To understand China's ambitions in this domain, consider a crude global ranking of naval powers. At present, the US is so far out in front at no.1 that second place is basically unoccupied (except if we're talking about sea-based nukes, where the US and Russia are roughly equal). The UK and France occupy third place in the rankings and China is presently on the fourth rung alongside Russia, Japan and India.

Even fourth place is an achievement for China. Back in the early '90s, when its military modernisation drive really began, China was arguably a weaker naval power than its own 'renegade province', Taiwan. This latest Pentagon report describes a country that can already boast modern fighting ships that put it ahead of regional rivals Japan and South Korea by some metrics.

But what is most striking is that Beijing is now on its way to developing naval capabilities that will put China firmly – and solely — into second place on the world standings, well short of American capabilities but in another weight class to powers such as the UK, France, Russia, Japan and India.

Consider, for instance, China's plans to develop aircraft carriers. China commissioned its first carrier last year, an extensively modified ex-Soviet vessel, and this edition of the Pentagon's report says China will 'probably build several' of its own carriers over the next 15 years. Contrast that with trends in long-standing carrier nations, where capability is in decline: France (now unlikely to get a companion ship for its single carrier), the UK (no carriers at present; building two very capable ships but under such severe budget strain that they may not both make it into service) and India (one 1950s-built carrier in service; Russian shipbuilders struggling to supply another). The plans for procurement of other major classes of warships outlined in Military and Security Developments 2013 (up to 20 Yuan-class submarines and a dozen Type-052D destroyers) would also put China securely into second place worldwide.

China is not content with second place in every regard. Military and Security Developments 2013 talks of a country intent on creating a 'wholly indigenous defense industrial sector', a colossal ambition and something not even the US can boast. It raises the prospect of industrial nationalism and rent seeking on a scale that could actually be quite debilitating for the Chinese economy.

But what's it all for? Ranking countries by their military might is wonkish fun for observers, but it's surely not what drives China. Military power has to have a purpose beyond mere status, right? Certainly, yes, though don't underestimate the attractions of status. Military and Security Developments 2013 notes that 'securing China's status as a great power' is a core strategic objective for China's leadership.

Beyond status, China's growing maritime muscle will give Beijing the means to coerce regional neighbours and will change the strategic balance in the Asia Pacific from one of uncontested US primacy to one of rough balance. Whether China continues its recent habit of asserting itself in territorial disputes with neighbours or it takes a more cooperative path, the very fact of China's growing strength will demand some kind of response from the US and its friends and allies. As the recent Carnegie study on China's Military and the US-Japan Alliance in 2030 puts it, the status quo is unsustainable.

The question is whether the US and its allies insist on maintaining US primacy by matching or surpassing China's military growth and accompanying this with an offensively-oriented strategy, or whether they are content to see US-led primacy eroded gradually in favour of a more cooperative (though at times tense) form of balancing.

(BTW: Anyone who can identify the TV reference in the headline wins my undying respect. UPDATE: I doff my cap to reader Richard, who guessed it within five minutes of the post going live.)

Photo by Flickr user i am le petit oiseau.

In 1996 Canada instituted the $25 Consular Service Fee that is collected at the time a passport is sold. Over the intervening years this has generated over C$1 billion in revenue and in recent years, with close to five million passports being sold annually, annual revenue of close to C$125 million. The Consular Service Fee is paid by those likely to need consular services and is cast at a level sufficient to meet the costs. Interestingly, there was very little adverse public comment when the fee was implemented and even today it is non-controversial.

Ms Oliver mentions technological innovation in her paper but there is a much bigger story here. Australia probably trails most countries in its efforts to use technology to lessen the costs and burdens of providing consular services. Canada was the first to deploy the Consular Services Case Management System (COSMOS) to manage consular services, a system I designed and implemented. It has allowed a range of services to be more effectively delivered and managed and at the same time, provided management with information on which services could be improved and costed. 

