PRIME MINISTER
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY FMAARrnrn UNTIL. DELIVERY
" AUSTRALIA'S SECURITY IN ASIA"
THE ASIA LECTURE
THE ASIA-AUSTRALIA INSTITUTE
UNIVERSI: TY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
SYDNEY, 24 KCAY 1991
M4r Justice Samuels, ( Chancellor)
Professor Burt, ( Vice-Chancellor)
Professor Fitzgerald, ( Director, Asia-Australian Institute)
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We are meeting tonight on the shores of Sydney Cove. This
is not where I expected to give this, the first Asia lecture
for the Asia-Australia Institute. But it is appropriate to
the occasion, ad to wht I will have to say.
The Asia lectures, and the Asia-Australia Institute itself,
have been established to address one of the truly
foundational issues of Australia's national life: our
relationship with Asia.
That issue has been with us, dogging our thoughts and
actions, literally since our foundation since the First
Fleet put ashore the first European settlers at this place
in 1788. Since that time, while we have built the city and
the nation which surrounds us, we have been struggling to
reconcile the facts of our geography with the preoccupations
of race, of history, and of sentiment.
Much of our history as a nation is the history of this great
intellectual struggle. At one level, that struggle is
itself an essential and enduring element of our national
identity; our evolution as a nation will always reflect the
interaction of the European heritage of many of our
population with the Asian and Pacific environment in which
we live.
But at another level a very important level the issues
are ones to be addressed, resolved, and put behind us. We
have already, or almost, done this in some vital areas: we
are drawing closer and closer to Asia.
We were tragically reminded of that this week, with the
intense personal and national shock we felt at the
assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. 7615
-jot
14= LOw'
A most important step in drawing closer to Asia is that we
have accepted, and welcomed, the fact that people from Asia
form part, and most likely an increasing part, of our
population, and that Asian culture will, likewise, form an
increasing part of our national heritage.
The transformation of our national attitudes towards the
people of Asia over the past thirty years is one of the most
important developments in the two centuries of European
settlement on this continent.
No less important has been the transformation of our
economic relationship_ with Asia. Indeed, this more than
anything else provides the enduring fibre the substance
for the change in attitude. We live on the edge of the most
vibrant economic region in the world. No element of our
international policy over the coming years will be more
important than maintaining the momentum of Australia's
economic enmeshment in the Asia-Pacific re ~ on. This
audience will be well aware of the steps we have taken to
get Australia and our neighbours working more closely
together in the economic area, and you will understand that
we will continue to make this a major priority.
But there are other aspects of our relationship with Asia
which need more work and fresh thinking if we are to adapt
our attitudes, expectations and policies to the reality of
our geographical relationship with Asia, and to the reality
of Asia itself at the end of the twentieth century.
Tonight I am going to talk about one of these aspects; our
strategic relationship w! ith Asia. In doing so, I am building
on my Government's established strategic and foreign
policies, and particularly on the work of our Foreign
Minister, Senator Evans, which he set out in his statement
on regional security in December 1989. I regard that
statement as a major step in the development of an
intellectual framework for the formulation and
implementation of policies which will enhance Australia's
securitv in its region.
In particular, while I will be speaking this evening mainly
about the strategic and military aspects of security, my
comments should be seen in the context of Senator Evans'
discussion in his 1989 statement of the mZDlti-dimensCinil
nature of security policy. He demonstrated in detail how
maintaining Australia's security requires active policy
beyond the military and strategic areas. These include
diplomacy, economic co-operation, development and disaster
assistance, and exchanges of people and ideas.
Tonight, I will focus on the strategic dimension of our
re gional security policy because in that area we have in
recen-t years, and even in recent months, seen changes in
global and regional affairs which require us to reassess our
strategic relationship with Asia.
76 16e
3.
