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April 07, 2005
Neighborly relations, Round 2
There's been some conflicting reports about Malaysian PM Abdullah Badawi's recent visit to Canberra. The IHT casts a rather positive light on things:
A decade ago, a prominent Malaysian politician had sharp words about Australia's relationship with East Asia: "If I look at a map, I believe that it says that Australia is not part of Asia," he said.
On Thursday, that same politician, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, now Malaysia's prime minister, was in Canberra exchanging warm compliments with Prime Minister John Howard and announcing that the two countries were starting talks on a free-trade agreement.
When a reporter asked Abdullah whether Australia would be invited to a summit of East Asian leaders in Kuala Lumpur later this year, the prime minister said, "My policy has been one of inclusiveness and not excluding anyone." [emphasis mine]
But other sources paint a much more pessimistic picture. The Sydney Morning Herald cuts right to the chase:
The Malaysian Prime Minister, Abdullah Badawi, declined to invite Australia to the East Asian summit it will host later this year during his talks with the Prime Minister, John Howard, in Canberra yesterday, though the two leaders agreed to begin negotiations on a free trade pact.
The failure of the Federal Government to secure an invitation prompted accusations from Labor that Mr Howard's refusal to sign ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and Co-operation, a non-aggression pact already signed by China, Japan and South Korea, had jeopardised Australia's chances of inclusion in the new regional economic community.
Earlier in the week, the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, threw his support behind Australia's inclusion in the East Asian summit, which would provide a crucial economic and strategic opportunity for Canberra. [emphasis mine]
Of course, both accounts could be true, and agreeing to begin negotiations on a free trade pact is a promising outcome. But the discrepancies in tone stand in stark contrast to the generally positive coverage of John Howard's meeting with Indonesian President Yudhoyono earlier this week. Yudhoyono, for instance, had indicated his support for Australia's inclusion in the upcoming East Asia Summit, which Badawi declined to second.
And what of the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Co-operation to which the SMH refers? It's true that in his characteristic style -- one which helps fuel criticism that he is too close to President Bush and U.S. foreign policy -- John Howard declined to sign the non-aggression treaty, primarily because he wanted to retain the freedom to strike at threatening terrorist targets in neighboring states, if the need arose. Howard's snubbing of the treaty was made all the more insulting given that took place during a special ASEAN-Australia "commemorative summit" in Laos last year. But that didn't seem to bother Yudhoyono too much, at least with regard to an invitation to the upcoming East Asia summit, nor does it seem to bother Japan (which, admittedly, is not a member of ASEAN nor is a primary sponsor of the upcoming summit).
So what to make of Badawi's reluctance to invite Australia? Who knows. Badawi will be the host of the summit, so he is justifiably more sensitive to the guest list than any other Asian leader. And to be sure, the Australian relationship with Malaysia goes back a long way and remains strong. Perhaps the variable and somewhat conflicting coverage of the Howard-Badawi meeting, then, has more to do with the vagaries of the media than with the any actual troubles in the relationship between Australia and Malaysia.
UPDATE: Nice recap of Australia's "Asia week" from the BBC.
Posted by Daniel Widome at 01:44 PM to Asia,