Early on, I thought other countries could benefit from such software, and it has since been purchased by New Zealand, Spain, Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK, with several other countries poised to purchase. Australia, since the late 1990s, has looked at the system but has preferred to try and develop its own system, with little success. In the process it has spent many millions and today it is about to try again. It is a common failure in the IT world for those in the back room to believe they can do better even when 'off-the-shelf' technology is available. They rarely do.

Finally, the international consular policy environment is sadly deficient and has not had coherent attention since the signing of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations in 1963. It is fifty years old this year and even at the time of its negotiation it was such a compromised document that it offered little (except Article 36) by way of governmental commitments to assist those in consular difficulty. It was the sad result of lowest common denominator treaty-making based largely on historical norms that a diplomat at the Congress of Vienna would recognise.

I have suggested for a number of years that it is time for the UN to establish a review conference for the Convention to see if additional supporting mechanism and principles can be included. The argument against doing so is the danger that we could lose what little protection there is in the existing document; I would argue that little would be lost in trying to do better.

Great attention is given today to the globalisation of most areas of human activity. Last year 1 billion people traveled to a foreign country. There is hope that the movement of peoples to the far corners of the world for education, tourism, business and family connections will bring about a long lasting desire for peace, tranquility, fraternity and economic progress.

The signs are there, but happenstance is a poor guarantee that the casualties along the way are not only minimised but helped. Of course, national governments retain responsibility for this, but there must be an acknowledgment that all governments need to work together. As we wander into the heart of the 21st century, no better monument can be created than a concerted effort by all governments to take the 1963 treaty and give it the norms that are necessary in today's world.

Photo by Flickr user US Army Africa.

Secular parties in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, notably the MQM and ANP, have suffered casualties almost on a daily basis, with several candidates killed or injured. 

There are serious doubts now that elections will be free and fair. The Chief Election Commissioner has said that if security does not improve, it will be extremely difficult to hold free and fair elections on Saturday. The Election Commission of Pakistan announced its election security plan, declaring 20,000 polling stations across the country as 'sensitive' and saying it plans to deploy 50,000 troops to serve as a rapid response force.

Will this be enough to get Pakistanis to participate in this historic vote?

The election on 11 May will consolidate Pakistan's burgeoning democracy. It will be the first time that one democratically elected government is replaced by another. Pakistan is a young and inexperienced democracy, having been plunged into autocracy following a military coup a little over ten years after independence. Pakistan has been ruled by four generals and has been under a military government for over half of its history. Governments have rarely been allowed to serve out a full term before being removed by the military.

Yet the promise of change in Pakistan and the participation in the consolidation of democracy is unlikely to be enough to persuade Pakistanis to go to the polls on 11 May. I have spoken to Pakistanis in Islamabad about polling day, and many are choosing not to vote for security reasons – they are not confident polling stations will be safe. 

Potential low voter turnout and continual violence targeting polling stations and candidates spells disaster for Pakistan's upcoming elections. Horse-trading to form a coalition government is the most likely outcome of the election, the result of which will no doubt be contested given the insecurity, corruption and fraud that are likely to be endemic.

From my reading of the document, the DWP2013 is as internally inconsistent as previous defence white papers, is spoilt by further inconsistencies, makes no measurable link between its strategic assessments/interests/tasks and the materiel to be purchased, and has no believable financial plan (acknowledging that this is not a white paper's main purpose). All of this comes from a government that has no credibility on defence, given the nobbling of defence spending last year. It is inherently a political document and because of the political situation, its relevance could be limited.

The strategic outlook in chapter two is competent, but the link between that strategic environment and the four strategic interests in chapter three, which then roll neatly into the four priority tasks for the ADF, is the central weakness of the DWP2013. The interests and the tasks are so neat that it reeks of reverse word-smithing.

Where the whole process breaks down is that there is none of the real guidance that force structurers need for real-world, long term procurement. If the DWP2013 does not give guidance to those that procure and structure, then what kind of policy document is it? The answer of course is that it is a political document. These vaguely stated tasks will create decades of confusion and inter-Service argument, if the DWP2013 lives that long. And of course the Government cannot give the guidance that logic demands, and force structurers need, because then we would all see the gross deficiencies in the current ADF force structure and the worsening of ADF capabilities over time.

