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AUSTRALIA: Rudd&#39s Japan Snub Sign of China&#39s Rise

Analysis by Stephen de Tarczynski

MELBOURNE, Apr 6 2008 (IPS) - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s decision to leave Japan off the itinerary of his current 17-day world tour – that includes the United States, Europe and China – has raised the ire of many in the land of the rising sun.

According to sources quoted by several Australian news outlets, Japan was "furious" at what it regards as a snub from the Australian premier. One prominent analyst, Prof. Hugh White, told ABC news that "what we’re seeing is some very deep-seated anxieties in Japan about where Australian policy is going, and those anxieties in turn derive from Japan’s concerns about where Asia as a whole is going".

While an attempt at calming the stir created by Rudd’s omission of Japan has apparently been hastily convened – Rudd has now confirmed that he will travel to Japan in June to meet with Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda – it has put the close bilateral relationship under some strain.

"It is a surprising omission given Japan’s importance, especially its trading and general economic importance, to Australia. But more recently, the strategic relationship between Japan and Australia has assumed more salience,’’ says Rawdon Dalrymple from the department of government and international relations at the University of Sydney.

Japan is currently Australia’s largest export market and second-largest trading partner. Under the previous conservative government, Australia also signed a security declaration with Japan last March, which was followed by top-level talks at the 2007 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Sydney aimed at strengthening the security cooperation between the two countries.

According to Dalrymple, other issues would have been raised had Rudd included a visit to Japan during his 17-day global sojourn. The purported lack of communication between the two prime ministers – Fukuda did not telephone Rudd to congratulate the Australian after winning November’s election and Rudd is apparently yet to phone his Japanese counterpart – the struggling negotiations over a bilateral free trade agreement, and Fukuda’s "rather contested, difficult position at the moment" – the Japanese PM is currently engaged in an unpopular battle to keep high taxes on gasoline – would have amounted to an unsatisfying visit, he says.

But Dalrymple argues that the whaling issue would have been the major area of contention. The two countries hold diametrically opposed views on Japan’s annual whale hunt. Japan uses a loop-hole in the 1986 moratorium which allows whales to be killed for scientific research, while Australia was at the forefront of the international pressure placed on Japan to abandon the practice.

During this season’s hunt, an Australian was among two anti-whaling activists held for several days aboard a Japanese whaling vessel that the pair had boarded without permission. The men were only freed after the intervention of both nations’ governments.

"The present government in Australia has taken a stronger position against whaling than any previous government. There’s a mixed public opinion in Japan, but there is certainly a very strong element in Japan that greatly resents interference with their whaling," says Dalrymple.

Given these elements, Rudd’s Japan omission is politically expedient, according to Dalrymple. "In terms of political prudence it probably wasn’t a bad decision," he argues.

While he acknowledges that the snub would have resulted in some irritation in Japan, Dalrymple believes that the confirmation of Rudd’s visit to Japan in June will have eased concerns. "He’s retrieved it pretty well, I think," he says.

But while Rudd’s June trip may go some way in mending the strained bilateral relationship, the Australian PM’s focus on China – that perennial rival of Japan – may further unsettle relations.

Since winning office, Rudd has been keen to place Australia in a mediating role between China and the U.S. He has already visited the U.S. during his global tour and will be in China 9-12 April, where he will meet with President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao.

While Rudd reaffirmed the relationship with the U.S., Australia’s most important military partner – "signed in 1951, the ANZUS treaty [a military alliance that binds Australia and New Zealand to the U.S.] remains the bedrock of Australia’s strategic policy" – in a speech to the influential Brookings Institution on March 31, he also called for an embracing of the nation that has become Australia’s largest trading partner.

"China should be more than just a passive member of the international order, it should work actively to sustain the system that has enabled its success," said Rudd.

While calling for China to be engaged "constructively and non-confrontationally" through international institutions such as the ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] regional forum, the Doha Round of trade talks, as well as through climate change and development assistance negotiations, Rudd also backed moves by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for China to be included in a new regional security body.

"We should welcome any efforts by the United States, China, Japan and others to extend the Six-Party Talks (on North Korea) mechanism into a broader security mechanism," said the mandarin-speaking Rudd, who held a diplomatic post in Beijing early in his political career.

Dalrymple says that "the very important position that Rudd gives China in world affairs" signals that Australia now sees the Asian giant as a more regionally important player than Japan.

"The Japanese have a pretty ambivalent relationship with China, so there’s bound to be a little bit of discomfort in Japan about a friend who puts so much emphasis on China that it leaves Japan off the itinerary," he says.

Dalrymple told IPS that Australia’s view of China was more a reflection of the ascent of one rather than the descent of the other.

Australia’s adjusted outlook is "not so much because Japan has declined in importance and salience in terms of Australian interests," he says.

"It’s more that China’s rise and rise in the last ten years has been so spectacular that China on the world scene, as well as in the region, has assumed much greater importance," says Dalrymple.