China, the Bogeyman of the New Cold War

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White, emeritus professor at the Australian National University, tends to a policy of national accommodation regarding China and its apparent inexorably growing influence in all aspects of world affairs. Therefore, he has not found a trip-wire that generates bolder positioning against Chinese activities and is unlikely to do so in the future.

Jennings, executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), takes the position that Australia needs to have trip-wires with China and that Canberra should show early robustness to demonstrate it will take action to protect its current way of existence.

Two Schools

The accommodation and assertion schools of thought both have valid components.

When China’s policy shift over Australia became publicly apparent, the accommodation school urged the Australian government to exercise caution and demanded ministerial contact to remedy the financial damage done to export income by Beijing. Negligible attention was paid to other demonstrations of Chinese influence and control exerted through Australian institutions, notably via universities, despite the strength of evidence published by the ASPI and by researchers such as Clive Hamilton in his 2018 book, “.” Concern about the economic consequences declined, with exporters finding alternative markets following the May 2020 Chinese sanctions through their market . This leaves the main line of opinion focusing on various thresholds for tougher Australian policy toward China and analysis of the intent of the United States and its own ability to deal with Beijing.

For the assertion school, Australia’s policy needs to be clear and firm, with more elaborate military arrangements with like-minded countries to deter China and politically strengthen the international system. The favorable rules-based order continues to provide the for cooperation between the European Union, the US and countries in South and Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

With pushback against China, its approach is likely to shift from growing its appeal to pressing its influence. A 2021 by the European Think-Tank Network on China (ETNC) about the standing of Beijing’s soft-power and influence in 17 European countries shows that European states are disinclined to listen to China and actively deny it leverage from its soft-power investments and economic importance.

Our response to China will have to both measure against those of other international friends and press ahead where it must. But it will also draw on nationally coalescing factors that create an acceptable and comprehensible foundation for national resistance.

Australia is not mono-cultural, nor has it the satisfaction of a core religious, ethnic or aspirational identity. Additionally, it has weak internal cohesion on common values that can mobilize national efforts to project influence sufficient to comfort the country about its security.

Looking at “Sacred Values”

“” are not only what drives people and groups into, for example, collective defense or violent extremism. They also drive people in negotiations to settle conflicts. Sacred values, those generally not tradeable against pecuniary or operational sustainment, will drive Australian policy on China. Such values include the conception of human rights, the role of the individual within society, liberty and the rule of law, and political participation in setting laws.

When asked to trade-off sacred values in a deal with a peace dividend, research shows that people typically react with a hostile “backfire effect,” plus an increased commitment to these sacred values, in addition to higher potential for protective violence or preparation for it. Researchers Scott Atran and Jeremy Ginges evidence for this.

The role of sacred values is applicable to all regions and levels of discord and has been so demonstrated in experiments. Sacred values are also layered, in that limited trade-offs for assured security can take place — depending on the nature of the threat, of course. Dismissal of sacred values fails.

Sacred values relate to group emotion and identity and are used by political leaders to mobilize their constituents to shape acceptance of policy changes and action. This point is made clear in the 2019 by Barry Richards, “The Psychology of Politics,” which uses psychoanalytic ideas to show how fear and passion shape the political sphere in changing societies and cultures. The use of “sacred values” language also discredits adversaries during political debate. This may well later befall Australian business lobbies because sacred values arguably matter more than money.

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When our government uses sacred values rhetoric, it will incite what researcher calls a “valorisation effect,” whereby the political leader using sacred rhetoric is seen as principled and determined. There can be no other way to respond to the breadth of the challenges posed by the China issue.

Jennings says the China threat is not tolerable on a structural and national autonomy basis. White implies that the China threat is tolerable on the basis of trade, income and employment and that we should adapt to its new geopolitical environment.

This debate is not yet settled in the Australian political world. There are many other issues in play. For example, what do Australia’s Southeast Asian friends think? Are Australia’s European allies thinking along the same basic lines? But we will get to use sacred values sooner than we expect. This is because China has not indicated that it intends to cease or decrease its foreign policy activity, which is seen by many states as both malignant and dangerous.

