Skin in the Game: A Former Prime Minister Rides Again [updated]
A Former Prime Minister Rides Again
[Image: a single frame from the Sky News Australia rebroadcast of the video linked below, with their text overlay].
Publication date: 2021-11-10
Updated: 2021-11-11, correction of primary source, lots of minor edits and a few new paragraphs. It’s 11/11, so a final note too.
In USA parlance, stating that someone has "no skin in the game" is to imply that they do not care about outcomes. Recent events in Australian politics have seen those with little "skin in the game" come forward to make statements contrary to general narratives. Having no "skin in the game" can be quite empowering. Indeed, a clarity of view is available. The forest and its trees are in full view.
Retired persons, politicians or professors, have little to lose by speaking their minds.
We venerate the elderly because they have experienced more. Perhaps they also understand time in a fuller sense too. Compare yourself as a 40 year old to your early 20's self. Then extend that forward and imagine yourself plus 20 years. I'm not there yet, but am beginning to develop a winnowing skill to separate the chaff from the grain; that which is transitory from that which is consequential.
A former Australian Treasurer and then Prime Minister, Mr Paul Keating, now 77 years old, returned to the ABC’s Sydney studios for a one and a quarter hour session. This was broadcasted by the ABC and delivered to the Australian National Press Club in Canberra. Almost 26 years had passed since he last addressed the National Press Club. The topic had been set: Australia's geostrategic relationship with its neighbours and the wider world powers. Largely, this was about China and Australia's involvement in the "Quad" and the "AUKUS" partnership. However, if one listens a little more carefully, it is also about strategic international relations, maintaining balance and influence. These topics of balance and influence may be a little too subtle for a media audience which has been partitioned by the big tech platforms and the “Trump Era”. They are, however, the core of geopolitical strategy and diplomacy.
Before parsing Mr Keating's comments, it is worth seeing what the media sphere has had to say. If one searches for "Paul Keating National Press Club" with duckduckgo one gets a link to the full video (linked below), and lots of "commentary". The media were so impressed by what the former Prime Minister had to say that they used the following phrases in the titles for their commentary videos: "off the planet", "effectively ran a defense of China", "inconsistent", "gone against the grain", "in love with the Chinese", "kowtowing to China", and "hasn't updated his rhetoric". Please keep this in mind as we consider his comments.
To reuse a term of Mr Keating's, these "ning nongs" seem not to have been listening.
To set a historical background, one of then Prime Minister Keating's core strategies for Australia in the early 1990's was to reposition itself. Australia's human history begins at least 60 000 years ago with its native population beautifully adapting with its environment. A complex inter-mesh of societies living in a hunter gather and partial farming stasis with its ecosystems. During the last 250 years (a tiny fraction of that past) a British settler colonial society imposed itself on that native population with devastating results for the native population and the ecosystems within which they had coexisted for millennia. Australia's early colonial years were allied with Great Britain whose monarch remains the Australian Head of State. Australia marched to war to Britain's pipes. Then, following WWII and the change in world power, Australia allied itself with the USA and marched to its trumpets. A part of Mr Keating's Prime Ministerial efforts was to change the way Australia thought about itself. As he says in the interview, Australia needs to find its security in Asia not from Asia.
Mapping Defense
For defense analysis, geography is useful. You are Australia. Who will attack you from the north, east, south or west? To assist I provide an equal area projection of the globe, rather than the more commonly used "Mercator" projection which distorts area the closer one gets to the poles. Equal area projections are a sort of "what you see is what you get" type map.
[Image: Equal Earth Project. Thanks, Projective]
To the east is New Zealand, a nation a quarter of your population or less, and past them there is nothing until you hit South America which is almost half of the globe away. Okay, no problem. To the south, all you get are whales and seals until you hit Antarctica. Okay, no problem. To the west there is nothing until you hit Africa, a quarter of the globe away. Same deal. Thus, its all about the north, which is Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and then the Philippines and the Malay peninsula. Papua New Guinea is sparely populated and has a low tech economy. If attackers came from the Malay peninsula or the Philippines they'd need to traverse the Indonesian archipelago and/or Papua New Guinea first. Thus, Australia's primary defense concern is Indonesia. That really is all of it, the whole kit an' caboodle.