Government has successfully hidden these deficiencies, as previous governments have also done, in the hope that the ADF will not have to fight. This reflects the continuing reliance on hope and luck that characterises Australian defence policy. Australia has indeed been lucky for decades, but we now face changed power relativities and the potential for significant conflict in our close region, in particular, the Malacca Straits (on this see Ben Schreer over at ASPI).

But something good has come out of this nugatory process, perhaps unwittingly. In order to negate defence as a political issue for September, the Government has claimed an outbreak of partisanship on the issue of the aspirational 2% spend. The Government and the Opposition both recognise that something in the order of 2% of GDP should be spent on defence.

This 2% spend, increasing yearly by 2.2% in real terms to maintain purchasing power, if maintained for the decades it takes to procure complex military equipment, would give Australia the basic defence force demanded by the very strategic outlook that is in the DWP2013.

But this Government is only spending 1.56% of GDP on defence, and will increase it only when they think they can afford it. In the Coalition's case, if it won government in September defence spending will increase by 3% per year in real terms, but again, only when they can afford it. In not-so simplistic terms, the Government is underfunding, and the Coalition looks set to underfund, defence by something in the order of $8 billion per year or 25%. 

The main conclusion from the DWP2013 is that this Government has exchanged a large amount of its own self-created political risk in the upcoming election for a significant, perhaps 25%, increase in our strategic risk. On that basis, it would be foolish to praise the DWP2013.

Some might say that what I ask for — that is, an open and public linking of policy, strategy and the 'tactics' of defence policy (materiel procurement) — is not possible in an unclassified document. I would say that the only being hidden by not having an open analysis and explanation is the incompetence of successive governments to meet the defence need, and the inability of the ADF to achieve the most important of the priority tasks given to it by government.

Photo by the Department of Defence.

The challenges faced by women in our nearest neighbour are unfathomable to the vast majority of Australians. They face severe obstacles in the way of achieving equal opportunities to men and in accessing health and education services and even personal safety and basic survival. Two-thirds of women in PNG are exposed consistently to domestic violence. Médecins Sans Frontières has estimated that 70% of women will be raped or physically assaulted in their lifetime.

Fortunately, Prime Minister Gillard herself is keenly aware of the problem, informing high school students on ABC TV's Q&A program audience on 6 May of the appalling levels of violence experienced by women in Papua New Guinea. The Prime Minister announced last year a new Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development aid strategy to support women's rights in the region.

A record three women were elected to Papua New Guinea's parliament in 2012. Loujaya Toni, Minister for Community Development, Delilah Gore and Julie Soso, also the Governor of Eastern Highlands Province, are under pressure to meet the impossibly high expectations of several generations of women as well as delivering on the demands of their electorates. 

The Australia-Papua New Guinea relationship is multi-faceted. The $493 million aid program was for many years the main focus of the relationship, but relations have broadened to focus more on the economic and trade relationship. Australian investment in Papua New Guinea is almost on a par with our investment in China, at over $16 billion. Bilateral trade is worth almost $6 billion. An Economic and Cooperation treaty has been finalised. Australia has been assisting PNG with the establishment of a sovereign wealth fund. Business to business links have deepened.

But in managing this broad agenda, Gillard's most important responsibility should be to Papua New Guinea's women. She can not only set a visible example of a strong female leader but she can speak out in support of Papua New Guinea's women to a wide audience of men who will listen to her because she is the Australian Prime Minister.  This is not an issue which the Australian Prime Minister should take up only in private meetings. Women in Papua New Guinea need Australian support and Prime Minister Gillard can be a very effective advocate for them.

Photo by Flickr user World Bank Photo Collection.

