E&OE
11 September 2008
Indian Council of World Affairs Q & A
QUESTION: We thank you for the Australian support both for the IAEA Safeguards Agreement as well as the NSG waiver. Here is my question. We respect your laws as much as we respect our laws. Under your Atomic Energy Act, we understand your position that you are not in a position to supply uranium to countries which have not signed the NPT. However (inaudible), would you like to consider some such measure to enable Australia to have cooperation with us?
MR. SMITH: Thank you for that question. I would like to make some general remarks in response. Firstly, in any relationship between two great nations, there will be issues in respect of which there might be differing views, there might be even differences and the important thing is, the fundamentals of the relationship are such that whatever difference there is, that doesn't undermine or disturb those fundamentals. In some respects, this is the measure of the strength of that relationship and in the case of India's longstanding policy position of not to be a party to the NPT, Australia understands that and respects it. That is reciprocated by India who also understands Australia's longstanding party political position, in the case of my party, not to export uranium to a country that is not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This is not a policy aimed at India, but a longstanding party political position, a policy which is there to assist and support the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and non-proliferation in general.
Let me come to the Nuclear Suppliers' Group decision and, before that, the decision of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency in respect of the exemption for India and the India-United States Civil Nuclear Agreement. I think Australia adopted a constructive and positive approach in both of those meetings. We made it clear that we supported the consensus, we made it clear that when the decisions were made, we welcomed those decisions and we kept two things in mind when we came to our deliberations.
One was the non-proliferation benefits, which are clear because the Indian civil nuclear industry comes under the regulation or oversight of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is a good thing. And secondly, we also kept in mind the strategic significance or the importance of the arrangement to India and to the United States, and Indian officials have told me that they very much appreciate the positive and constructive approach that Australia took.
I think the NSG decision in particular, supportive of the exemption for India, was driven by three things. Firstly, even though India has not been a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, there has never been a suggestion that India has been the cause of proliferation to another nation state or another entity.
Secondly, I think, the NSG warmly appreciated the statement of the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Mukherjee on 5 September underlining India's longstanding commitment to non-proliferation and to nuclear disarmament.
Thirdly and most importantly, I think, what the decision reflected was an appreciation in the international community of the rise of India as a great power. If the request had been made of another nation state, I am not sure that the NSG would have been so persuaded. I think the decision is a very significant one which the international community will need to monitor so far as the consequences are concerned, particularly the international community's view of India taking its rightful place as a great power.
But I have made it clear so far as the export of uranium is concerned that Australia has a longstanding party policy position, which we will continue to adhere to and that is respected by the Indian Government just as the Australian Government respects India's longstanding policy position of not entering into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. I am not proposing to spend too much time in my formal meeting with Mr. Mukherjee, attempting to persuade India to sign the NPT. I understand and respect India's longstanding policy position.
To finish my response, I would also like to make this point as I did in my prepared remarks. The test of the relationship is not the attitude towards one particular mineral resource or commodity. Our relationship is much broader and deeper than that and quite understandably there has been a lot of focus and attention on a very significant decision in the NSG that Australia supported.
It is just one aspect of what is now emerging as a fundamentally changed relationship, the people-to-people contact, economic business, investment relations, the values and virtues that we share as two great nations and the adherence to parliamentary democracy, respect for pluralism, tolerance for freedom of religious expression, respect for the rule of law and the law of contract for intellectual property rights. The shared values and virtues reflect very much the complimentarity between our two nations.
And in any relationship we may take a different view on a particular thing. In one of my first meetings as Foreign Minister, I was in Indonesia, our Prime Minister was having a bilateral meeting with President Yudhoyono and Foreign Minister Wirajuda. Australia and Indonesia are close neighbours and partners and half way through the meeting, the Indonesian President said: "Prime Minister, you need to understand that Indonesia has a perfect relationship with Iceland. Though we have nothing in common, we have a perfect relationship. And with the President of Iceland, we have a wonderful relationship." The more you have things in common, the closer you are, the more complimentarity, the more likelihood of thinking about things on which we differ. That happens in families, in communities, between states, between nation states. The test is this: does the relationship endure whatever differing views you might have? And there is absolutely no doubt that the view of the Indian Government and the view of the Australian Government is that we are now on the verge of taking our relationship to an entirely new level. From Australia's perspective, to put our relationship with India at the frontline of international partnerships and relationships and in that great endeavour, we will not be deterred by things which from time to time we might not have precisely the same attitude or view.
QUESTION: My question is slightly different from the earlier question, but it relates to the NPT (inaudible)…progression on Article 6…?
MR. SMITH: If I can again make the point that Australia and India, from different perspectives or different positions, have both made substantial and honourable contributions to the cause of nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament. And I again make the point that there has never been a suggestion about horizontal proliferation from India to another nation state or another entity and along with what Australia and India have done in the past, I think, holds us in good stead.
