This Side Of The Blue: Week 48, 2022
This Side Of The Blue: Week 48, 2022
This week's newsletter featuring an Indian take on feminist foreign policy, Canada's Indo-Pacific Strategy, and the Finnish PM in Australia. Plus essential reading and this week's playlist
A bit of a format change for the weekly newsletter. Gone is the stock picture and will be replaced by a photo of my own relevant to the week’s items. And instead of the date – taking my cues from Sweden where I’ve just returned – I’ll use the week of the year, which isn’t common in Australia, but should be. This is because the newsletter may appear on different days of the week.
An Indian Perspective on Feminist Foreign Policy
Yesterday I went to the Australia India Institute for a roundtable discussion with Ambika Vishwanath, the co-founder and director of the Kubernein Initiative. Vishwanath was in Australia to promote the organisation’s report “Opportunities for a more Inclusive Indian Foreign Policy” – which seeks to advance feminist ideas into India’s foreign policy making.
The concept of a feminist foreign policy is one that was devised by Sweden in 2014, and has come to be adopted by several other countries throughout the world. Its initial approach was to strengthen the Three Rs for women worldwide - Rights, Resources and Representation. But it has also developed highly sophisticated theories about international relations, and policy proposals designed to enhance global peace and security. Here in Australia the International Women’s Development Agency has created the Australian Feminist Foreign Policy Coalition to advance these ideas into Australia’s foreign policy.
Understanding these ideas from an Indian perspective is vital because, as Vishwanath pointed out, feminist foreign policy, and indeed the dominant ideas in feminism itself, tend to operate in the trans-Atlantic space and through a Western lens. This hinders our ability to engage constructively with countries like India. India, obviously, has to work in an Indian context – as a highly complex and multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, and often caste-based society there are often limits to who has a voice in Indian policymaking – and within the context of its own neighbourhood with its foreign policy. Therefore, Vishwanath is promoting the lens that an inclusive foreign policy needs to be understood not only how it affects women, but how it affects the most disadvantaged group in any given scenario.
One comment Vishwanath made at the roundtable has stuck with me as incredibly important for understanding the advancement of women and marginalised groups globally without resorting to Western expectations and its current cultural orthodoxies – “Just because you are starting at a different point, doesn’t mean that you are starting on a wrong footing.”
Canada’s Emerging Indo-Pacific Identity
This week Canada released its new Indo-Pacific Strategy. For most of its existence as a modern state Canada has been an Atlantic facing country. While its population remains heavily weighted towards its east coast, the growth of British Columbia and Alberta is moving the country’s centre of gravity westward, and its ambitious immigration program is changing its demographics, with India, The Philippines and China being the largest source countries.
These trends are now starting to shift the county’s focus to its Pacific coast. With the world’s own centre of gravity moving to the Indo-Pacific there are opportunities and responsibilities in the region Ottawa cannot ignore. As the document states “The rising influence of the Indo-Pacific region is a once-in-a-generation global shift that requires a generational Canadian response.”
The Indo-Pacific strategy seeks to advance Canada’s national interests without compromising its values. Canada has understood the risks associated with engagement with China with the arbitrary detention of the Two Michaels – Beijing’s retribution for Canada honouring its extradition treaty with the United States in relation to Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. The document is blunt about China as an “an increasingly disruptive global power” but also recognises that “China’s sheer size and influence makes cooperation necessary.”
While the document has sections focused on four key regions - China, India, the North Pacific (Japan and South Korea) and ASEAN countries, from an Australian perspective it is odd how little Australia is mentioned. Of course, this goes both ways, Australia’s interest in Canada is also negligible. Aside from some stock-standard phrases like Canada will “draw upon its existing partnerships with key allies such as…Australia” (among others), there is no real substance to Canadian-Australian engagement.
For two such easily aligned countries it remains perplexing that Canada and Australia lack greater intimacy. With Canada shifting its line of sight towards the Indo-Pacific there is an opportunity for the pair to show some innovation as creative middle powers and find areas to cooperate. Coordination in the development space through the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia would be an obvious place to start.