With this in mind, the Australian prime minister should attend the St Petersburg G20 summit in September. The absence of the Australian leader would send the wrong signals about the priority Australia places on the G20. These summits follow a format a bit like the Olympics. At the end of the meeting, the incoming chair briefly outlines to the leaders the priorities and direction that they will be pursuing. It would not be a good look if the Australian prime minister was not there to outline Australia's priorities.

So how can the Prime Minister's international obligations be reconciled with the demands of a general election? Perhaps the answer is for both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to attend the G20 St Petersburg Summit in September.

Both could gain and potentially lose with such an option. The Prime Minister inviting the Leader of the Opposition to be part of Australia's delegation may be seen as signaling that the government expects to lose the election. However, the Prime Minister is Australia's leader at the Summit and would be participating in the meetings. The Leader of the Opposition would be part of the Australian delegation, so he may feel that he is 'second fiddle' to the Prime Minister. Nevertheless, he would have the opportunity for bilateral meetings with some of the world's leaders. He would also gain some insight into the G20 summits.

The Opposition may say that the Prime Minister knew of the obligations associated with the G20 summit when she picked the date for the election. And as noted, joint attendance has risks for both parties. So is it naïve to think that party political considerations and campaign strategies could be put to one side and there be a bipartisan approach to attending the summit. But it would be the best outcome for the country and a powerful signal of the importance Australia places on the G20.

Photo by Flickr user art-dara.

Much has been made about the role of electoral fraud and other irregularities in facilitating the BN's electoral win. But when the dust settles, the significance of long-standing class and communal divides is likely to stand out. The entrenched gerrymandering, weighted in favour of rural constituencies, meant the PR needed to win over both urban and rural Malay support, collectively making up 60% of the population.

Other than the state of Kelantan, which is the stronghold of the PAS (Parti Islam Malaysia; part of the PR opposition coalition), the generally less educated and socially conservative rural Malays voted strongly in favour of UMNO and the ruling BN. It would appear that the PR's call for good governance, social justice, transparency, rule of law and citizenship rights did not resonate with rural Malays. Moreover, PAS's Islamic agenda may well have been overshadowed by the stronger concern for preserving Malay special rights. 

What did resonate were UMNO's generous financial handouts and promises of ongoing material support during the racially charged election campaign. The Malay community were repeatedly reminded that a PR Government would spell the end of Malay special rights and eventual Chinese political hegemony by way of the Chinese-based DAP's (Democratic Action Party) supposed domination of the PR coalition. These claims were bolstered by the rhetorical stunts of Malay supremacist organisations linked to UMNO. Pedaling these racially charged assertions was none other than former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who despite his 80-plus years, campaigned energetically on behalf of the BN.

The DAP's strategy of denting UMNO's historic stronghold in the state of Johor and its ability to galvanise the Chinese community solidly against the BN only served to deepen rural Malay insecurities. The DAP's race-based electioneering, whilst claiming to reject race-based politics, not only strongly resembled UMNO communal politicking but also spooked the insecure rural Malay electorate, the very community that needed to be swayed towards the virtues of a non-racial Malaysian identity.

The PR coalition led by Anwar Ibrahim has refused to accept the election result, claiming it was marred by unprecedented electoral fraud: 'My heart is with every Malaysian who does not accept the results'. The country's electoral reform movement Bersih has also withheld recognition of the result claiming that it is examining reports of electoral fraud.

The anger of PR and its supporters at what they believe to be a 'stolen election' will no doubt be displayed at a protest rally to be held in Kuala Lumpur today, and raises questions about Prime Minister Najib Razak's future in Malaysian politics.

Photo by Flickr user World Economic Forum.

Being denied a public voice for so long, Aung San Suu Kyi's views on many important issues were unknown. Even when able to speak publicly, she tended to express herself in terms of broad democratic principles and Buddhist moral precepts. This may have reflected her party's lack of a detailed and agreed policy platform, but it encouraged her supporters, both inside Burma and outside it, to project onto her all their hopes and dreams. Even by some experienced observers, she came to be seen as the answer to all of Burma's complex problems.