The last five years have seen the most profound changes in
global strategic circumstances in nearly half a century:
the end of the Cold War, and particularly over the past
year the invigoralifon of the United Nations to the point
where we can hope it: will become the instrument of global
order envisaged by its founders.
The Soviet Union has abandoned its attempt to compete with
the United States far global influence. Its energies are
now, and are likely to remain, absorbed instead in an
attempt to contain aind repair the damage inflicted on its
own political and economic structures by the strain of that
unequal competition, and by the system of government which
drove it. There is room for doubt that they will succeed.
Whether they do or riot, we can be confident that the days
are now passing in which the strategic affairs of our region
were so fundamentally influenced by the global competition
between the Soviet Union and the United States.
The rise of the UN Is an important consequence of this
historic change in world power. It was not an inevitable
consequence. The success of the UN process in confronting
the invasion and occupation of Kuwait last year has
far-reaching consequences for the development of the new
international system..
And Asia itself has emerged as the most economically dynamic
region in the world.
My question tonight, then, is simply this what do these
changes mean for our strategic relations with Asia, and for
our strategic role in Asia? My answer is that they mean, at
the very least, profound changes in our attitudes and
expectations. Australians have traditionally feared Asia. The security
they have sought has been security from Asia. But the time
for that way of thinking has passed. Instead of seeking
security from Asia, we should seek security in and with
Asia. We should seek enhanced security through enmeshment
in an Asian security system, as we have sought enhanced
prosperity through enmeshment in Asia's economic system. We
must think of ourselves as part of an Asian security system
which is beginning, -very slowly, to evolve to meet Asia's
new strategic circums3tances.
I should explain that when I use the term " Asian security
sytm I do not mean an organisation, or even an ordered
group of organising principles. I mean rather a set of
arrangements and relationships which together maintain
regional security. Some of these arrangements will be
formal, others informoal. Some will be bilateral, others
trilateral or multilateral. Some of the relationships will
have no explicit manvfestation; they might be tacit in
nature but nonetheless effective. Some of these
arrangements and understandings will overlap, providing 76G17
separate layers of security. Collectively, in their
workings and effect they justify the term " system*.
I want now to look at the shape of the emerging Asian
security system, looking first at the problem the system
must address, then at the elements of the system, and
thirdly at the role Australia can play in it.
The geographical limits to the problem can be easily
defined; Australia's area of primary strategic interest
covers Indo-China, South East Asia and the South West
Pacific. Our direct strategic interests can be strongly
affected by developments within that area; clearly our
broader security policy which goes beyond defence policy
as such must encompass the regions and nations which stand
on the periphery of this area of primary strategic interest;
China, India, the Korean Peninsula, Japan, the US and the
Soviet Union.
The key issue in the security of the Asian region over the
coming years will be the emergence of a number of
increasingly powerful regional states.
Many of those states are, in their present form, quite
recent. In 1945, as Malcolm Fraser once pointed out, there
were only four sovereign states within five thousand miles
of Australia including New Zealand. By 1969 there were
seven times that number.
In the first 25 years after the Pacific war, the colonial
structure of Asia disintegrated, creating a complex region
of independent sovereign states. In the last 25 years,
these nations have developed politically, economically and
technically many of them at an astonishing rate. Whereas
years ago Australia looked out on a region of politically
unstable, economically under-developed, and technically
unsophisticated nations, we now see a region characterised
by increasingly stable, prosperous and technologically
advanced neighbours.
It is essential to understand that this progress in our
region has overwhelmingly been to Australia's benefit, not
only economically but strategically as well.
Let me take a specific example close to home. In th~ e early
1960s, a politically turbulent and economically stagnant
Indonesia posed a serious threat to the stability of our
rFegfin,-and to our own security. Australia felt it needed to
respond to that threat by substantially increasing its
defence capabilities. Since the establishment of the New
Order in Indonesia under President Suharto, we have seen and
greatly welcomed the passing of the threat posed by the
Indonesia of the early 1960s, and the development of a
stable, unified and rapidly developing neighbour able indeed
to make a major contribution to the security of our region.
