Asian-Pacific region

The recent visit to Australia by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the forthcoming foreign policy White Paper should provide an opportunity for Australia to re-examine its support for the State of Israel. There is however, every indication that the current and past levels of support will endure. The most puzzling question is: why is this the case?

For several years, the Asia-Pacific states have been concerned with the confrontation between China and a number of different states in the region over the South China Sea (SCS). China’s opponents are the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that are seeking support from the other states constituting the association. However, the association also includes supporters of China, and attempts to turn ASEAN into a site for the resolution of the SCS issue have failed several times.

A report in the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) has raised several issues affecting Australia’s defence and foreign policies, in particular as those policies relate to China, our largest trading partner by a significant margin.

One of the many factors that attract foreign partners to Russia is cooperation in the military technical sphere. Russian technology is highly appraised worldwide. The Yak-130 is one of the sources of pride of the defence industry of the Russian Federation.

Twenty years ago, eight Arctic states established the Arctic Council (AC) to jointly develop the Arctic Region and preserve the environment and culture of the indigenous peoples. Initially, Denmark, Iceland, Canada, Norway, Russia, the United States, Finland and Sweden held memberships in the Council. Later, other states with interests in the Arctic Region joined the AC. India, China, Singapore, South Korea and Japan were granted the observer status by AC several years ago.

In 2013 President Xi Jinping announced that China would be embarking upon what has become the world’s largest infrastructure building program. Known in China as the One Belt, One Road, but more popularly referred to as the New Silk Roads, the plan is to create two major trade corridors, maritime and rail.

The Free Trade Zone Agreement between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) came into effect on October 5, 2016. It was signed by the heads of the governments of the SRV and all the EAEU Member States – Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Russia in May 2015, but it could only come into effect after its ratification by the Parliaments of the countries listed above.

The release of the Chilcot Report into the circumstances under which the United Kingdom took part in the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 has raised fresh questions of how Australia came to join the unfortunately named “coalition of the willing.”