Indeed, she routinely attracted such accolades as 'the bravest and most moral person in the world', giving her enormous moral authority. This was difficult to exercise inside Burma, but she gained a strong following overseas and had a marked impact on the attitudes of the international community. For years, she effectively determined the parameters of US policy towards Burma. People like UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and US First Lady Laura Bush became her champions. Other politicians saw benefits in being publicly associated with the photogenic opposition leader.

However, this widespread admiration — adulation even — had a downside. Some of her policies were challenged but, in public at least, there was little critical examination of Aung San Suu Kyi herself. After some mildly negative comments were bitterly attacked, few public figures dared to incur the wrath of her supporters. Others held back for fear of giving the military regime ammunition that could be used in its propaganda campaigns against her. The result was a degree of self-censorship on the part of journalists, biographers and even academics.

Since her release from house arrest in 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi has had to make the difficult transition from political prisoner and democracy icon to party leader and opposition member of parliament. She had always been an active player in Burma's power games, for example by using her international status to influence the policies of foreign governments and organisations. But she is now expected to have a view on every topical issue, a demand complicated by her interest in running for president — constitutional amendment permitting — in 2015. Her every action and statement, or lack thereof, is subject to close scrutiny.

This has often placed her in a difficult position. Last year, for example, she was criticised for not speaking out against the sectarian violence in Arakan State and the civil war in Kachin State. Earlier this year, she was heckled by angry villagers at Letpadaung after a commission of enquiry under her leadership failed to deliver the expected results. She has had to answer criticisms of her low key response to anti-Muslim riots in central Burma and she was accused of betraying her principles by attending the annual Armed Forces Day parade in Naypyidaw.

While not given much exposure in the international news media, there are also other critics of Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma (in addition, that is, to hardline elements in the armed forces). For example, she is perceived by many as a strong Burman centralist, unsympathetic to the aspirations of the ethnic minorities to separate states or a federal system of government. She also has detractors among more radical opposition groups who reject her cautious, conciliatory approach to the current government and apparent support for an amnesty on past human rights abuses. These voices are now becoming louder and more widely reported.

Given the quite unrealistic expectations held by her supporters, it was inevitable that many would be disappointed. Just as Aung San Suu Kyi has had to grapple with the harsh realities of Burmese politics, so have her followers. They are learning the hard way that all politicians have to make compromises and, particularly in Burma's volatile political environment, they are rarely able to satisfy everyone. Also, as Aung San Suu Kyi knows, anyone aspiring to a leadership role in Burma has to work with the armed forces, still the country's most powerful political institution.

In international circles, Aung San Suu Kyi remains a charismatic figure. She has recently attracted some criticism, including from prominent human rights organisations, but she is still highly regarded. Also, few politicians, particularly in the Western democracies, want to be openly critical of such a political rock star. Even if they have reservations about her reputed inflexibility and strong leadership style, her lack of practical experience or her stance on particular issues, they know that they will have to work with her to achieve their aims in Burma.

Aung San Suu Kyi's many qualities are not in doubt. However, she is now being viewed more as a real person, with many of the strengths and weaknesses of real people, rather than as some kind of ethereal being floating above the rough and tumble of Burmese politics. She is also gradually becoming accepted as a hard-headed politician trying to hold together a fractious party and act strategically in a divided country where politics is dominated by tactics and personalities.

The critical stories about her appearing in the news media and on websites may upset some, but they reflect a more mature and balanced appreciation of her important place in modern Burmese history. In one sense, that is to be welcomed as much as her long-awaited entry into the country's political arena.

Photo by Flickr user totaloutnow. 

The most wide-ranging but nebulous anxiety relates to the 'middle-income trap', the observation that many countries have moved out of abject poverty into modest living standards, but few have made the extra step, breaking through to high living standards in the way Japan did in the decades after World War II and Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea have done more recently. Chapter 3 of the IMF's recent Asia report finds support for this view, identifying the Asian middle-income countries as being more vulnerable to episodes of sustained slowing.

