perhaps a visit to Victoria Barracks in Sydney will be in order to speak to the commando regiment there, or perhaps RAAF Base Glenbrook, or Garden Island to view Australia’s next generation naval fleet? At any rate, hopefully before then the RAA will be in place in order to facilitate a broader range of exercises between both countries, and who knows, both leaders might have a concluded TPP to spruik as they seek another avenue for cooperation.

This Thursday PM Turnbull will be paying a lightning visit to Tokyo to meet with PM Abe and (ostensibly) reach an agreement on the content of a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between Japan and Australia – the first of its kind between Japan and any country other than the US. It will give a legal basis for the presence of the defence forces of either country when undertaking reciprocal training exercises with each other, as well as outlining how each side is to provide fuel, medical assistance, legal aid, legal culpability, and a whole host of other issues that may emerge when defence forces train and operate together. 

It is the culmination of at least a decade of negotiations and agreements made between Japan and Australia that stretch back to the security cooperation agreement reached between PM Abe (in his first crack at that position) and PM Howard in 2007.  It is also in keeping with the growing defence arrangements that both countries have set in place as a hedging policy against uncertainty.  As of now, Australia has an annual prime ministerial meeting with Japan, an annual 2+2 meeting between the Japanese and Australian foreign and defence ministers, an acquisition and cross servicing agreement with Japan (updated during last year’s visit to Sydney by PM Abe), and an information sharing agreement with Japan (not to mention the annual defence exercises of Southern Jackaroo and Nichigo Trident). 

The addition of a VFA to these measures will expand the scope of cooperation between both sides and ultimately define the manner by which the SDF and ADF will operate with one another in the future. It will reinforce the idea in Japanese defence circles of Australia as a ‘quasi-ally’, for no other country apart from the US has developed such progressive, broad-reaching ties with the SDF. For Japan, the possibility of undertaking more extensive military exercises with Australia is an attractive prospect for a country that lacks the space to be able to conduct exercises on the scale of those in Australia. It will increase the level of awareness in the defence forces of either country of the operating procedures and military culture of their Japanese and Australian counterparts, and add to the value of both to the US military presence in the Indo-Pacific.

The gradual implementation of the VFA will inevitably lead to criticism that it is provocative towards China, that Australia is hostile to China’s presence in the region and that it is seeking to exploit this with Japan in order to contain China’s “rise”.  Yet the agreement, rather than being a knee-jerk reaction to China’s increased belligerence, has been in the works for years, and is more the culmination of a gradual move towards inter-regional defence support than a straight out backlash against Chinese military expansion.

The next step in the progress of Japan-Australia defence ties will be defence technology sharing, which has a precedent in the recent agreement Japan made with the UK to undertake joint research on a missile project.  Whether Australia reaches the same level of cooperation depends on what we have to offer, although Australia’s use of upgraded CEA phased array radar systems on its new AWDs and its decision to install the Aegis system on its (soon to be announced) future frigates are certainly of interest to Japan and two areas that both countries could jointly explore. 

In the meantime both PMs will be devoting their attention to how to get momentum on the TPP moving forward after the hiccup of last year’s APEC meeting in Vietnam.  Both countries poured their diplomatic resources into getting a TPP 11 agreement confirmed, only to be disrupted at the last hurdle by a disgruntled Canada. With Davos coming up shortly, PM Turnbull will be keen to know what PM Abe believes will be achieved at this year’s trade meeting, and where he sees the course of trade relations going in the Indo-Pacific.

So it will be a short visit, but one of much promise for bilateral relations for the remainder of 2018.  At the very least, it will occur at a time of relatively low domestic political activity in both countries, so it should garner some interest from the press.  Only time will tell when the agreement will finally be signed, but all indications are that both governments want this document in place ASAP, and so expect another announcement at some point in the very near distant future.      

It’s not going out on a limb here to suggest that with the release of the Australian government’s 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper on Thursday, the need for Australia to start working in closer concert with Japan has become more urgent as Australia heads into what could be a fairly rough political year in 2018. While the white paper itself did not include anything that would otherwise be regarded as unusual or unique in relation to bilateral relations with Japan, it did emphasize that Japan would be consider one of five key regional partners with which Australia would need to work to ensure the “rules-based international order” that has underpinned much of the economic growth of the Indo-Pacific (another term that has been embraced by more conservative members of the foreign policy community, primarily because it has a broader scope of application, and because it doesn’t overly focus on Asia, aka China).

The comments on Japan did include this particular line, though – “As close partners, each country is invested in the success of the other”. This is probably the clearest expression on where Australia sees its relationship with Japan going in quite some time. In an era where the established international order is being re-shaped by power rather than law, and where the greatest champion of the liberal international order is steadily retreating from that role, Australia has begun to cast its eye over the region to find nations that at least share its sense of values and which it believes will be able to best assist Australia in keeping something of the pre-existing order in the region intact. 

