Foreign Policy since the Election of Kevin Rudd in 2007 - Essay Example

To what extent has foreign policy changed since the election of Kevin Rudd in 2007? Name Institution Tutors name Grade course Date To what extent has foreign policy changed since the election of Kevin Rudd in 2007? Australia foreign policies from 2007 to date have significantly changed from the past policies due to Kevin Rudd ambitions. His policies seek to shape Australia role in addressing a number of urgent international challenges that has been affecting the past governments. This challenges include, creation of new global and regional institutions, coming up with new order of nuclear disarmament and successful negotiation of new global methods to address climate change. He dominates the formulation of Australia foreign policies more strongly than any other prime minister in the past. He becomes the prime minister with a well developed world view centered on the outcome of an Asia pacific century. His policies include strong element of continuity and his government managed good relations with the country key partners effectively. In his tenure as a shadow foreign affairs minister, he formulated labor party foreign policies in three pillars namely; engagement with the united nation, engagement with Asia, and engagement with United States allies (Gyngell & Michael 2007). Kevin Rudd joined Australia governance for the first time in 1981 and served in the foreign affairs department until 1988 (Marr & David 2010). During his tenure in the foreign affairs department, he learned matters of foreign affairs and governance in the country. After the 2001 election, he was prompted to the opposition front bench and was appointed foreign affairs shadow minister by his labor party. He then served as a shadow foreign affairs minister from 2001 to 2005. As he was serving as a shadow foreign affairs minister, the issue of Iraq invasion by bush administration came in. The matter was supported by the Howard administration but it was strongly opposed by the labor party lead by Rudd. His experience in making policies and parliamentary performance during American war in Iraq made him popular in foreign policies and his stand as a strong leader. During Howard and Rudd leadership, Australia foreign policy was characterized by bipartisan activism in Asia, this activism took place on the back of prosperous economy and solid parliamentary majority. Part of this activism was as a result of government officials like Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott not taking the matters of foreign affairs ministry seriously. Their passions, strengths, and experience were more on domestic emphasis since circumstances demands a lot of heavy domestic emphasis. A lot of backlog of complex and politically fraught problems requires a lot of attention for example macroeconomic management, post-crisis and post-fiscal stimulus, carbon pricing, mining taxes, and sectoral issues totally take over the political agenda living out the foreign policies. In his foreign policies, he stopped Australia from following Canada’s disappearing act in Asia which was being done by the past governments. He moved country foreign policies in to being disproportionately active and influencing other countries in focusing and moving forward regional agenda. He made the country play a crucial role in middle power by pushing successfully the reform agenda of regional architecture to the top and having it taken over by the ASEAN is an example of his success (Sisodia & Krishnappa 2009). Canada and Japan used to be active in regional matters before but of late the government affairs has been taken over by domestic issues hence making the region to be reliant on countries such as Australia and South Korea to assist in moving forward the region common interest. As a result of tremendous changes happening across the Asian region, it creates an urgent need for collective engagement on regional matters which Rudd get involved strongly by opening foreign policies and bringing many countries into engagement. Asia is not in a position of having too many constructive policy activists side-lined at the same time. He encouraged United States to resume its leadership role in the world and be supported by other countries which was his third pillar policies he made when he was serving as a shadow foreign affairs minister. He encouraged other countries to renew united nation and Bretton Woods institutions. He was seeking for the renewal of existing institutions on global leadership from within and to render them effective for the recent time. He implemented policies that lead to fresh development and positive movement in the direction of global action on climatic change. He encouraged the Japanese government on their ambitious program to bring down the green house gases by 25 percent by 2020. He worn the election on the platform that he will strongly curd green house gases and expand renewable and when he was elected the prime minister, his first act was to sign the Kyoto protocol. He was among the leaders who attended Copenhagen summit to push for substantial agreement on how to handle global warming. Before, he has been and he will be integral in the process of avoiding climate catastrophe. He is a leader who is so much motivated in the issue of climate change since Australia is vulnerably to droughts that occur frequently. Among his foreign policies, he wanted other countries to come up with a national schedule of programs like cap and trade and low carbon regulations. He wanted developed nation to specify the amount by which they mean to reduce the green house gas emission by. In matters of security and defense, Howard administration adopted a bandaid approach method by trying to fix the problems in the Asian region. Rudd view Australian foreign policies as more of reactive than proactive, last second rather than long-term, and military action rather than economic action. Rudd concerns revolve around Islamic movement like Jemaah Islamiah which is operating in Indonesia, police and military problems in east Timor, ethnic violence in Vanuatu, a continuous of government withdraw in Fiji and a constitution crisis brought together with unprecedented street violence in Tonga will make Australia unsafe. This prompted Rudd to change the Australia foreign policies towards listening more to the United Nation before taking any action as stated in his three pillars. During his term in opposition, he strongly opposes war in Iraq arguing that nobody was sure that Saddam Hussein posses weapons of mass destruction and during the war in Iraq, his arguments made him popular to an extend of being elected the prime minister. And according to multinational force Iraq agreement with the current government of Iraq, Rudd’s party plans the withdrawal of all Australian forces contingent to be complete by 2009. In relation to the war in Afghanistan, when he was the shadow minister, he stated that Afghanistan was the centre of terror since many of Jemaah Islamiah’s terrorist who have attacked Australia before was found to be trained and financed by the opium in Afghanistan. In his leadership, he