But if the middle-income trap relies on some intrinsic dynamic of the growth process which causes growth to run out of puff at the income levels reached by Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, then the Asian evidence is weak or non-existent.

The Fund's analysis is based on two types of slowing. First, the countries caught up in the 1997 Asian crisis took a decade to recover from this searing experience. Then there is the more recent experience of India and China, both shifting from a period of unsustainably high growth to slower but still rapid growth.

None of these episodes seems either intrinsic to the growth process or similar to the chronic failed promise found more typically in Latin America (for example, Mexico and Brazil). Having identified Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand as candidates for 'middle-income trap' status, the Fund's growth forecasts for these countries (found in the same document) are uniformly around 5%, safely above any trap.

If the discussion of the middle-income trap is intended as a salutary reminder to the region's policy-makers that economic growth requires vigorous and continuing reform, then the importance of the message cannot be denied. The essence of the development process is the progressive replacement of inefficient practices by more productive ones.

These transitions are not easy or inevitable: labour has to be shifted to new jobs and techniques; vested interests have to be circumvented; government maladministration has to be reformed.

But the middle-income trap is an unconvincing threat in the Asian context. Anyone observing the myriad opportunities to correct inefficiencies, smooth the production process through better infrastructure and reap the obvious potential for transformational productive change will see the glass as half full rather than half empty.

The refutation of the middle-income trap hypothesis is apparent in countries like Indonesia which, despite the painfully obvious deficiencies of policy, governance, productive techniques and infrastructure, are growing at a steady 6% a year. The same document gives the game way when it records (Graph 1.25) that the return on assets in Indonesia is over twice the rate in any of the advanced countries. The issue is not whether Indonesia is falling into a middle-income trap, but rather why it doesn't take the available opportunity to grow at 8% rather than 6%.

Of course, reaching such higher potential would require the solution to stubborn problems, mainly political rather than economic. Even the current growth rate is not assured, since it is always subject to the risk of financial crisis or serious policy errors. But to base the case for better policy-making on the threat of the middle-income trap risks being ignored through irrelevance.

At the heart of the MDGs is the goal of eradicating poverty. One of the success stories of the MDGs is that, for the first time since poverty trends began to be monitored, the number of people living in poverty began to fall in every developing region. The proportion of people living on less than US$1.25 a day fell from 47% in 1990 to 24% in 2008. 

East Asia has achieved spectacular success in reducing poverty, with extreme poverty falling to 13.8% of the population, a drop from just under one billion people in 1990 to 284 million in 2008. By 2025, four of the world's 10 largest economies will be in Asia. Asia will account for almost half of the world's economic output and China for about half of that. Furthermore, the combined output of China and India is expected to exceed that of the G7 (US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan) by the early 2020s. Australia's Asian Century White Paper notes that in 1980, income per capita in developing countries in Asia was about one-thirtieth of that in the US. By 2025, the gap will be down to one-quarter, owing to increased economic opportunities, improved health care and better access to quality education. 

So as East Asia continues to drive down regional poverty at a remarkable rate, one might question the relevance to the region of any globally inclusive set of development goals which have poverty eradication at their core. Yet alongside the success of Asia lies the Pacific experience, where Pacific Island countries have struggled and largely failed to meet the MDG targets. The challenge, then, is achieving a global development framework that resonates with countries as different as China and Tuvalu.

The Lowy Institute, in partnership with University of Melbourne, the Asia Foundation and ANU is hosting a conference in Melbourne next week late this week to examine the role of aid in Asia and the Pacific beyond 2015. The conference aims to flag three important considerations for any post-2015 development framework: 

• The scale of Asia's growth over coming decades will make it the world's biggest economic zone, increasingly able to address its own poverty challenges.
• What does this changing face of poverty in Asia mean for the future of aid?
• And as the international development agenda evolves, what chance is there of achieving a global framework that is relevant to Asia and the Pacific?

How the conference answers these questions will be the subject of a follow-up post.