But, that means one needs to consider Indonesia's relations too, and they are largely with southeast Asia; Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, China, India and Japan. Of course, Singapore, Cambodia, Myanmar and all of the Micronesian islands and states too. I haven’t forgotten Borneo or Butan, but there’s only so far one can go.
This is it. This is where one is, and these are the relations that need nurture. It doesn't matter how much ideological squinting one does, Australia's foreign policy needs to be based upon existing world powers and relations with its nearest neighbors, with a particular focus on Indonesia and its interests. Squint as hard as you want but you cannot avoid the local big players, China and India, with the grouping of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines as key secondaries.
But, what about Japan? She matters economically, but not militarily. Indonesia and the other players are the military strategic concern. In WWII how many Japanese soldiers landed on Australian soil? Actually, the whole analysis is stupid. If you want to conquer Australia you need to take the eastern seaboard, otherwise you’ve got thousands of miles of desert to run supplies across. It’s a bit like don’t attack Russia after the spring or you’ll get stuck in the mud, freeze and then be attacked by their Siberian forces. In the Australian setting, dont attack from the north after the monsoon, or you’ll die of thirst and/or lack of fuel like too many foreign tourists do and Australians do not. But, the north and northwest are Australia’s weaknesses, hence the focus on Indonesia.
It is a total lack of awareness of this brutal reality in Australia's recent foreign policy which has brought Mr Keating out of a quarter century of hiding to stand before the press gallery and make his case. He is not kowtowing to China but asking Australia's foreign policy advisers to ditch their ideological blinkers and see what is staring them in the face. We're in Asia, you nitwits. Australia needs security, militarily and economically, in Asia not from Asia.
A Chronological Commentary with Quotes
The following is a chronological commentary on the first 15 minutes of the video linked below.
Firstly, it should be noted that sitting on Mr Keating's lap are pages and pages of notes. He has come well prepared for the discussion. His opening comments lay the ground for what we wishes to discuss.
I'm back to talk about what I see as a deterioration in our strategic settings.
This is elder-statesman speak for "shitful foreign policy".
The country is very much at odds with its geography and lost its way.
See above: north, east, south and west.
We're still trying to find our security from Asia, not in Asia. ... The area that matters most to Australia, the area which should be our strategic habitat is the Indonesian archipelago. ... We've now got this fiction, the thing called the Indo-Pacific, like a big rectangular box. On one end of the box is India and on the other is Japan. But we're not focusing on the middle of the box, which is Indonesia and ASEAN. We're [focusing] on either end.
Keating rambles a little at this point. He is alluding to and struggling to inform us of how he sees the two big players, India and China, relating to each other. A summary may be: if the Chinese don't try to dominate the Indian ocean, then the Indians wont try to dominate the south China sea. I think he's calling for analysts to see the nature of reality; the two big local players. Australia needs to engage with and be a part of the balance between them. Any strategy of aligning with one versus the other is disastrously stupid on all fronts; political, economic and defense.
He continues with an interesting comment on Japan and its relationship with China. He refers to the second Sino-Japanese war, a part of WWII in which Japan invades China (Manchuria) and commits atrocities during of the "Rape of Nanjing", the then Chinese Capital. With the rise of China clearly visible, the Japanese leadership have done nothing to atone for these heinous actions to find a position of accommodation with China. The Chinese have not forgotten and have seen no sign of contrition by the Japanese for either of their wars against her. They are rightly suspicious. Horrifically, I suspect that the USA plays this animosity to advance its influence.
China is simply too big and too central to be ostracized.
Mr. Keating states the obvious for those who cant see.
While I am no fan of Zbig (Zbigniew Brzezinski), Keating is at pains to emphasize his analysis of China. He begins with a little history of Zbig being a Pole and a teenager when Poland was divided into "spheres of influence" by Germany and Russia in the early part of WWII, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
He would have been 15 or 16 when Warsaw was wiped out. … He was the coldest of Cold War warriors.
Keating continues, and quotes Zbig (emphasis by the author):
America should tacitly accept the primacy of China's geopolitical pre-eminence on the mainland of Asia as well as China's ongoing emergence as a predominant Asian economic power.
He repeats this quote, and continues to extend it:
America's strategic policy strategy should not be to contain China but to engage it in a larger hub of cooperative relationships that by themselves also shape the relationship between the US and China.