Research on “sacred values” in political negotiations shows that a lack of outcome options, inappropriate negotiating procedures and poor recognition of emotions set in a context where sacred values are in play typically cause poor results. China’s diplomatic rhetoric and methods directed at Australia embody these factors.

How will a possible future shift in Australia’s foreign policy position, as a result of Chinese pressure, be seen by the public and presented by the political class, especially if there are sacred values involved? Nichole Argo and Jeremy Ginges about the management of this question in their essay titled, “Beyond Impasse.”

As the China debate continues, we can ask these questions: What are the current declared values we attach to foreign policy regarding China? Are the values “today’s values” or are they values linked to future goals, thereby allowing their adjustment by political leaders in the course of circumstance? Can we concede to China on one value alone, and would doing so be a tool to protect other values?

Clarification

The Australia/China question has further evolving factors to watch. We need to observe the rhetorical framing and content of any future dialogue with China and assess this not only against our values and interests, but also against the set we assess to be held by our allies in their dealings with Beijing. How are the indicators of Australia’s sense of self and identity being used or indeed being created by our political and public leaders? In view of the world economy, our region and our needs, what appears to being traded-off in caution toward China? Is our strategy on China nationally or sectorally driven? If sectorally, what is the level of reference to sacred values in the promotion of, for example, education exports over responses to China’s territorial and political acquisitiveness in the Pacific?

So far, Australia does not have a clear path and must choose between one of two directions: trade and money or values. The choice is clarifying. The big issue for the government is to create a wider and convincing range of responses to China. To do so means consolidating a national position around how hard to pin down Australian values. This matter deserves attention. It requires the absorption by Australia’s various identity communities of a robust set of values and principles that commonly define the country and its citizens’ rights, responsibilities and expectations.

So far, the policy over China has largely been reserved for expert strategists. For a nationally effective response to the threat of an unfavorable fundamental change in circumstances caused by China, sacred values need to be found, clarified and called on as required to bolster policy resolve.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Can the Taliban Govern Responsibly?

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In a fast-changing environment where international donors are less capable to meet funding requests from humanitarian organizations, the United Arab Emirates has taken a unique approach. The Gulf state’s method, which could be modeled on the logistics of major transnational corporations or a large military logistics operation, provides a glimpse into the future orientation of special humanitarian capabilities.

Establishing a Hub

The establishment of the first UAE hub in 2003 reflected a top-level and very strategic foreign policy judgment by the United Arab Emirates. It leverages the UAE’s highly developed status as a global node for airfreight and transit entrepot activity. It has gained an impressive list of committed partners — from UN agencies and major humanitarian organizations to charities and commercial suppliers of humanitarian-related services.

On this point alone, any regional replicant will find it difficult to duplicate the model exactly. The status of the international hub was reflected by being represented well after its launch and during its transition from a valuable strategic geographic location to an independent official humanitarian crisis response agency within the international community, according to a member of the royal family at the time of its founding. 

The EHC and its widening range of services, no longer only a regional storage hub for faster deployment of humanitarian supplies, but an expanding hub for humanitarian workers heading to the field, has also become more networked into international coordination mechanisms and processes. These national and often highly budget-driven and bureaucratic processes and their informal and formal international coordination are now well established in the EHC modus operandi, reinforcing it as a leading model for contemporary large and rapid humanitarian action.

An example of UAE pre-engagement with the club of donors was in the . The UAE, in 2015, through EHC predecessor institutions, flew selected humanitarian supplies toward the region following cyclone disasters over the past decade. The supplies proved less absorbable than expected. The transit stop was Brisbane, in Queensland, Australia, the location of the Australian government’s main South Pacific logistical base.

Following this natural disaster, the UAE recalibrated its approach. It recognized that even if it was able to act independently, beneficiaries’ interests and international coordination facilitate the path to effectiveness. Notably, aid to the region was used following the UAE’s diplomatic initiative in the South Pacific on climate change and its leveraging of gas and nuclear in the greenhouse debate.