Australia has already made overtures towards Japan to keep this momentum going by enthusiastically joining in the quadrilateral strategic dialogue, while fully aware that just by talking with the three other major democracies of the Indo-Pacific region it might incur the wrath of a suspicious Beijing. The question looming over this participation is, however, whether this enthusiasm for cooperation can be sustained if Australia undergoes a change in government. While the Labor Party has not dismissed the idea of participating in a quadrilateral dialogue, neither is it overly supportive of the idea, instead suggesting that it will observe whether the “Quad” actually improves the regional security situation before committing to remain a member of it.

The thing is, if the impetus is on the “Quad” to demonstrate that it contributes to regional security, on what basis will Labor decide that it is worth the effort? For example, if the “Quad” issues a statement expressing concern about China’s island building in the South China Sea and Beijing then issues a rebuke of that criticism, will that be proof to Labor that the “Quad” is disruptive and thus grounds for once again jettisoning Australia’s participation in the dialogue? And what will it say to the other members of the “Quad”? That they, and not China, are responsible for upsetting the regional order? That they are acting against the interests of stability? If Labor adopted that stance vis-à-vis the three other members of the “Quad”, then Australia might as well give up its place at all international forums. It will be obvious that it prefers to meekly back down rather than defend its values and so is unreliable as an international partner. 

So much can be achieved by building relations with Japan that extend beyond economics, but if Australia balks every time it is faced with the prospect of incurring China’s wrath by cooperating with Japan (and India, and South Korea) on regional security issues, then it will have effectively surrendered its sovereign interests to Beijing and further damaged the cause of the international liberal democratic order for no real benefit.  With Japan committed to expanding its role in the region, Australia must do all in its power to facilitate this, and that means actually pro-actively taking part in initiatives that Japan believes is important to regional stability.

While the Coalition remains in power this dedication will remain intact, but what happens should they lose the next federal election is anybody’s guess.  Uncertainty breeds suspicion in the world of diplomacy, and suspicion is no basis for regional stability.   

I’m coming to a slow realization here.  For all of the summits and conferences that have gone on for the past two weeks, what, pray tell, has been the sum result of all that activity? Have there been any substantial breakthroughs in international relations, a reduction in tensions from existential threats, resolutions in territorial disputes, or agreements on regional trade issues? In a word, no.  Diplomacy is a tedious but malleable entity, for it requires that the interests of a number of nations be hammered, squashed or stretched into shape to suit a common purpose. The APEC, ASEAN, and EAS summits might aspire to lofty goals of regional unity and shared destinies, but reality and a strong dose of nationalism tends to interfere in the process of forming consensus on the most pressing matters of the day. That makes them exercises in frustration, briefly punctuated with moments of hilarity.   

It is clear that the last few days of regional leaders’ meetings have not produced anything by way of hard-hitting, dramatic substance, certainly not in relation to regional order.  But in a quiet, unassuming way, the four nations of India, Japan, the US and Australia have agreed to adopt a common stance to deal with the security challenges of the immediate future. China has made its objections to this ‘quadrilateral dialogue’ clear, not least of which because it has not been invited to participate, but must know that its actions over the past year are to a large degree responsible for this dialogue being resurrected after a decade of lying dormant. 

On the other hand, ASEAN has started to talk to China about an officially legally binding code of conduct for the South China Sea, 15 years after the proposal was first raised. This development is either positive or concerning depending on where one sits in the regional order. While China is a signatory to UNCLOS, it has categorically ignored its implications when conducting artificial island building in the South China Sea. Since no other state (bar the US, and its intermittent FONOPs) has risen to challenge China’s claims, the region now has a fait accompli whereby China can effectively dictate the norms of commercial traffic in its vicinity while also expanding its military capabilities just that much closer to Southeast Asian states and to Australia. ASEAN realizes this, which is why it has decided to return to negotiations on a legally binding document than spend more years in uncertainty about China’s intentions and questioning US commitment to the region.

Meanwhile Australia and Japan, over the course of these past two weeks, have been unified in the messages they have conveyed regarding the need for co-operation, closer ties, and consultation. In the bilateral meeting between PMs Turnbull and Abe on the side of the EAS, they essentially agreed on the same points they touched upon during their meeting in January – namely the strategic partnership, shared interests and values, freedom of the seas (which in this case was referred to as the “Indo-Pacific” - インド太平洋地域) , and an early resolution to finalization of the details of the TPP11 (of which so much was expected for this year’s summit season, only to have those hopes dashed by a rampant Canada and its concerns for a re-negotiated NAFTA and an FTA with China).