The territorial integrity, political stability and economic
prosperity of Indonesia is a very important contribution to
Australia's, and the regicn's, security.
I might add that I was interested and pleased to see
these thoughts being reflected from the other side of the
Timor Sea, in an interview given recently by Indonesia's
newly designated Ambassador to Australia, Mr Sabam Siagian.
What is true of Indonesia is, on the whole, true also of the
region. Australia's security has been strengthened as many
of our neighbours have grown more stable and more
prosperous. Notwithstanding this fact, there is no doubt that the
strategic potential of the nations in our region has grown,
and will continue to grow, as a result of the developments I
have been describing.
AS they become richer:, they can devote more resources
to defence capabilities.
As they have become more stable, they are able to
reduce the resources they have devoted to domestic
order and security.
As they have become more advanced technologically, they
are increasingly able to develop and operate
sophisticated weapons.
These developments are now well established in Asia.
The role of a regional security system for Asia is to make
sure that the growing strategic potential of the nations of
the region does not disturb the peace between them. Such a
system would have three main elements: the nations of the
region themselves, the United States, and the United
Nations. You will notice that each of those elements
reflects one of the three fundamental changes which I
described earlier.
Let me take the United Nations f irst. It has been much in
our thoughts in recent months. The end of the Cold War has
borne double fruit. Not only has the threat of global
nuclear war been lifted, but the ideal of international
co-operation to keep the peace, which has lain dormant
through the long decades of the Cold War, has now,
unexpectedly, sprung to productive life.
From the day Kuwait was invaded on the second of August last
year, Australia viewed the Gulf crisis as a vital test of
the way in which the international community would work
together in the post-Coldl War era. It challenged us to
determine whether the international community had the
capacity and the will collectively to resist aggression; and
whether the United Nations' potential as the vehicle for
such cooperative effort could be realised.
In the event, thanks to Saddam Hussein, the test proved to
be a harsh one, both for the UN and for its members. The
United Nations was required to sanction the use of armed
force against a member state for the first time in its
history. Member states, including Australia, had to take
the terrible decision to commit their forces and their
people to military operations in which many on both sides
might be killed.
But the test was passed, the price mercifully smaller than
we feared was paid, and as a result the international
community has sent a clear message to would-be aggressors
everywhere that the principles of the UN will be respected,
or they will be enforced. That has made the world a safer
place for everyone.
We in Australia always understood that the issues being
fought out in Kuwait were just as important for our region
as they were for the people of the Middle East. On the 21st
of August I said:
iIraejs invasion of Kuwait is a tragically clear proof
of the new dangers which exist, just as those of the
Cold War thankfully fade into history. And those
dangers are not unique to the Middle East. Wherever we
find big armies, national rivalries and reckless
leaders, we will find a risk of major war. It is not
inconceivable that those conditions could emerge in
Asia in the coming years.'
Of course we cannot simply assume that the UN will manage
any future crisis as well as it handled Iraq's invasion of
Kuwait. In every case the UN's effectiveness will depend on
the support it is given. Nevertheless, the evolution of the
UN as an effective instrument to counter aggression will
make a major contribution to the security of the Asian
region, and an essential backdrop to and in the extreme an
element of any regional security system or framework.
At the more immediate level, the UN already has a major role
in addressing regional problems such as Cambodia. As the
Cambodian example shows, effective engagement of the UN in
regional issues may need to be fostered by innovative
activity by regional countries themselves. The initiative
of Gareth Evans in developing and articulating the UN's role
in a Cambodian settlement has been critical in bringing the
Cambodian problem to the point where, with a little
commitment by all parties, the UN can broker an historic
breakthrough. We will look to the UN to do more in the region in the
future. For example, we believe that consideration should
be given to seeking UN support for efforts to contain
nuclear proliferation in the region.