Keating now brings in an economic analysis, quoting an IMF report, affirmed by the CIA, which lists China's economy as 20% larger than the USA's. I think this is a PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) report. He then breaks this down into income per capita between the USA and China, with the USA at 60 000 USD per capita (per year) and 10 000 USD for China. As China adjusts its economy to exchange low skilled manufacturing towards higher technology and a service economy Keating asks how long will it take for China to get to 20 000 USD per capita? A decade? But when they do, the Chinese economy will be 2.5 times larger than the USA's. This, I believe, is the point he is most trying to communicate. If things continue, during the next decade, the Chinese economy will move from 1.2 times the USA’s to somewhere in the 1.6 to 2.0 times range.
He prefixes this commentary and analysis by asking if journalists take notes anymore, and declares that "these are the numbers". This is Keating reverting to his period as treasurer. He's taking accepted numbers, looking into the future and asking what can be scried in the murky crystal ball?
Keating concludes the segment by summarizing the USA's line to China of "you can be a stakeholder in our system" and then asks us to look at all of this from China's perspective. Assuming that Chinese economic growth continues, they will be twice as large as the USA's economy and they are being offered a seat at the table?!
It would make a cat laugh.
There is a sideline to this. Russia has given up on being welcomed into the European club, and chosen China and Asia as its strategic future. This comes up later in the discussion. The biggest post-Cold War strategic blunder by the USA was not welcoming Russia and instead advancing NATO to its borders, which essentially forced this result. Recall that the first invited foreign military exercises on Chinese soil were with Russia earlier this year. These forces were under combined command, Chinese and Russian. The signs in the barracks were in Chinese and Russian, the recreational activities were table tennis and chess.
Here ends Mr Keating's opening comments. We now move to questions by Laura Tingle and then a sequence of poor and often off topic questions by various journalists. The timestamp is 00:15:02. Thus, Mr Keating spends an hour providing the odd useful comment and analysis but largely having to endure the "ning nongs".
Asking Interesting Questions Requires Listening
During this endurance Keating makes a very interesting point related to upcoming changes in the Chinese economy and the Belt and Road Initiative.
He intimates that China will shift some of its core low tech industries into the central Asian republics (the ‘stans) as it upgrades its own industries into a higher technology. This makes absolute sense. Central Asia is rich in mineral resources, and these countries need infrastructure investment to process/extract the resources, and China will need those resources for its more advanced manufacturing. Thus, China shifts its primary manufacturing in some sectors into these “economic partner” countries. This produces a collection of beneficial outcomes. Firstly, the ‘stans get investment and can increase their export earnings, and thus raise living standards. Secondly, China gets the resources it wants. Thirdly, the industrial pollution which is associated with these industries is now not in China which will help it on a PR front with Climate Change and pollution type ecological arguments. I am not saying that I approve of this, but I do concur with Mr Keating that this is what is being planned.
China has already invested billions of USD into this and has a security alliance with Russia to create the stability for it to succeed. The USA may be happy about “the Quad”, but China through the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation have “the Penta” (my term): China, Russia, India, Iran, and Pakistan, which completely “surround” central Asia.
The “Quad” is a containment strategy, the “Penta” are guard houses through which goods flow. The USA builds military bases. The SCO is building roads, bridges, railways, ports and communications networks. The “economic partners” in the BRI will earn income from taxes, tariffs and exports. How will they invest these monies? Schools, hospitals, universities, military hardware, an expanded civil service, public transport, sanitation, stabilizing energy systems, or the sink hole of corruption … whatever they choose. Who will be contracted to assist in the monies spent on infrastructure or defense? This is the core of the BRI. The combined engineering skills of China, Russia, India, Pakistan and Iran are perfectly situated to assist in both the construction of the trade corridors, and whatever trade surplus is invested in the national infrastructure of participating nations.