Finnish Prime Minister in Australia
In July and September I made a couple of trips to Helsinki – a fantastic city, by the way. The first trip was due to my own curiosity about Finland, while the second was to attend the Helsinki Security Forum. At the forum the Finnish prime minister, Sanna Marin, spoke and answered questions about Finland’s current foreign policy priorities and in particular its need to enhance its security relationships by joining NATO due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Finnish president – who has responsibilities for foreign and security policy – also spoke and I wrote about his speech here.
This week, however, Prime Minister Marin has been in New Zealand and Australia. This is the first visit to Australia by a Finnish prime minister, and this reflects how, although there is a great distance between the two countries, there is an emerging understanding of the intimacy of ideals. It is notable that the Baltic countries have also been enhancing their diplomatic presence in Australia recently.
As is custom for world leaders, Prime Minister Marin spoke that the Lowy Institute this afternoon (Friday), and she used the phrase “common lifelines” to describe how countries like Finland and Australia, and their many of likeminded friends, should now be approaching the world. The concept aligns with that of “friendshoring” which Canadian deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland has been promoting, but seemed to be more than just about economic resilience, “common lifelines” is about a spiritual resilience as well. Marin made it clear that “this is the time to stop being naïve” when it comes to authoritarian regimes, whether it be Russia or China.
For Australia, there is a lot to learn from Finland’s “comprehensive security” and its greater sense of strategic coherence. In particular, Australia should be understanding how Finland provides strong media literacy through its education system to guard against disinformation. In addition, as a trilingual country (Finnish and Swedish being official languages, and wholesale English literacy), Finland understands that the personal capabilities of each individual is essential to the overall capabilities of the country.
This Week’s Essential Reading
Due to being pressed for time this week the reading is a little light. But hopefully there are a few articles here worthy of your attention.
Detangling Semantics: Has Australia Really Been ‘Hawkish’ on China?
Grant Wyeth - The Diplomat
In this piece for The Diplomat I tried to prosecute the terms “hawkish” and “hardline”, which get thrown around about Australia’s foreign policy towards China. I think these are lazy terms that say more about those who use them than provide an accurate depiction of how to approach an authoritarian regime.
“Being concerned with the way words are used is not just a matter of arguing over semantics. Terms like “hawkish” and “hardline” come with worldviews that need to be understood, rather than thrown around casually. It is also important to develop accurate representations of the behaviour of states because we are currently in an era of linguistic smokescreens, where terminology is deployed to hide true intent. If legitimacy relies on trust, then trust relies on accuracy.”
Liberal Party Losses Grow With Victorian Election
Grant Wyeth – The Diplomat
We had an election here in Victoria last week and it was another overwhelming victory for the Labor Party. The Liberal Party is now deeply unpopular in the state, but to its further detriment it tends to take its elections losses as a psychological reward.
“Conservative politics throughout the West is currently trapped in a spiral of negativity and an often comical flailing at the modern world. When parties retreat further into in-groups in order to shield themselves from reality, electoral losses vindicate their sense that the world is against them. It leads them to double down on positions that are not popular but provide a sense of emotional security.”
Assessing Australia’s Strategy Personality
Caitlin Byrne, Ian Hall, Renée Jeffery & Peter Layton – Griffith Asia Institute
“To assess Australia’s strategic personality and how it may be changing, as Australia’s security environment evolves, we developed a new approach and built a new dataset based on interviews with analysts and scholars from across the Indo-Pacific. This dataset allowed us to construct an account of how influential regional security experts perceive Australian policymaking and implementation. We analysed these findings with the advice of a group of Australian-based specialists on Australian foreign and security policy. For an additional check of robustness, we also conducted off-the-record interviews with regional diplomats based in Australia to ascertain their views of Australia’s strategic personality.”
China’s Zero Tolerance For Xi’s COVID Restrictions
Michael Schuman - The Atlantic
“Much of the motivation was political. Reversing the policy could be interpreted by the Chinese public as an admission of error or failure—intolerable to a Communist Party that presents itself as infallible. The leadership seems to still believe that the virus can be defeated if the Chinese masses struggle and sacrifice.