Photo by Flickr user TylerIngram.

These statements were analytically correct and reflected concerns already expressed by other Asian countries. Australia was not the first to point out the opaque nature of China's strategic modernisation program and the potentially destabilising impact of this opacity on Asia's regional security landscape.

China's furious response, which included high profile public condemnation and the private haranguing of senior Australian officials, said more about Beijing's acute sensitivity to criticism than it did about the merits or otherwise of what was said in DWP 2009. It also occurred at a time when then-Prime Minister Rudd had made some fairly direct observations about China's human rights performance. The response from some high level Chinese officials included references to Australia 'suffering consequences' as a result of its actions, the sort of rhetoric one expects to hear from a parent admonishing a small child for its behaviour rather than one state treating another with respect.

It's clear that China is more pleased with the current government's deferential approach as distinct from the more refractory Rudd Government. The omission of any reference in DWP 2013 to continuing regional concerns over China's strategic transparency deficit received a quick tick of approval from the Chinese Foreign Ministry. This came hot on the heels of Beijing's blessing of Australia as a 'strategic partner' during Prime Minister Gillard's recent state visit, a status that had been highly coveted by Australian officials. This sequence of events can hardly be said to be coincidental.

There are at least two points to make. The first is that there is no reason why Australia can't have a balanced relationship with China while at the same engaging in measured observations about how China conducts itself as Asia's most significant great power. Despite heated threats of 'consequences', Beijing and Australia need each other economically and the Rudd period did not witness any diminution of the strong trade and investment relations between the two countries (one of Rudd's final acts as PM was to sign a record $10 billion worth of resource-related contracts between Chinese and Australian firms).

The second point is that Australia must exercise caution that it does not fall into the trap of feeling it needs to pander to China's exaggerated sensitivity to criticism in order to safeguard the bilateral relationship. Chinese elites understandably feel they are entitled to a degree of deference from secondary powers like Australia and tend to be affronted when this doesn't materialise. This is central to understanding Beijing's incandescent response to DWP 2009. Australian officials would do well avoid a situation where they feel obliged to reassure rising great powers that a continuing lack of transparency on core strategic issues in our region is acceptable.

Photo courtesy of the Defence Department.

First, a look at different European countries in their dealings with exiled Tibetan authorities. To their credit, both David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, some years ago, were ready to receive the Dalai Lama. Beijing made its displeasure known, and the consequences were apparent when the Tibetans visited recently, with the Dalai Lama gathering the Tibetan communities in Europe in a Swiss town and the Sikyong meeting with officials in France and in Brussels.

Why Switzerland for this main gathering? Even though the 'Free Tibet' office in Europe is located in London, Switzerland is the spiritual home of exiled Tibetans in Europe. This goes back to 1960 when some 2000 political refugees from Tibet found asylum in the Swiss mountains, choosing to settle in familiar surroundings high up. Quite a few of them and their offspring have become citizens and so, in some of Switzerland's most famous resorts, you might encounter young men and women, clearly not direct descendants of William Tell, conversing in the broad Alemannic brogue of Swiss alpine farmers.

So when the Dalai Lama and the PM addressed the Tibetan community of Switzerland and Liechtenstein (!) on 15 April, some 5000 of them gathered, more than on similar occasions in the UK, France, Germany or Belgium.

Unlike previous visits, the Dalai Lama was not received by a member of the Swiss Government but by Speaker of the House, a Green Party MP who is not part of the multiparty coalition governing the country. This led to some acerbic comments in the media. But compared to other countries, this level was still fairly high. In France it was a member of the Senate (as in Australia, the less important chamber) who received the PM. 

Also, when French President François Hollande visited Beijing last month, he was careful to schedule two press conferences. At the first, together with his Chinese host, there was much mutual embracing of a 'multipolar world', diplomatese for a world free of US exceptionalism, coupled with the announcement of important bilateral business deals. It was only at the second media event that Hollande, alone, said that 'of course minority questions including the Tibetans' were also raised by him in his talks with Chinese authorities.