But, neither the Russians nor the Chinese have the engineering skills to …. Bollocks. The Russian’s are leading in hypersonic missile development and the Chinese have just landed rovers on the moon and Mars, and returned the first samples from the moon in decades. Oh, and those Iranian missiles that Israel is so worried about and the USA is trying to wrangle into an updated JCPOA? Developed in Iran. After the USA assassinated General Qasem Soleimani, the Iranians told the USA which military base they were going to hit in retribution, and where they were going to hit it; get your troops out of there, if you want them to live. I think they gave about 2 hours notice. The Iranians hit precisely where they had informed that they would. This is not the poor accuracy rocket fire of the Iraqi civilian “PMU” units. Its the IRGC, Iran’s “Praetorian Guard”. None of this is magic. Its engineering. When you’re slingshotting a space probe around Jupiter towards Saturn you dont calculate for where Saturn is but where it will be when you get there. Long distance rocketry is even harder, because you’ve got to deal with the atmosphere, weather and planetary rotation.
Just to make you laugh, all of the resources that one needs to build this BRI trade network, and the ensuing national infrastructures which participants hope will come from it, are sitting in the ground under the places through which the trade network will pass. As I asked a few months back, which game of Risk is being played? [See the final section, Game Mode].
Mr kowtowing to China’s Hand
By the end of Mr Keating’s introductory remarks, he has largely made his case.
To the world: China is rising, has already outpaced the USA economy and will continue. Get used to it. China is not seeking to dominate the world, but it is demanding respect. Engage and participate to create cooperative networks to balance China's influence, because oppositional strategies are folly.
To Australia: you are a part of Asia, and nothing you can do will change that. (Actually, on a geological scale Australia is heading north at about 2 cm per year and will "collide" with the Indonesian archipelago and likely create a new equatorial mountain range, but thats 100's of millions of years away. But, it will be interesting. The Great Southern Ocean will grow and an equatorial mountain range may have interesting effects on global weather patterns.) But, I digress. Australia, grow up and engage your neighbors. Learn their languages and cultural history.
The USA approved of, supported, and armed a process of killing about 2 million Indonesians in the 1960's. The USA killed even more Vietnamese during the "American War" as the Vietnamese rightly name that horrific period. Before that, the USA killed tens of thousands of Philippinos. The USA worked with the British and French in exploiting China during the "Opium Wars". There is plenty of animosity in southeast Asia to the USA and the former colonial powers, and a little gratitude too. History is complicated. But, this is your region Australia. Engage.
I encourage readers to watch the full video and to keep asking "Why is Mr. Keating dancing with the National Press Club?" “What is his motive?” “What is his objective?”
I hope that in answering these questions for yourself, you will be able to revisit the introduction to this article and appreciate a lack of "skin in the game".
Personally, I would like to thank Mr Keating for trying to educate these spook driven idiots, our Cold War Warriors 2.0, about the challenges of reality and geopolitics. It really is staring you in the face if you can stop reading the inconsequential chaff reported in most western media.
The Questions
But what about Taiwan?! It is not of strategic concern. But what about Xinjiang?! See Taiwan. Or, if you want to get serious, take a look at Kashmir. But what about upcoming statements on Climate Policy. I came here to talk about strategic relations, get on script. But, people are accusing you of being a Chinese apologist. Next question, please. But these AUKUS submarines are important. They’ll be obsolete by the time they show up; next question. But isn’t Xi becoming a president for life? …
In this blog’s last article I complained about a lack of media coverage of an event. Perhaps that was short sighted.
Postscript
Thanks to a friend in Australia assisting with a little editing, and more importantly correcting that the event was hosted by the Nation Press Club and broadcast by the ABC. An earlier version of this article listed Sky News as being a primary participant, which was totally false, and has been corrected.
So, thank you to the National Press Club for hosting the event, and the Australian public broadcaster for their facilitation of it.
Finally, see Culture below and play the song. It is the best fit I have yet found to an article, and its a great song. I enjoy hunting in my subconscious for a cultural reference for an article. I dont know why, but my mind would not let go of Leonardo’s Bride for this. The digging took a while, but the reward is gratifying.
Sources
Paul Keating addresses the National Press Club on Australia's strategic framework, National Press Club of Australia, 2021-11-10
Culture
Buddha Baby, Leonardo’s Bride, from the Angel’s Blood album, published by Mushroom Records in 1997, soon after Mr. Keating’s Prime Ministerial tenure.
Dedicated to Valera Griffin.
On the 11th of November each year we remember those who lost lives, limbs and often their minds during the insanity of wars, recent and long past. War is a Racket.
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