This means, Wesley argues, that \u201cour leaders seem to believe that whatever the challenge, the solution was investing ever more heavily in the alliance with the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n
Review: Blind Spot: Southeast Asia and Australia\u2019s Future: Quarterly Essay 101 \u2013 Michael Wesley (Black Inc.)<\/p>\n
Trusting that another nation\u2019s foreign policies will somehow automatically align with our own \u2013 even if we knew what \u201cours\u201d actually were \u2013 is irresponsible and pusillanimous at the best of times. When Donald Trump is rupturing the rules-based international order and acting like a \u201cpredatory hegemon<\/a>\u201d, it is a foolhardy form of wishful thinking. <\/p>\n Wesley describes this a process of \u201cstrategic infantilisation\u201d. Little wonder that many in Southeast Asia view our efforts at \u201cengagement\u201d with scepticism. Like China, they view us as an appendage of America\u2019s grand strategy, with little capacity for independent thought, much less action. <\/p>\n We are where we are<\/p>\n We are a perennially anxious nation<\/a>, seemingly unable to come to terms with the reality of our geographic position. As an island continent a long way from the world\u2019s trouble spots, we might be forgiven for thinking we really are the \u201clucky country\u201d. As far as Australian policymakers are concerned, however, this means we are also a long way from our \u201cnatural\u201d allies and adjacent to countries that might threaten us. <\/p>\n Even Wesley subscribes to a version of this idea, albeit a very sophisticated version: \u201cwe are difficult to invade,\u201d he writes, \u201cbut relatively easy to coerce if hostile forces gain access to the islands to our north\u201d. <\/p>\n This is what makes our relationship with our immediate neighbours in Southeast Asia so important, he claims, especially when an Asian \u201cgreat power\u201d has emerged in our region.<\/p>\n When the great power in question is China, it is more accurate to say \u201cre-emerged\u201d. China dominated East Asia for centuries before European imperial expansion plunged it into a \u201ccentury of shame<\/a>\u201d. The resumption of its former role has a certain inevitability. <\/p>\n Wesley characterises this process as Beijing seeking to create a \u201csphere of deference\u201d. This means, in effect, that Southeast Asian states will \u201cagree to abide by Beijing\u2019s wishes in both domestic and foreign policy, where these are deemed by China to affect its regime security\u201d.<\/p>\n This is a nuanced and novel take on the fashionable \u201cspheres of influence<\/a>\u201d debate, which has gained traction in the wake of intensifying competition between China, the US and, to a lesser extent, Russia. <\/p>\n Wesley observes that our less powerful Southeast Asian neighbours are especially vulnerable to China\u2019s threats \u2013 and blandishments \u2013 at this historical juncture, because their \u201cgovernments are as disoriented as any by the Trump revolution\u201d.<\/p>\n Or as disoriented as any country except Australia, it seems. Even when the US violates international law, slaughters innocent civilians and assassinates or kidnaps leaders it doesn\u2019t like, our government remains remarkably unperturbed. It has suggested it \u201csupports<\/a>\u201d the bombing of Iran, for example. <\/p>\n Michael Wesley. No way with the USA<\/p>\n Australia\u2019s position may be entirely unsurprising, given its participation in every American war of choice. But it is important to recognise how difficult it makes regional relations.<\/p>\n To his credit, Wesley is clear-eyed and unsentimental about what Australia\u2019s unswerving, uncritical and frequently self-harming support of America\u2019s version of a \u201csphere of deference\u201d might mean. The US is starting to look remarkably like a \u201ctributary state<\/a>\u201d \u2013 like China, which maintains a relatively stable regional order in return for an acknowledgement of Chinese superiority. <\/p>\n The problem with the American version is that it is increasingly kleptocratic<\/a> and there is no guarantee peace will be ensured in return. As Wesley points out, this is a potentially major problem when \u201cour foreign and defence policy has a heliocentric quality: it is consistently shaped by the perceptions and strategies of our great ally\u201d. One of the many charms of Blind Spot is Wesley\u2019s ability to name \u2013 and analyse \u2013 emerging trends in a novel and instructive way. <\/p>\n An insight that isn\u2019t novel, but is rightly highlighted, is the way Australian leaders are bedazzled by their American counterparts in the annual schmoozathons known as the Ausmin talks<\/a>. These bilateral meetings between Australian ministers for foreign affairs and defence and the US secretaries of state and war, and other senior officials, are supposedly opportunities to coordinate policy positions. But, as Wesley observes, \u201cAustralia\u2019s role in steeling American resolve in Asia is a fast-perishing asset\u201d. <\/p>\n Australia\u2019s continuing over-investment in this asset, not least in the woefully ill-conceived and likely undeliverable AUKUS project<\/a>, means this is potentially a major problem. <\/p>\n This is unlikely to be acknowledged or even recognised in Canberra, and Wesley is right about the cause. Prospective policymakers and analysts, he observes, are subject to \u201ca process of intensive and sustained socialisation into the thought patterns and values of our major ally\u201d. This is \u201cvery difficult for an ambitious Australian official to avoid\u201d, according to Wesley, because career progression depends on a willingness to accept of existing assumptions.<\/p>\n This may spare our policymakers from the challenge of thinking independently, but the danger is that \u201cclose identification with US strategy to balance and deter China is a drag on influence and acceptance among our neighbours\u201d.<\/p>\n This is the nub of Wesley\u2019s overall argument: the interests and policies of great powers will inevitably differ from their less powerful alliance partners. If we reflexively align with an extra-regional power, it inevitably undermines Australia\u2019s claim to be a sovereign nation capable of making an independent contribution to regional diplomacy. <\/p>\n Hedging our bets<\/p>\n Stopping China from dominating Southeast Asia should be Australia\u2019s priority, especially because, as Wesley argues, \u201cshifting the regional status quo towards hostility to Australia\u2019s interests is arguably the most overlooked aspect of the China challenge in Australian official thinking\u201d. <\/p>\n Instead, we have \u201cplaced all our chips on a single bet: that the US strategy for facing down China will protect Australia\u2019s interests wherever they are threatened\u201d.<\/p>\n This was a foolish wager even when Barack Obama was in the White House, as his still unrealised US \u201cpivot\u201d<\/a> to Asia reminds us. Now it looks reckless and indefensible. Our ability to influence our Southeast Asian neighbours is at an \u201call-time low\u201d, argues Wesley, and they have noticed the sometimes \u201cpatronising quality to Australian entreaties\u201d. <\/p>\n Rather than attempting to tell Southeast Asian states what to do, Australia might think about adopting a strategy of hedging and non-alignment, in the style of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which promotes voluntarism, consensus and conflict avoidance. There are plainly limits to the effectiveness of the so-called \u201cASEAN way<\/a>\u201d. But Southeast Asia has been relatively peaceful. The great powers at least pay lip-service to the centrality of the ASEAN way when dealing with the region. <\/p>\n The eleven ASEAN states<\/a> are mostly middle powers, too, so we have more in common with them than we do with either the US or China. Perhaps ASEAN could be enrolled in a reset of international relations, along the lines suggested by Canadian prime minister Mark Carney<\/a>, with some pressure from similarly positioned states. <\/p>\n A defter, more flexible, non-aligned foreign policy might even give Australia and Southeast Asia the chance of playing one great power against another. For ASEAN states, writes Wesley, \u201cthe act of not choosing is seen as the ultimate act of agency and autonomy\u201d.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/file-20260316-57-ptl075.jpg\")
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