South China Sea

Governor Kim Beazley

November 18, 2018 Misha Zelinsky ANZUS, Australia, Australian leaders, Belt and Road Initiative, China, Debt Diplomacy, National Security, Pacific, Putin, Russia, South China Sea, Trump, US

Kim Beazley is the Western Australian Governor.  Governor might be his current job, but he was also the Australian Ambassador to the United States, Parliamentary Leader of the Australian Labor Party, Deputy PM of Australia and also served as Defence Minister – quite a CV!

Governor Beazley joined Misha Zelinsky to talk about Trump, Putin, China and how Australia can navigate the global rivalries that are fast emerging between our strategic allies and our regional trading partners.

We apologise for the quality of this audio. It was done in Government House in Perth, which is currently under extensive renovation. 

 

 

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Misha Zelinsky:                  Governor Kim Beazley, thank you for joining me on Diplomates. Now, I should note that we’re doing this in the rather salubrious surrounds of the Government House in Western Australia so thank you for having me along. Very lovely digs you have here.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Now, Governor, I thought it would be useful to start off here. You’re former ambassador to the United States. The U.S. under Trump, it seems to be picking fights with its friends in the European Union, it’s broken deals with the Iran Deal. Of course Australia was not immune in respect to the discussions around migration. The United States has been a very long term friend with Australia. Can we still count on the United States as a friend?

Kim Beazley:                         I’m going to separate Australia out from the rest. We’re unique. I suppose you could also include Israel in that uniqueness. We are not criticized by the U.S. in any way shape or form. That all the old verities were there and the language between us and the United States, all the old undertakings, all the old promises, they all still feature in the rhetoric of, not only the officials of the United States, but also President Trump. So it’s as though, excuse me, we’ve been frozen in aspic. The Australian relationship is carved out from the roiling of the rest of the U.S. relationships in the Western alliance. Most notable with NATO, but also, really, too, with Japan and South Korea and experiences that they have had. So there is no reason to say, in anything that has happened to this point, that Australia has been … had its relationship changed.

Kim Beazley:                         But the circumstances in which we conduct our own diplomacy in the region and further afield, yeah, that has been impacted. But that’s in a sense for us to work out how to handle it.

Misha Zelinsky:                  So we’ve had, recently the foreign minister come out and say that the relationship perhaps is changing. We’ve had the Shadow Foreign Minister in Penny Wong also talk about perhaps a new paradigm emerging. The U.S. president seems to be very focused on deals. He says that NATO’s a bad deal. The Iran deal was a bad deal. Various trade relations are bad deals. Could ANZUS ever be a bad deal, do you think? In that context?

Kim Beazley:                         I think the problem that we have with the President and others, is related to how he sees the world. And basically, American statespersons have run the United States since World War II on the basis of the post World War II settlement. Liberal internationalism, multilateralism, rules of the road in so far as the global commons is concerned, open trading relationships as far as the WTO is concerned. It’s at the heart of the liberal internationalist project of the United States. Trump is the polar opposite. He is a nationalist. He is a unilateralist. He has no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. He is an admirer of authoritarian rule. He sees essentially the paradigms that I described earlier on as essentially excuses for looting the United States. And in that position for a lengthy period of time.

Kim Beazley:                         He takes umbrage, therefore, at anything he thinks in past relationships with allies, in particular, as indicating that they’re users as a reason for him to bring them under a scalpel. And then he looks to Russia, probably in a quite unique way and we don’t know fully the reasons for that, but irrespective of his attitude to Russia, he is essentially not about an international order of liberal principles. He is about an international order of survival of the fittest, competitive and that order is ruled, not by rules, but by force de rigueur and the creation of facts.

Kim Beazley:                         Now that’s him. But his officials don’t agree with that. So you have these absurdities. You have the visit this month in July to Europe, Brussels, one or two other European capitals and then Helsinki with Putin, in which he exhibits all the, with NATO, all the facets of their changed ideological direction. But then the communique comes out. And there’s not a dime of difference between the communique from this NATO and any of the communiques in the past. And American officials are writing that.

Kim Beazley:                         He comes out with the picture I presented of nationalist unilateralism and his Defense Secretary, Mattis, personally writes the national defense strategy which is an enormous re-endorsement of the saliency of the American alliances.

Kim Beazley:                         So you’ve got the President out there with new directions. You’ve got the rest of his administration talking up the old storm, and most of Congress as well, doing the same. So this is, to say the least, a confusing time for Australian ministers.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Given the depth of relationship, I think it’s interesting because as you say the relationship is deep at a political level, it’s also deep at an institutional level. It sent us, for want of a better word, seems to be holding for now but given the extraordinary powers the president has, over foreign affairs in particular, can the relationship survive four years, potentially eight years of Trump? Can they potentially, given the importance of the U.S. relationship to Australia and it is, how do we maintain that relationship in the context of unilateralism and nationalism from a Trump administration?

Kim Beazley:                         If this was being pursued in an intelligent systematic way, based on our, what you’d call full court press of officials, and U.S. policy was proceeding with structure down the line that we’ve been talking about, the answer would be no to that question. But the essence of Trump’s administrative style is beyond the expression of an attitude. It’s impossible to develop a body. And so no one can really predict what’s going to come out of all of this, beyond volatility. And certainly there will be volatility and that volatility may produce crisis, particularly when they interact with other changes in the system.