For the first time in 3 years, the leaders of the US, Japan, and Australia all met in the same room before the start of the ASEAN session on Monday, where the topic of conversation was, quite understandably, North Korea and how to contain its nuclear ambitions. This meeting itself was unusual because it was originally meant to be a bilateral between the US and Australia, and it was only at the last minute that an offer was put out (presumably by the US, as a meeting between PMs Turnbull and Abe was already scheduled to take place the same day) for Japan to join in discussions.  The bilateral between Australia and the US was then re-scheduled as a dinner, which was then re-scheduled to a short official meeting. In all fairness, Turnbull had already informally spoken to President Trump at APEC in Da Nang, so neither leader really had anything else to add to their previous conversations.

So bar the fallout from the TPP (which is still alive, although it will undergo further revisions in the coming months), those messages that were espoused throughout the year have been aired once again, albeit in different venues.  One should be happy with that result, as at the very least it confirms that everyone (which in this sense, means the liberal democratic order) is on the same page regarding regional security priorities (and less so economic ones). Yet the fact that so much time and effort was put into events that produced little of substance makes you wonder if everything couldn’t have been sorted out at the ministerial level, or by a really well thought out tele-conference.       

In an interview with Nikkei Shinbun last week following the LDP/Komeito electoral victory, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono raised the prospect of a four-way dialogue between Japan, the US, Australia, and India. This comment was in response to US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s advocacy of greater US involvement in the Asia-Pacific with its regional allies and in response to the growing reach of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Abe government has a long history of advocacy of dialogues with other regionally based democracies, with the initial proposal for a “quadrilateral security dialogue” being made early in April 2007 by none other than PM Abe himself. This proposal was met with a favourable response from each of the capitals of the invitees at the time, and so officials from each of the four countries (US, Japan, Australia, India) met on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Meeting in May 2007 to thrash out some of the details of what a quadrilateral dialogue would look like and what it would hope to achieve.  However, Beijing caught wind of this discussion before it took place and sent urgent letters of protest to Washington, Canberra, Tokyo, and New Delhi, warning each of the potential participants that any moves to create a regional dialogue that excluded China would be interpreted as an attempt to contain Chinese ambitions and hostile to Chinese interests.

The warning had the desired effect. In July of 2007 then Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson, on a visit to New Delhi immediately following one to Beijing, said during a press conference that Australia had no wish to enter into a quadrilateral dialogue and was satisfied with the trilateral arrangement that already existed between Australia, Japan, and the US.  Following the removal of the Howard government and the accession of the Rudd government in November 2007, Australia became more reluctant to pursue any further discussion of a quadrilateral arrangement. In February 2008 this was spelled out in plain language by then Foreign Minister Stephen Smith during a visit to Australia by then Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, thereby removing Australia from any further participation in the “quad”. 

Yet a lot has changed over the course of 10 years. Australia has witnessed the growing infiltration of Chinese state owned enterprise and private investment into its private sector, its educational sector, and its political class. It has seen China seek influence in the Pacific through loans, thus turning Pacific Islands away from their traditional relationship with Australia, while Australia’s security and sovereignty has been threatened by cyber-based espionage launched from China.  It has also seen China move to break up ASEAN by turning member states against one another,  militarize the South China Sea to turn it into a Chinese controlled enclave, threaten an open border war with India, openly collaborate with Russia to oppose US and EU interests, and ignore international opinion and law in pursuit of unilateral goals.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Australia has voiced far more support for the idea of a “quad” in the past two weeks than in the past 10 years. In the age of uncertainty, or more accurately the age of Trump, Australia needs to ensure that it has the support of fellow democratic governments in the region so that its security won’t be compromised by being left alone to deal with China’s encroaching power.    
Australia has always relied on having a major power to back up its security posture, and the combination of the US, Japan, and India as security partners would ensure that enough authority is there to cause China to pause before attempting to put pressure on Australia to adopt positions at odds with Australia’s interests (and/or its values). If a revived quadrilateral dialogue proves useful, this could then lead to other democracies, namely New Zealand and Singapore, wanting to join the framework, moves that Australia would definitely support and which would further strengthen the cause of democratic government in the region.

There will be those in the Australian community who will voice objections to any move to join the “quad”, but their views will not be those of the majority, particularly the majority in power. The real question though is whether the Australian Labor Party has moved on from its position in the late 2000s.  Recent commentary from Opposition defence spokesman Richard Marles indicates that Labor has begun to appreciate that regional relations will be crucial to handling overall relations with China and that being involved in a dialogue with partners is preferable to being left outside this grouping and attempting to deal with China on our own.  Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong has also said words to this effect, although she has also said that China relations should not be seen through what she calls the “lens of risk management”.  With the Labor left faction in the ascendancy on policy formulation, it will be interesting to see whether Labor does indeed agree to follow on with any quadrilateral dialogue with other regional democracies (albeit conservative democratic governments), or, in the event it wins the next federal election, it once again sees fit to pull Australia out of any such arrangement and thus leave Australia in a vulnerable position during the “age of uncertainty”.