Xi’s difficulties also point to a broader trend. At the start of 2022, autocracy seemed to be on the march around the world. Just after forging a closer partnership with Xi, Russia’s Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of democratic Ukraine. The world’s chief autocrats appeared to be banding together in an assault on the liberal world order.
Now, as the year closes, they are on the run. Putin faces domestic discontent, international isolation, and the embarrassment of a failed war. The ayatollahs in Iran are contending with a popular movement sparked by their brutality. Xi, the champion of authoritarianism, faces a challenge bred by the arbitrary rule that upholds the Chinese political system. Even apparently unassailable autocrats can push their people too far.”
China’s Anti-Government Protesters Are Risking Much. They Deserve Our Admiration – And Support
Xuyang Dong – The Guardian
“The world has seen the brave attempts at democracy in China from people on the streets. It’s the first time the younger generation has witnessed protests of such scale, and the first time many of them have expressed their frustration at authorities.
Protesting in an authoritarian country comes with huge personal risks. It is inspiring and encouraging to see young people in China pushing back against censorship and autocracy.
It is time to lose the stereotype of the brainwashed Chinese citizen and see these young protesters for who they are: people with agency and courage.”
Emmanuel Macron: The Man Who Would Be King
Jeremy Cliffe - The New Statesman
“Macron’s approach to foreign policy starts from the conviction that ours is a chaotic, dangerous and Hobbesian world in which history not only never really “ended” with the fall of the Soviet Union, but is accelerating. In his analysis, this is a product both of humanity’s sheer interconnectedness and of the shifting balance of global power (“a sort of competition between universalisms” as he has put it). In his annual speech to France’s ambassadors in September, Macron argued that Russia’s war in Ukraine is thus not “an event that should be isolated from the rest, but has happened as almost a logical consequence, a catalyst of many phenomena at work”. Tara Varma of the European Council on Foreign Relations explains: “He thinks in terms of many deteriorating situations everywhere in the world, affecting European and French citizens in a way they would not have done before. Macronism is his answer to the question: how do we ensure that we maintain the multilateral system but also solidify and renew it?”
Why Toxic Politics Thrives In An Age Of Plenty
George F. Will – Washington Post
“The politics of grasping is unlovely, but not as ugly as politics treated as a mode of cultural bullying and disparagement. As memories of subsistence struggles recede, people who are no longer necessitous are indeed free — free to use politics for unpleasant self-expression. Their default mentality is anger, which reminds them that they are alive.
“The effect of liberty to individuals,” said Edmund Burke, “is that they may do what they please; we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.” The fundamental economic problem of attaining subsistence having been banished by plenty, many hyper-politicised Americans have filled the void in their lives with the grim fun of venting their animosities.”
A Good-Will Government Was Possible in Israel
Naftali Bennett – New York Times
“I established the 70/70 rule. About 70 percent of Israelis agree on 70 percent of the issues. We all agree that we need better trains and roads, better education, more security and a lower cost of living. However, we disagree on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, religion and state and the desired nature of our legal system.
So my government focused on getting the 70 percent done, as opposed to endlessly wrangling over the issues we didn’t agree on. We all agreed that this government will neither insist on Israeli sovereignty for territories nor hand them over to Palestinians. Similarly, we decided we would not legislate on any disputed religious or legal matters.”
Are We Ready For The Approaching Loneliness Epidemic?
Federica Cocco – Financial Times
“The trend remains unchanged for people over 60. But compared with a decade ago, the rise in the number of young people who spend more than eight hours on their own is alarming.
Aside from the effects this has on individual health, there is an impact on societies, too. Psychologists Roy Baumeister and Jean Twenge found evidence that feelings of social exclusion can make people more fearful and aggressive: with few superficial interactions our sense of reality can become distorted. Another study found a link with violent extremism. Hannah Arendt painted loneliness as fertile ground for terror in her 1951 classic The Origins of Totalitarianism.”
With Melbourne experiencing its coldest and wettest November in decades last week’s playlist was themed The Cold, but things look like they are starting to shift now as we enter December. So this week’s playlist is themed The Heat.