By late February 2020, as the world began to address the spread of COVID-19, the UAE government set out to extend the role of the EHC. The aim of the directive by the Abu Dhabi government was to deploy the UAE’s “medical care capabilities at a time of crisis,” the Emirates News Agency . Its first task was to receive 215 citizens from neighboring countries evacuated from Hubei, China, as the began to interrupt international air travel. The EHC was to serve as a hub, receiving evacuees and providing necessary monitoring and preventive medical care, ensuring “privacy and dignity” throughout the process.

The EHC Today

Operations at the EHC now compliment an image of the UAE as a globalist and progressive international influencer through what some have called the world’s largest humanitarian hub. The additional success of the EHC in 2020 was a product of public and private sector cooperation that manifested the UAE’s foreign policy commitment to delivering and helping others deliver rapid crisis responses. The development of a hub for people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic continues to manifest itself in the role played by the UAE during the evacuation of Afghan refugees in August 2021.

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This support service, directly addressing people in danger, need and fleeing their country will require deep thinking and careful management. Like most sovereign states, the UAE itself, despite its fast-growing capability to balance its interests with the effects of its wealth and financial leverage, will face increasingly larger and more complex judgments about how to respond to incrementally higher demands for aid and human succor. These decisions will always come with distressing media coverage of human and environmental disaster events.

The success of the EHC is based on local capacity to deliver logistical infrastructure, a highly developed transport node and interest by an A-List of global humanitarians for a center close to several disaster-prone regions. These include the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean rim.

It will now need to deal with the deep and difficult policy problem, at least for humanitarians, of where to consolidate infrastructure and resources for rapidly accessible assistance to people suffering under complex situations. Here we will see realist foreign policy and the place and role of humanitarian assistance collide. Other wealthy states in the region will face the same problems under their current models of humanitarian support.

Humanitarian assistance, unless coupled with other incentives, rarely leads to a particular and favorable bilateral policy response. After all, the recipient state captures assistance from many quarters. Assistance by states such as the United Arab Emirates, if routine and on a policy basis more regular than opportunistic, will set a strong floor under the UAE’s global model. But it will be difficult to move from one crisis response to another without some clear “stop/go” decision points that do not appear mercenary.

Inter-Arab aid engagement has not been readily seen in humanitarian relief under the same Western and international media gaze as that of other UN member states. For the UAE, the dilemma stems from a priority to make its contributions visible and to showcase the model exemplified by the EHC. Clearly, realist soft power requires more from actions to provide international humanitarian relief. This is where real strategy concerning the concentration of aid and effective delivery will pave the way for success and emulation.

The Case of Afghanistan

The crisis continuing to expand in Afghanistan is a perfect example of emerging challenges and opportunities for new strategies. A growing need for assistance will not decline in the near future, nor will the need from time to time for states to explain their policy approaches and their prioritization of crisis responses. There is already a focus on the realpolitik of humanitarian support as a tool to advance interventionist global agendas. China’s COVID-19 vaccine aid is a clear example, especially as the breadth of Beijing’s response was undermined by the relatively poor efficacy of its vaccines.   

The model working out Abu Dhabi’s EHC allows states to advance more multilateral-driven crisis response strategies. In the case of the August reception of over 8,000 Afghan refugees, the UAE did not engage in unilateral interventionism. Instead, it responded to rapid coordination of responses to international needs for transport and hosting facilities, allowing an increasing number of Afghan nationals to be extricated during the chaos caused by the Taliban advance into Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.

The UAE offered facilities to house Afghan refugees en route to third countries, such as the United States. It also provided relief to overstretched militaries and civilian organizations in Europe and the US that were overwhelmed by the number of refugees. Facilities such as those found at Abu Dhabi’s EHC proved a more dignified alternative to military bases and public facilities such as town halls, schools, temporary shelters and, in some cases, church-based facilities in the West.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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