As regards London, even the contact of the Sikyong with a French Senator drew an envious comment from the aforementioned London office, saying 'if only we could get to that level here in the UK'. In Brussels, it was members of the European Parliament who met Lobsang Sangay.

This appeared to leave the Prime Minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile sad but still confident that the decade-old talks with the Chinese authorities, interrupted for three years, will resume and ultimately be successful. In media interviews in Switzerland, the PM insisted on his acceptance of Beijing's three vital points: full maintenance of sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of the PRC. He also laid out the government-in-exile's proposal for full autonomy under the Chinese constitution within all of the traditional Tibetan settlement areas which comprise almost a quarter of the Chinese mainland. Challenged on this point, he compared such a hypothetical autonomous province with Xinjiang, where the province for the Uighur minority comprises more than 15% of China's landmass.

With regard to the second example of pliant behaviour towards Chinese authorities, let me go back to a comment in this space on 17 April, when Stephen Grenville outlined the terms of the Xstrata-Glencore merger that the Chinese authorities have agreed upon, putting emphasis on concerns from buyers such as China as well as sellers such as Australia of market interruptions by vertically integrated commodity companies, of which Glenstrata will be the leading species.

Commentary in the Swiss media, challenged by one of the largest takeover battles ever on Swiss soil, went ultimately in a more ominous direction. It saw a total cave-in by the company, firstly over Glencore's copper mine in Peru, which China insisted the merged company had to divest and which is destined to get a new Chinese owner, and secondly over the long term delivery contracts negotiated between Glenstrata and China, which could prevent any real price competition for years to come.

And so it goes, with China calling the shots, secure in its belief that nobody, private or public, could ultimately go against its wishes.

Photo by Flickr user Magalie L'Abbe.

We have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region, that that's a red line for us, and that there would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front, or the use of chemical weapons. That would change my calculations significantly.

He left himself little wriggle room in the minds of the public or the Syrian opposition once reports emerged that such weapons may have been used. Some serious weight is being put on the President to intervene militarily by drawing parallels between Syria today and Saddam's use of chemical weapons against Halabja in 1988. Others argue that Syria in 2013 is anything but Halabja in 1988.

The problem is that intelligence is rarely clear-cut when so many actors with so many agendas are circling around the issue. Israel started the current round of discussion via an IDF general making the claim of chemical weapons use at a security conference; there have been media reports featuring dodgy Syrian defectors and even a recent claim that chemical weapons are being given to Hizbullah. On the other hand, there are also media reports questioning the accuracy of the claims. Others urge caution about extrapolating from pieces of indeterminate evidence. 

More recently, the UN, the one body that has any hope of being considered unbiased, has cast doubt on the evidence it has seen regarding the use of chemical weapons. What's more, a senior UN official stated yesterday that there is evidence that the rebels, not the government, have used sarin. Other reports are that victims of a previously claimed sarin gas attack have tested negative by Turkish medics. 

All of this misinformation, disinformation, rumour and innuendo makes it virtually impossible to establish the facts, so President Obama is entirely right to limit his involvement in the morass that is Syria.

In last week's press conference he was pretty clear about his thoughts regarding intervention:

And what we now have is evidence that chemical weapons have been used inside of Syria, but we don't know how they were used, when they were used, who used them; we don't have chain of custody that establishes what exactly happened. And when I am making decisions about America's national security and the potential for taking additional action in response to chemical weapon use, I've got to make sure I've got the facts.

At the moment Obama is obfuscating, as he must until he has established the level of certainty a commander-in-chief needs. What weapons were used? By whom? When and how were they employed? Was it centrally directed or the work of a local area commander? Or a battlefield mistake? 

It costs nothing to make a claim but the US is the one everybody looks towards for action. Obama will have his 2002 speech fresh in his mind when he decides how much weight to place on the intelligence reports, and how to react to them. In the meantime, he is trying to ensure that this is an international problem, and not America's alone.

Photo by Flickr user A6U571N.