The second major element in the regional security system is
the United States.
76; 20
Australia's view, and a view that I believe is widely shared
within the region, is that a key to maintaining a stable
security system in Asia, and providing the foundation of
security as the region evolves, is the continued strategic
engagement of the United States in the western Pacific.
US engagement in the region is, and will remain, important
to Australia's strategic and security interests, and
important to the security interests of the region as a
whole. To understand that, consider for a moment its
opposite the United States walking away, or even worse
being forced away from a profound involvement in the
region. We would feel, and we would be, much less secure,
as I will explain. A corner-stone of Australian strategic
policy will therefore be to maintain and assist the US
strategic presence in oui' region.
The US has been strategically engaged in the Western Pacific
for nearly a century now, and for nearly as long Australia
has sought to maintain and expand that commitment.
But over the past century, the nature and rationale of the
US role in our region has changed often. Clearly the end of
the Cold War is prompting another re-examination of that
role, both in Washington and in the region. It is
appropriate, and indeed important, that this should be so.
Australia's interest in the continued strategic engagement
of the US in our region is best served by a durable
arrangement. That requires a clear understanding, in
Washington and in the region, of what that engagement means,
and of why it is maintained in contemporary strategic
circumstances. I believe that on both sides of the Pacific there is a clear
understanding of the importance of the US role, and a clear
commitment to maintaining it. But the issue is too
important to be taken for granted.
In the US, the challenge is to explain why they should
continue to spend large sums supporting its role in the
Western Pacific now that the Cold War is over. There is no
doubt that for the past 45 years the US has seen its
commitment to the security of our region primarily as a
contribution to its global containment of communism and of
Soviet military power. Although the Soviets remain a
significant Pacific military power, the likelihood that that
power will be used aggres: 3ively is no greater in Asia than
it is in Europe. That may seem to provide an argument for
the US to pull out, and we should expect that some US voters
and their representatives in the Congress will put that
argument pretty vigorously. We must accept that for most
Americans, Asia will probably loom less large than Europe
and the Middle East. The American administration knows
better; American business knows better; but not all
Americans know better. The Pacific is a much wider stretch
of water than the Atlantic. 7621
And we must recognise that the Pacific seems all the wider
to Americans who feel that their nation's prosperity is
being undermined by the relentless and, to some eyes, unfair
competition of Japan and other Asian economies.
Against those arguments, others can be advanced to support
the maintenance of the US effort in the Western Pacific,
Chief among these is that the US cannot afford to risk the
possibility that the fastest growing and soon probably the
most productive region of the world in which the US has
huge economic interests might slide into armed chaos -the
way Europe did twice this century. There are no signs yet
of an emerging expansionist power in our region, but should
one emerge, the US military presence would be a powerful
countervailing force well disposed towards the interests of
the peaceful nations of the region. Even without
elaborating such dramatic scenarios, the reassurance
currently provided by the United States encourages regional
powers to refrain from acquiring military force capabilities
of a size that would prove destabilising and set off a
regional arms race.
Those who hope to see the US presence sustained can also
place some faith in the persistence in America of the
internationalist spirit which has simply accepted, for
years, the responsibilities which great power brings to
great nations. The US achievement in assembling a mighty
coalition during the Gulf War should give us all renewed
confidence in its capacity to take a leading role in
resisting aggression.
Lastly, I know America understands that we do not ask them
to undertake our defence for us. As far as Australia is
concerned, our policy of self-reliance explicitly commIts us
to take responsibility for the defence of our own territory.
And I believe that many other nations in the region would
take a similar view. I an struck, for example, by the
parallels between Australia's self-reliant defence posture
and Indonesia's doctrine of national resilience.
We are confident, therefore, that it accords both with the
interests and with the disposition of the United States to
continue to play a major strategic role in this region a
role it has played in various forms for a century.
