Fed: Rise of Asian giants to lead summit security discussions

AAP General News (Australia)
04-18-2008
Fed: Rise of Asian giants to lead summit security discussions

By Peter Veness and Max Blenkin

CANBERRA, April 18 AAP - As 90 academics, trade unionists and defence specialists prepare
to consider Australia's future security at the 2020 Summit this weekend, an equally large
government team is hard at work on a new defence White Paper and a national security statement.

Both these major policy documents were launched earlier this year, with the White Paper
to be drafted within Defence and the security statement prepared by the Department of
Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Both are scheduled to be finalised before year's end.

It remains unclear just what, if anything, this weekend's 2020 Summit will contribute
to either project.

Professor Ross Babbage, a former senior defence official and a member of the panel
advising Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon on the White Paper, said he retained an open
mind on summit conclusions.

He said there was an enormous amount of work now going into preparation of the security
statement and white paper.

But the very broad 2020 Summit security agenda and the large number of participants
raised questions about what would emerge beyond the most general of statements, he said.

"I will be surprised if something comes out of this that we have never thought of," he said.

"But let's wait and see.

"There is a hope that some of the things the 2020 Summit will come up with will be
broadly compatible with the things that are likely to come anyway."

Prof Babbage said one of the government's purposes with the summit was clearly to engage
a broader range of participants and to be seen to be doing so.

"There are a range of folk who are not normally involved on national and international
security issues. Generally that is pretty healthy," he said.

In the summit discussion paper, designed to stimulate delegates' thinking, the government
canvasses a broad range of issues set to impact on Australia.

The issues include the rise of China and India, Australia's alliance with the US, membership
of international organisations, globalisation and world trade, people smuggling, terrorism,
climate change, disease pandemics and struggling regional nations.

The new government's preference for multilateralism and high-minded international groupings
features strongly in the background paper.

One page is even headlined "a strong, rules-based, multilateral trading system is in
Australia's interests".

There is little mention of the former government's penchant for bilateral trade and
security pacts, although the paper does admit the number of one-off trade agreements has
grown significantly since 1990.

An 89-member panel chaired by Michael Wesley, professor of International Relations
at Griffith University, will discuss it all in two busy days of debate.

Panel members include ACTU president Sharan Burrow, former defence chief General Peter
Cosgrove and Victorian Police Commissioner Christine Nixon.

Those names show the debate will be wider than national security, foreign affairs or
defence policy.

Despite the abundance of issues on the agenda, a new paper released today by the Australian
Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) suggests one security challenge will remain paramount
- terrorism.

ASPI national security project director Carl Ungerer said "religiously-motivated mass
casualty terrorism" was a pre-eminent concern.

One reason is that US engagement in the war on terror was unlikely to change significantly,
no matter who occupied the White House. The other is Australia's proximity to South-East
Asia.

Whatever the delegates decide this weekend, one thing is certain: There will be a defence
White Paper and there will be a national security statement finished by the end of this
year.

AAP pv/sb/ldj/cdh

KEYWORD: SUMMIT FOREIGN (AAP BACKGROUNDER) REPEAT

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