continued to support and strengthens the war against Al-Qaida and Taliban in Afghanistan despite the growing resistance by the people of Australia due to growing number of casualties of innocent civilians and Australia forces. In 2009, he committed an extra four hundred and fifty troops to Afghanistan bringing up the total number of Australian troops in Afghanistan to 1550. This shows how Rudd policies on war against terror was strengthen and it is a change from the past policies since Rudd is more committed in war against terror than the past administration. He ends the ‘pacific solutions’ where people arriving in the country illegally by boat were being shipped to some remote parts of the pacific. When he took over the leadership, expectations were so high among the citizens especially in the policies relation with china. He was known by many as Asian literate that means he understands more about a country like china and he will be in a position of getting with Chinese policy makers and due to the complexity in relation between the two countries, it was not possible for an individual to guarantee the success. In his policies towards china, he was sensitive to accusations that he might be accommodating to china and that he must take a strong position against the economic and human rights issues, so his policies against china was not loosen as expected by many but vice versa he strengthen its policies on economy and human rights against china. Howard made some errors in his administration in relation to the way he relates to some Asian countries and he was so much attached to US. As a result of Australia being a very important country in Asia in terms of raw materials for much of the region and significant strategic actor, the citizens of Australia and neighboring countries need to get on at some levels even if a number of these relationships are not characterized by the sort of closeness that distinguishes relations with United States. The emphasis the Howard placed in united state government was too much, when he took offer the office as prime minister, he said that he needed to rebalance foreign relations, improve ties with United States and emphasizes less on Asia. But when Rudd came to power he changed the policies by emphasizing in Asian countries the way Howard emphasizes on United States, but in relation to United States, the strong relations Howard build was not altered by Rudd, he continued maintain strong ties with US. One of the first things Rudd motioned when he came to power was that United States was a key bilateral partner and it will remain that way. Since 2007, the relationship with the region and south-east Asia specifically is in good shape. In the past, there has been a lot of friction with Indonesia and Malaysia and of late it has reduced following little influence. This was reduced as a result of Mahathir’s leaving and Indonesia became democratized which were major pluses for the Australian government to see reduced instability in the region. Rudd engagement with Southeast Asia made Australia to be recognized that they want to engage with the region. Regardless of the past miscalculation and underestimation of sensitivities on certain issues, there is now a proper understanding that Australia is a significant partner in the region and foreign affairs officials in Rudd administration put a lot of effort to get on. Rudd supports this because South-east Asia is Australia immediate neighbor and if anything happens in those countries, it will be vital for overall strategic position of Australia. Interestingly, it is not the grand strategic aspects of this relationship that have proved significant though also it is not the treat of invasion or the possibility of cutting supply lines has been the issue with South-east Asia, but the problems associated with issues of terrorism and people smuggling which Rudd has strongly fought. These issues require intelligence and diplomatic corporation rather than grand alliance or massive defense spending. Rudd’s administration support millennium development goals and committed itself to increasing Australia overseas budget to 0.5% of cross national income by 2015 for the first time in the history of Australia government. To make Australia to be more accepted in the region and open more interaction between the people of Australia and the region, he has tried to make the country become the most literate country in the region. Part of this involves increasing the teaching of Asian languages in Australian schools. In his visit to Port Moresby in 2008, he started new pacific partnership for development; this was an aid agreement with a strong component of mutual responsibility in return for the rise in Australian aid funds. At the same year in august, Rudd announced the introduction of a 3 years pilot seasonal worker scheme to benefit up to 3000 workers from Papua New Guinea, Tonga, and Kiribati to be given work in Australia horticulture industry for up to eight months. This grate acceptance of guest workers was a big departure from the past Australian foreign policies In conclusion, his leadership was viewed by many as a leadership with the best foreign policies in Australia ever. He managed to address past international challenges that has been affecting Australia past governments. The challenges that include creation of new global and regional institutions, coming up with new order of nuclear disarmament and successful negotiation of new global methods to address climate change. He did this by applying his three pillar strategy of engaging with the united nation, Asia, and United States allies. His leadership was developed around worldview centered on the outcome of an Asia pacific century. For example In 2009, he brought together many of his thoughts about Asia in his proposal to start discussion about the creation of Asia pacific community by 2020 because according to her view, the structures of co-operation in the Asia pacific region were not enough to cope with the many challenges the region is facing as global economy and military power continues to move to different parts of the world. As a result of this, Asian leaders now have a chance to discuss economic, political, and security issues in one forum. References Allan Gyngell& Michael Wesley, 2007, Making Australian foreign policy, Cambridge University Press, Sydney. Eric Beecher, 2009, The Best Australian Political Writing 2009, Melbourne Univ. Publishing, Melbourne. Evan S. Medeiros, 2008, Pacific currents: the responses of U.S. allies and security partners in East Asia to China's rise, Rand Corporation, New York. Marr, David. P Trip, 2010, The Political Journey of Kevin Rudd, Black Inc., Melbourne. Kevin Rudd, 2008, Building on ASEAN's success: towards an Asia-Pacific community, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Tokyo. N. S. Sisodia & V. Krishnappa, 2009, Global Power Shifts and Strategic Transition in Asia, Academic Foundation, Sydney. Robert Manne, 2008, Dear Mr Rudd: Ideas for a Better Australia, Black Inc, Melbourne. Weller, Patrick, & Kevin Rudd, 2010, The Making of a Prime Minister, Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press. Read More