Certainly the administration of President Bush himself a
man with long-standing interests in our region has made it
clear that it intends the US to stay in the Western Pacific
for a long time to come. The administration ha-s been
careful to plan necessary reductions in US military
deployments so that they have the minimum effect on
America's ability to play a broader role. They have been
vigorous in arguing, both in the region and in Washington,
that such a role should be maintained. And they have begun
the important and complex task of defining just what the US
role should be in the years and decades ahead, and how it
should be achieved.
76i; 22
The most vivid expression of US thinking about the nature of
its future role has come from the Secretary of Defense, Dick
Cheney. He has spoken of the US acting as a ' balancing
wheel' in the region. I think that is entirely apt. In a
region of rapidly growing nations, the surest guarantee that
power will not be misused 1: 3 the confidence that a larger
power is interested in the peace of the region.
Of course this is not an entirely new role in the region for
the United States. Even du: ring the Cold War, our neighbours
recognised and welcomed the constraints that the US presence
provided on the ambitions of regional powers. Certainly
Australia has always seen this role as fundamental to our
interest in maintaining that presence. The difference is
that what was once a secondary purpose for the US, though a
primary purpose for Australia and others, has now moved to
become the primary purpose f~ or the US as well.
As for the way in which its role could be fulfilled, the US
is inclined to continue to work through the network of its
existing defence links in the region. Again, that seems
entirely sensible. Those liLnks, including the long-standing
alliance between the US and Australia, already provide the
US with the political and st~ rategic infrastructure required
to support its security commitment to our region.
But it is clear that for tho US the task of defining and
implementing its new role ini the region is not yet complete.
We will continue to watch that process with great interest,
and to help where we can.
One area in which planning necessarily incomplete is in
the support the US can expect from nations in the region.
In the Philippines, to take the most extreme example, US
access to bases remains uncertain. We strongly believe that
it is in interests both of t~ he Philippines and of the region
for the US to retain such access, and we hope that will be
recognised by the Philippines leadership when making their
decisions about this important issue.
Elsewhere US allies and others recognise the important role
that the US must play in the security of our region, and
enthusiasm for the US presence is growing. Singapore for
instance has offered support: to US ships and aircraft.
But it remains the case thait the US will not be able finally
to determine the role they will play in the region until the
region itself has worked out: its own ideas. Clearly the
evolution of the US role in the region will need to reflect
the development of the region's own ideas about regional
security.
This needs to be a process of interaction, with the US and
others in the region working out their ideas in close
consultation, and in full knowledge of one another's
thinking. This should not be too difficult, because the
region and the US already have deeply interlinked histories
and interests. But clearly this process requires the region 7623
itself to develop its own ideas. This is something it is
only just beginning to do.
Our region does not have well-developed habits of joint
action or even of dialogue on security issues. Nonetheless
there is a growing recognition that the great changes of
recent years require the nations of the region to develop
the habit of consultation and dialogue. This is beginning
to happen, and we welcome it. The principle medium for such
discussion will of course be the network of consultations on
strategic issues between individual nations in the region.
But there is also scope to develop multilateral security
dialogue. This can best be done by building on existing
multilateral regional forums. ASEAN meetings, including the
post-ministerial conferences, have recently begun to provide
excellent opportunities for such discussions.
We do not think it is appropriate or necessary at this sta3ge
to propose the establishment of new regional forums or
institutions for discussing security issues. It is not yet
possible to say whether such forums or institutions would
have a useful role. In particular we must recognise that we
cannot translate the emerging European security architecture
into our own region. The mosaic of cultures, cleavages and
conflicts in Asia is much too complex for that.
Rather there is reason to hope that a regional consensus
about the shape of a regional security system will gradual. ly
emerge through an increasing pattern of bilateral and
multilateral informal discussions.
We would see this gradual, informal approach as more
promising than more formal proposals such as the one made
recently for a meeting of the region's five ' great powers'.
