The Guardian - China-Prominent Australians urge Albanese government to adopt activist middle power role to head off war between US and China
January 30, 2024 4 min 835 words
这篇报道呼吁澳大利亚政府在中美之间的紧张局势中采取“积极的中等大国”角色，以避免卷入潜在的大国冲突。签署这一呼吁的包括前外交部长、诺贝尔奖得主和学者等50名杰出澳大利亚人。他们主张在印太地区维持“平衡的力量”，促使美中相互尊重和承认对方作为平等的存在。文章认为，类似于1970年代尼克松和勃列日涅夫之间协商的缓和，是降低地区和全球和平繁荣威胁的关键。呼吁者强调，这不是主张“绥靖”，而是在与其他国家合作的基础上，为确保地区和平繁荣做出明智的努力。然而，他们承认在当前环境中实现这一目标并非易事。文章指出，澳大利亚可以通过与印太邻国密切磋商，倡导国际法和普世人权的尊重，专注于风险减少，强烈反对使用武力解决领土和其他国际争端，为改变这一局势做出贡献。报道显示，这一呼吁得到包括前南澳总理迈克·兰、前西澳总理卡门·劳伦斯、前绿党领袖鲍勃·布朗和社会正义倡导者蒂姆·科斯特洛在内的签署者支持。他们认为美中缓和有望带来军费削减、促使互利自由贸易的机会，并倡导“缓和台海紧张局势，双方接受对台海现状的无限期承诺”。最后，报道提到澳大利亚政府在努力“稳定”与中国的关系同时，也在推进与美英的AUKUS协议，计划获取核动力潜艇，以回应中国的军事建设。整体来看，这一呼吁反映了一些澳大利亚人对于应对美中紧张关系的担忧，主张通过外交手段维护地区和平稳定。
Australia must step up diplomatic efforts to “avert the horror of great power conflict” and reduce the risk of being dragged into a war between the US and China, according to 50 prominent Australians.
The group, which includes the former foreign ministers Bob Carr and Gareth Evans, is urging the Albanese government to play an “activist middle power” role to reduce tensions between Australia’s top security ally and its biggest trading partner.
In a statement published on Wednesday, the prominent Australians said they were “apprehensive these tensions may lead to direct military conflict, which would risk dragging Australia into war”.
“We support a balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region in which the United States and China respect and recognise each other as equals,” said the group, which also includes Nobel laureate Peter Doherty and former Liberal ministers Fred Chaney and Ian Macphee.
“A commitment from both sides to cooperative security, in which neither side demands absolute primacy – a new detente – is the key to reducing threats to both regional and global peace and prosperity.”
This detente – an easing of hostility or strained relations – “would be comparable to the accommodation negotiated in the 1970s between the United States and the USSR by Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev”, the group said.
The signatories to Wednesday’s statement include the former South Australian premier Mike Rann, the former Western Australia premier Carmen Lawrence, the former Greens leader Bob Brown, and social justice advocate Tim Costello.
They argued the proposal was “not about pacifism or appeasement” but “a sensible effort to ensure peace and prosperity in our region” in cooperation with other countries.
They acknowledged, however, that such an outcome would “not be easily or immediately achievable in the current climate”.
“Australia can contribute to changing that environment by renewing our commitment to an activist middle power diplomacy, conducted in close consultation with our key Indo-Pacific neighbours, which advocates respect for international law and universal human rights, focuses on risk reduction, and strongly discourages the use of force in resolving territorial and other international disputes,” they said.
Others appealing for detente include the publishing figure Louise Adler, former Socceroo Craig Foster, the English-Australian actor Miriam Margolyes, and the legal academic Larissa Behrendt.
They said potential benefits of a US-China detente included “relaxation of general political and military tensions with the opportunity to sharply reduce military spending through arms control agreements – and to enable a return to mutually beneficial free and open trade”.
The statement also advocated “de-escalation of tensions over Taiwan with acceptance by both sides of the need for open-ended commitment to the cross-strait status quo”.
Taiwan remains one of the most sensitive issues in the relationship between the US and China, with Beijing declaring the self-governed democracy is an inherent part of its territory.
The Chinese Communist party has repeatedly refused to rule out the use of force to achieve its long-held goal of “reunification”.
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The US and allies, including Australia, have warned against any threat or use of force to change the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.
The Albanese government, while working to “stabilise” the relationship with China, has repeatedly said Australia faces the most challenging set of strategic circumstances since the second world war.
Australia is pushing ahead with plans to acquire nuclear-powered submarines under the Aukus pact with the US and the UK, in part in response to China’s own rapid military buildup.
Carr, the foreign minister from 2012 to 2013 and an outspoken critic of Aukus, said it was “not possible to continue to play war games with the Americans and trade games with China and hope to live on in blissful prosperity”.
Evans, who was foreign minister from 1988 to 1996, said Australia “should strive to create an environment in which the two superpowers can cooperate on regional and global geopolitical problems such as climate change, the war in Ukraine, conflict in the Middle East, nuclear arms control, counter-terrorism, and cyber regulation”.
“Lasting peace is always best achieved with others, not against them,” Evans said.
“Of course we have to prepare for worst-case scenarios, but it is in Australia’s interests to bring diplomacy back to centre stage, resist policies of containment and confrontation of China, and promote a political accord between the United States and China that could help ease tensions in the South China Sea and over Taiwan and the Korean peninsula.”