I think in the run up to the 2010 NPT Review Conference, there is potentially a range of interesting views on issues which may be articulated. We have an international Commission jointly chaired by the former Foreign Minister Kawaguchi, Mr Evans and former Japanese Foreign Minister. It is not unlike the initiative of the former Indian Prime Minister, Mr Rajiv Gandhi in the 1980s. I think the international community will be forced to look very closely and carefully at the strategic impact of the NSG decision and how that fits into the NPT Review Conference, and I think the Evans Commission established by Australia with Japan, which India has been very supportive of, potentially can play a very useful role as a track-two dialogue mechanism to consider these issues.
It may well be that some would say that the decision about India changes the approach that nation states would take to that Review Conference, only time will tell, but certainly a constructive dialogue approach is the best way forward and Australia does not shy away from our long- term objective, which is the same as India shares, which is the abolition of all nuclear weapons and of course our short-term objective of enhanced non-proliferation and disarmament.
QUESTION: The safeguards agreement… (inaudible)…how does that balance with the US and China?
MR. SMITH: If you look at the sweep of this century as economic, strategic, political influence and power moved to the Asia-Pacific, what is the cause of that? The cause of that is the rise of China, the rise of India, and also the rise of the combined ASEAN economies and nations. There is an inexorable shift to the Asia-Pacific. That means, we have to adjust to those changed circumstances. In Australia's case, we want to have a much enhanced and significantly improved relationship with India. Australia has a very strong economic relationship with China and that has been growing over the last decade, largely driven by China's appetite for mineral and petroleum resources and my own State is a strong supplier of that.
But that emerging economic relationship with China has not been at the expense of other relationships. It has not been at the expense of our alliance with the United States. Australia has an alliance with the United States that remains an indispensable bedrock of our security and strategic arrangements. We also have a long-term, enduring economic, strategic and security partnership with Japan, and the increased economic relationship with China has not had an adverse impact on that. It is actually possible for a nation state's relationship with one nation state to grow and be enhanced and that is not at the expense of relationship with another nation state.
So, in my view, what is in Australia's interest, in India's interest and in our region and in the international community's interest, that Australia has a good relationship with the United States, with Japan, with China, with India and each of those nation states have a good relationship one to the other. It is unambiguously in Australia's national interest that China has a good relationship with India, that China has a good relationship with the United States, and United States has a good relationship with India. This is not a zero sum game, it's plus sum. The benefit which comes from enhanced bilateral relationships adds to the regional relationships and adds to multilateral relationships. And we want to take our relationship with India to the frontline of our international relationships. We don't even pause to think that could be at the expense of our relationship with the United States or with Japan or with China or indeed with the United Kingdom with whom we have the obvious historical relationship.
QUESTION: ……I would like to know the Indian community's influence in Perth. Can you also elaborate a little bit about your relationship with China and India…?
MR. SMITH: Can I start with the question about the Indians in my city of Perth. I am proud of the capital city of my home State. When people think in terms of migration to Australia, they think almost automatically about post World War II migration. In the case of Indians to Australia, particularly to Western Australia, this is not the case. The migration of Indians to Western Australia occurred in the period between the two World Wars and that has done two things. That has a number of things, but two things of significance.
Firstly, that migration ensured that Western Australia became and remained the premier hockey playing State of Australia and this morning, I went to the National Hockey Stadium and paid homage to the statue of Major Dhyan Chand and chanced my arm with a hit with some of your former Olympic players. I managed to receive an invitation to attend the World Cup in 2010 and the Commonwealth Games in 2010. And I was reminded of the fact that in the recent Olympic Games in Beijing, for the first time since 1928, India was not represented in hockey. This is a tragedy. Hockey has been a continuous Olympic sport since 1928 and India has been there with their hockey team at every Olympics, except the last one. This has to be rectified and Australia is ready to render whatever assistance it can, including the assistance of Dr. Charlesworth if that is required.
The second thing that it did was it made Western Australia more attuned to India. We are accustomed to looking west. I said in my remarks that I flew to Chennai, and that Perth and Chennai are two great Indian Ocean cities. So, it made Western Australia look more readily towards India. Now all of Australia needs to do that. And that is, if you like, a part of the fundamental underlying thesis of my paper that Australia needs to look west. Significant number of Indian students in Western Australia and Australia in general is a fantastic thing.
We can have a good relationship nation to nation, Minister to Minister. The thing in the end that cements and underpins the relations between two nations is the people-to-people exchanges. There is no better vehicle to people-to-people exchanges than education. About 70,000 young Indians are educated in Australia, they come back to India. From Australia's perspective, they are friends of Australia and ambassadors for Australia for life. So this is a terrific thing which we really encourage.