This informal approach is already yielding results. For
example, I believe that a regional consensus is already
beginning to emerge about one of the key issues in the
development of a regional security order the role of
Both inside Japan and within the region as a whole, it has
become clear that the -changed strategic circumstances
require a re-examination of the role Japan might take in
regional affairs, including regional security affairs. The
Gulf War in particular highlighted the anachronism of Japan,
years after the Pacific War began, being so tightly
constrained in the role it plays in international security
affairs. Australia has said that it would be in the
region's interest for Japan to be encouraged to play a
larger role, though we have also stressed that the form of
the contribution is for Japan itself to decide. The
Goverment, and Australians generally, would be comfortable
with a Japanese choice to become involved in United Nations
peace-keeping operations around the globe. I believe we
could also view with equanimity the prospect that in due
course Japan might make an appropriate contribution to other
collective security arrangements.
76 2
I believe that this positive view of Japan's potential to
contribute to regional and indeed global security is
becoming more widely sheired in the region, partly thanks to
the careful and effectivre consultation undertaken by Japan's
Prime Minister, Mr Kaifu, during his recent visit to South
East Asia.
One issue which has not yet been resolved is the role which
the Soviet Union will play in our region in the coming
years. Australia recognises that the Soviet Union is a
Pacific power, and we have welcomed the prospect of
constructive Soviet participation in the economic affairs of
the region. We do not rule out that the time will come when
the Soviets might be able to play a constructive role in the
development of an overall security system for Asia of the
sort I have described, in the way they are now doing in the
Middle East and Europe.
Trhey are already playing a constructive role in relation to
specific issues like North Korea and Cambodia, and that is
welcome, as is some participation in the increasing pattern
of bilateral and informal multilateral dialogue in the
region to which I have referred.
But, in a number of areas, there remain unresolved problems,
such as Japan's northern territories, and continued Soviet
attempts to question the legitimacy of the US strategic
posture in our region. it will be difficult for the Soviet
Union's role in regionail security to develop while these
issues remain unresolved, and while the future of the Soviet
Union itself remains so unpredictable.
In another area, Australia has been very interested in
Indonesia's efforts to initiate a process which, in Foreign
Minister Alatas's words, could turn the SpratlyIsland* s in
the South China Sea from an area of confrontation into an
area of co-operation. Without such action, the Spratlys
issue has the potential to become a major regional dispute.
Indonesia has initiated a series of workshops and seminars
in which officials and academics from regional claimant and
non-claimant states have been able to discuss practical
co-operation in resource and environmental matters and in
search-and-rescue operations. Multilateral arrangements in
these areas may follow.
Another concrete step that could emerge from enhanced
regional dialogue could be confidence-building measures such
as procedures agreed among regional states for handling
naval incidents at sea. Increased co-operation in such
areas as maritime surveillance, air-space surveillance and
intelligence exchanges could also grow out of regional
dialogue on mutual security needs. But Australia would not
support proposals for naval arms-control or other measures
which might inhibit the freedom of naval operations in
international waters. ' 76; 25~
In general, we believe that the process of developing
regional security arrangements should not occur in ways
which might undermine our existing security arrangements.
Those arrangements have served the region well, and will
continue to be important in the post-Cold War era.
This brings us, finally, to Australia's role in the
development of an Asian security system in the post-Cold War
era. Our security links with our Asian neighbours have a long
history, and are reflected in a network of strong bilateral
relations and in some important formal arrangements. But
our most important alliance is with the United States.
Traditionally Australians have seen our alliance with the US
as a shield against an Asian threat what we might call the
' Coral Sea' concept of the alliance. Obviously the
experience of the Pacific War will remain an important part
of the historical legacy of the two nations, and a bond
between us. And I say bluntly that in the crunch we would
want the world's most powerful democracy as an ally.
