Bush administration comes calling

IN mid-March one of the most remarkable diplomatic scenes involving Australia took place in the White House. Our outgoing ambassador to the US, Michael Thawley, went there with his wife to pay his scheduled farewell call on the President.

Thawley was in for a surprise. Instead of a momentary grip and grin, an extraordinary scene unfolded in the Oval Office. After a few minutes the President said he had a couple of others who wished to farewell the Australian. He went out and returned with Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, national security adviser Stephen Hadley, White House chief-of-staff Andy Card and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers.

There are very few heads of state who would command a group such as that in Washington, much less ambassadors. Their presence was a personal tribute to Thawley, who has been a brilliant ambassador, but also a measure of George W. Bush's view of the Howard Government.

Part of Thawley's success has been his closeness to John Howard. The Americans knew that Howard would cash any cheque Thawley wrote. Australia's ability to take serious decisions quickly, as in the Asian tsunami, is supremely valued in Washington.

Another measure of the intimacy of the relationship is that the new US Assistant Secretary for East Asia and the Pacific, Chris Hill, has slipped in and out of Australia this week without causing a ripple.

Assistant secretary of state may seem some way down the totem pole. It is the level below the under secretary, who is below the deputy secretary. But the assistant secretaries are the US State Department's chief operating officers for their respective regions. Hill has many distinguished predecessors. Stanley Roth, who held the job in the second Clinton administration, was Australia's chief interlocutor on East Timor. Before him Winston Lord was central to both China and Korea policy.

For the past four years the affable and formidable Jim Kelly has held the position. Although a great friend of Australia, Kelly didn't have the same profile here as his predecessors, partly because the then deputy secretary, Rich Armitage, took such a personal interest.

Hill will be an important figure in Asian policy. His last assignment was ambassador to South Korea, although most of his background is in Europe. But he has the reputation of being exceptionally smart and is close to the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. With Rice's deputy, Bob Zoellick, wanting to play a global role, Hill will emerge as the most familiar face of the US in Asia.

I was fortunate to be able to interview Hill, who also held an unreported press conference in Canberra. He didn't make news because, like any smart diplomat in a new assignment, he's got to tread carefully.

But there were some intriguing lines of comment. For example, everyone knows that some distance has opened up between the Howard Government and the Bush administration on China policy. Australia is mute on human rights abuses in China, which remain egregious, and did not publicly support the US and Japan in asking the European Union to maintain its arms embargo on China.

Some mistaken commentators have interpreted this as meaning that Canberra has told Washington that it is neutral between the US and China over Taiwan, and that if there were conflict over Taiwan, Australia would remain uninvolved. While naturally Canberra does not write a blank cheque for any conflict in advance, such pre-emptive neutralism would be a serious change in our posture.

But when asked whether there had been a change in our position on Taiwan, Hill replied: "I don't believe there has been." One can only conclude that Australian officials at the highest level have reassured Hill that the Australian commitment to the alliance, even in the context of Taiwan, remains as firm as ever.

I asked Hill about the recent conflicts between China and Japan, and especially the Chinese demonstrations against Japan. He said: "What motivates China? I don't think it's just history. As to an analysis of what's going on, I'm not sure of the spontaneity of those demonstrations or that they're all about the past."

While Hill urged both sides to get along, he was explicit about US endorsement of Japan's more assertive foreign and security policy: "We are enormous supporters of Japan and what Japan has accomplished."

Hill was also extremely enthusiastic about the trilateral security dialogue between the US, Japan and Australia. This has recently been elevated to foreign minister level, so it will involve Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer, Rice and their Japanese counterpart.

But it will also proceed at the officials level, probably involving US Under Secretary of State Nick Burns and perhaps Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade head Michael L'Estrange.

Said Hill: "I think it's very important that the three Pacific countries, each peaceful and democratic, get together to co-ordinate their views. If there's a perception that this is anti-China, that would be a defeat for the process. It's not anti anyone."

China, Hill said, had not raised any objections about the dialogue. Hill also pointed out that the US had a high-level dialogue with China, conducted by Deputy Secretary of State Zoellick. Hill didn't draw the comparison but it's obvious; the Secretary of State for Japan, China a level down with the Deputy Secretary.

On North Korea, Hill made the obvious but nonetheless important point that "for North Korea to test a nuclear weapon would be a very, very serious matter indeed".

If the six-party talks (involving North and South Korea, the US, Japan, China and Russia), which North Korea had boycotted for the past year, continued to fail, the US would pursue other measures.

Hill said: "We've got other options out there, but we don't have the option of walking away from the need to denuclearise the Korean peninsula."

Hill would not specify what "other options" meant, but presumably it's taking the matter to the UN Security Council rather than a military strike on North Korea.

Hill spent 90 minutes in Canberra's war memorial and found it riveting: "It's really very moving, the sacrifice, these people dying thousands of kilometres from home. For an American it's very familiar."

And for the last 100 years those young Australians died standing shoulder to shoulder with their American brothers-in-arms defending freedom.

This is a great story. It is only right to show our respect, gratitude and affection for one of our closest allies. Our country is proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with Australia. God bless them.

Australia's ability to take serious decisions quickly, as in the Asian tsunami, is supremely valued in Washington.

Great leaders attract other great leaders. It is fitting that the Aussie gets such treatment. They've been our steadfast allies.

What's amazing is why anyone ( hello MSM???) would be surprised at this...Bali was Australia's 9/11, and you are even more vulnerable to Islamofascist infiltration than we are..

Nice to know that personal relationships are still very important in diplomatic circles..Many think in an age of instant communications, ambassadors are superfluous..

5 posted on 05/20/2005 6:16:03 PM PDT by ken5050 (Ann Coulter needs to have children ASAP to pass on her gene pool....any volunteers?)

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