When it comes to the regional architecture, the Prime Minister, a few months ago, launched what he called the Asia-Pacific Community initiative. The rationale is quite straightforward. As significant influence and power moves to this region, we need to make sure that we get the regional architecture right, and there are some great deficiencies in the regional architecture.
The regional architecture works well and performs very good roles but there are deficiencies. India is not in APEC. The United States is not in the East Asia Summit. There is not one forum for the Asia-Pacific where all key interested parties in the same region convene in the same room at the same time and have a conversation about both economic and investment matters and also strategic and security matters. And, as power, economic and strategic shifts to our region, we have to be attuned and alive to that.
In my prepared remarks, I made the point that my counterpart Minister Mukherjee had made a speech in China which was not too far removed from that particular sentiment. I do not want to "verbal" my distinguished colleague…so far as our relationships with China, Japan and India are concerned, we don't envisage any of these relationships being at the expense of the other. On the contrary, from the regional strategic and security point of view, from the international strategic and security point of view, the better the relationship that one has with the other the more mutually reinforcing and beneficial it is, both for prosperity as well as for strategic and security reasons.
So we want to enhance our relationship with India; we want to take that to the frontline of our relationships. But we don't see that at the expense of any other relationship. Just as India and Australia move to enhance their relationship, we don't see that it impacts in any way adversely India's relationship with any other nation, whether that is New Zealand or China.
QUESTION: …. how would you justify your sale of uranium to China?
MR. SMITH: Our response to that is we have a long-standing commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This is of some decades standing and we don't want to do anything which we will see as undermining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is why I said both in my prepared remarks and in response to an earlier question that this is not a policy which is aimed at India. This is a policy where our long-standing, domestic, party political position has been that we don't export uranium to a country that is not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That is the longstanding adherence we have to that Treaty. It is a long-standing domestic party political position and that position continues as I said irrespective of the decision in the NSG.
QUESTION: What is your view about Israel and the Arabs settling their long-standing problem? And your views on Doha.
MR. SMITH: The first question in relation to the long- term enduring peace in the Middle East. Our position is that the only way for long- term, enduring peace in the Middle East is a two- nation solution. The right and respect for Israel to exist as a nation state and the right of Palestinians to have self-determination to form their own nation state.
When we came to office, we strongly supported the Annapolis peace process. Our concerns for humanitarian issues of the Palestinians were reflected by our very substantial contribution that we made to the Paris Donors Conference where we effectively doubled Australia's humanitarian and development assistance to the Palestinian people, not just immediate humanitarian assistance but also capacity building for future state institutions. We hope very much that the peace process would come to a successful solution, but we don't hold our breath in terms of time. But the only, in our view, sensible approach which might come to a peaceful, long-term, enduring solution is a two-state solution.
On Doha, we were very disappointed that the Doha Round didn't come to a successful conclusion, but we don't discount the possibility that life may not be breathed back into that round before the end of this year. A number of Trade Ministers of countries have been in discussion to see whether it is possible to bring that Round back. It was on a quite narrow point that India went for talks and our Trade Minister Simon Crean has been in conversation with Mr. Kamal Nath about these matters.
Australia is of the strong view that trade liberalization is a very effective way of maximising economic growth. It is economic growth, which, in the end, brings prosperity to big farmers or small farmers. And this way, a poor farmer may become a rich farmer through economic growth and his capacity in a growing market. So, we are a long-standing supporter of trade liberalisation. We understand that these things are often difficult as countries adjust to their domestic circumstances. Australia has had to make difficult adjustments in the past as a result of reforms we implemented in the 1980s. But our very strong view is that greater the breadth and openness comes to the market, the more chance for our farmers to grow in whatever countries they are in.
Here, I would just like to make a general point about agriculture. I think one of the emerging issues of the next decade will be food and food security. We have a great potential of partnership between Australia and India. And if we proceed on the basis of our efforts to combat climate change and drought, we will see the world dealing with the same or indeed a smaller acreage.
The solution has to be not just annual bouts of immediate humanitarian assistance on food shortage, but the solution has to be increasing the yield from our crops. That means, research, development, adaptation techniques, educating the farmers with science and technology, and the capacity of farmers to take greater yields.
Yesterday, I went to Hyderabad and I went to ICRISAT, the international agriculture research institute. Some fantastic work is being done there to increase the productive acreage and increase the yield for Indian farmers. The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research Institute (ACIAR) is playing a role in that. As our farmers and institutions do, again from my home State of Western Australia.
So there is a lot that we can do in the agricultural research area to enhance our productive capacity with adapting our crops to semi-arid conditions, using hybrid varieties to adapt to pesticides, to adapt to changing drought and environmental conditions. And I think this is one area the potential for partnership between Australia and India is very strong.
[Ends]
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