But we in Australia must now think of our alliance with the
US in the context of our contribution to broader regional
security, rather than in relation to Australia's security
alone. We no longer seek, through our alliances, to build
up walls of defence against the region, but to build bridges
of co-operation with the region. Our neighbours have long
recognised that our alliance with the US contributes to
regional security, and it is clear that the US is
increasingly viewing our alliance, and others it has with
regional nations, in the same way. We hope to reinforce
that perception, not just in the region but among
Australians as well.
Australia has important defence associations with Malaysia
and Singapore through the Five Power Defence Arrangment
We see this as an increasingly important security
arrangement, and we are pleased that our regional partners
in FPDA, as well as the UK and New Zealand, share our belief
that the arrangements provide a valuable basis to maintain
and develop our contribution to regional security.
Australia's substantial contribution to FPDA reflects the
obligations which Australia must accept in the light of our,
relative economic status in the region. Few Australians
recognise that, notwithstanding the phenomenal growth in
ASEAN's economies in recent years, Australia's economy is
larger than the whole of ASEAN's put together, and is indeed
the third-largest in the Asian region, behind only Japan arid
China. The size of our economy, and our technical expertise, means
that Australia will continue to maintain significant
military capabilities, especially maritime capabilities,
which will allow us to make a valuable contribution to the
military dimension of regional security.
( 7326
Apart from our participation in the FPDA, that contribution
will be reflected in the many bilateral defence
relationships we have developed with nations in our region,
including PNG, New Zealand, Indonesia, Thailand and Brunei.
An important element of those relationships is the
encouragement and assistance we give to our regional
neighbours to develop their own defence capabilities,
including their maritime capabilities, in ways which will
help to enhance regional security.
We are also prepared to contribute significant forces to
help implement a UN-sponsored settlement of the Cambodian
problem. Next week the Defence Ministcer, Senator Ray, will announce
the most important reforms of the defence forces for at
least 20 years. This series of reforms has one goal to
make our defence force as efficient and cost-effective as
possible, so that it can develop more and better
capabilities with the money available.
The result will be a defence force which is better managed,
better structured, and better equipped to defend Australia,
and to play a part in the security of our region.
But as the example of Cambodia shows, our contribution to
regional security must be much wider than purely military
matters. The vigorous diplomatic role we have played, in
close co-operation with our friends in ASEAN, and
particularly Indonesia, in the search for a settlement
reflects not only our concern for the vital humanitarian
issues at stake in Cambodial, but also our recognition that
the resolution of the Cambodian problem is important to the
strategic stability and security of the region as a whole.
Australia will also make a major contribution to disarmament
and arms-control measures to0 enhance regional security. The
most disruptive possible development for regional security
would be the acquisition by a regional state of nonconventional
weapons capability chemical, biological or
nuclear weaponry. The Gulf War highlighted the threat posed
by Iraq's possession of chemical and biological weapons
even if Iraq was ultimately dissuaded from using them.
Australia will continue to work with its regional partners
to outlaw these weapons from the region and from the world
as a whole. My chemical-weapons regional initiative has
been a step in this direction.
The Soviet Union and China, which have their status as
Nuclear Weapon States acknowledged under the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty, must remain the only such states in
the region. Like other nations, we are seriously concerned
by reports that North Korea may be moving to acquire a
nuclear-weapons capability.
Ladies and gentlemen 71; 2
The development of a regional security system will be slow
and complex. But I think the outlines of Australia's
approach are already clear. We can lay four corner stones:
support for the United Nations as the supreme
international guarantor of peace and security
support for the continued engagement of the United
States in the security affairs of the Western Pacific
support for the development of regional co-operation
and dialogue on security issues
and last, continuing to develop Australia's defence
force as our final guarantor of Australia's security,
and as a contribution to the security of the region as
a whole.
Building on these foundations, we can come to find our
security in and with Asia, not against Asia. When we have
done that we will have taken another further vital step
towards resolving that great challenge of our national life
with which I started our relationship with Asia.
7 i; 2 a
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