Kim Beazley:                         See, I would say that Australia has more to think about in the much more rapidly changing distribution of power in our region, than simply Mr. Trump. And we do have to look very seriously at recasting the defense policy that we have.

Kim Beazley:                         And one of the things that Trump is doing, I think, inadvertently helpfully, and I put the helpfully in quotation marks because it’s not his intention, is that he’s forcing us to rethink the way we do force structure. And we put up global rules out there and global order up there and the relationships in the region as an equal force structure determinant with the defense of our approaches. That was a mistake when we did it and it’s now completely unsustainable. So we have to-

Misha Zelinsky:                  You mean the reliance on the U.S. underpinning security in the region?

Kim Beazley:                         Not reliance on the U.S. so much as the character of the region.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Right.

Kim Beazley:                         And the character of the region did not really reflect what we assumed of it and the fact that Mr. Trump is not actually prepared to pursue his side of some of the underpinnings means that what we should have done anyway, we absolutely have to do. We have to go to Plan B.

Misha Zelinsky:                  And so let’s talk a little bit about Plan B. You mentioned the shifting of power and I think, effectively, that’s a shifting to a more multi-polar world with the rise of China and the reset of Russia. And you’ve got Putin and Xi actively challenging some of these structures that we have and the alliance system, it’s not being helped by perhaps uncertainty around the U.S.’s position on those alliances. But in the region, with Australia and our relationship with China, we’ve seen [inaudible 00:10:11] assertiveness in the region from China militarily. How concerned should we be about China under the Xi regime.

Kim Beazley:                         There’s no reason that we have to engage with China. We have to calculate what the Chinese are likely to do in the future. We have to see how they interact with other powers in the region, including the United States. But I’ll just say this about President Xi, he has shifted China a long way from the vision of Deng Xiaoping. And there’s a big area of risk here that people just simply don’t talk about and that is, how does he keep his legitimacy going now that they’ve essentially moved away from collective leadership? It moved away from the trend towards constitutionalism. It reinserted the Party processes.

Misha Zelinsky:                  That’s right he was saying he’s a big reformer.

Kim Beazley:                         Yeah and everything. And they’ve done that. So you now have a totally different picture emerging from China. How does he keep legitimacy for what is a lifetime of leadership instead of the 10 years normally accorded. Well, he’ll run into trouble. All governments do run into trouble. The Chinese are not exempt from that. And when he does, people are going to start looking at him from a nationalist point of view and say things like, you made a big deal of re-incorporation of Taiwan. You made a big deal of enforcing our position in the South China and East China Seas. Why is nothing changed? Are you really the defender of the nation?

Kim Beazley:                         Now that’s not a question that would normally have been asked of any of his predecessors as president. It will be asked of him some time in the next 10 years.

Misha Zelinsky:                  What sort of event would ask that question?

Kim Beazley:                         The Chinese people are engaged. Yes, there’s oppression. Yes, there’s a failure to recognize rights, but there’s two things. One, they’re very courageous. Two, they’re very opinionated. And generally they’ve found out this, which is not a good thing, necessarily for the rest of us. They’ve found that if you go after the Communist Party from the right, you frighten them. If you go after them from the left, the super libertarian and the rest of it, you’re easily oppressed. And so-

Misha Zelinsky:                  So nationalism is the big threat to the regime.

Kim Beazley:                         Nationalism, you can always get them

Misha Zelinsky:                  Interesting.

Kim Beazley:                         And nationalism gets bound up in what we’ve just been talking about. So there’s that. There’s not just Trump out there on the landscape. There’s also these other changes and where on earth are we going to end up with North Korea is a further factor in this.

Misha Zelinsky:                  That’s right.

Kim Beazley:                         So what do we need to do? Well, we don’t need to move away from the United States for the very simple reason. In this more volatile region, where we have effectively a total focus on technological skills as our defense, staying ahead of the game technologically, we now only have one alternative and that is relationship with the United States. They are the only people really in the game, in technological enhancements, in capacity in weapons systems, military tactics, all the things that are associated with the next generation of military technologies.

Kim Beazley:                         The only other people in the game are the Russians and the Chinese. The Europeans are on the outskirts. So for us, if we want to survive in this zone, in the long term, we have no choice but to associate with the United States if we want to be anything.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Let’s talk about the United States, China, and the South China Sea. You’ve got the Chinese being very provocative, building manmade islands, taking ownership of other islands and then now militarizing those islands despite promises not to do so. The Americans are very keen for us to engage in the Freedom of Navigation exercises which is to go within the 12 nautical mile range of those sites. Australia has yet to do that. Should we be doing that? Should we be participating in those types of Freedom of Navigation exercises?

Kim Beazley:                         Well that’s a matter for the government. The government is quite clear on what it believes the legalities of the situation are. Also quite clear on what they believe the Chinese are already doing or not doing. Also quite clear on what the rights are of the states that have got counterclaims and the rest of the world in terms of movement of shipping, both civil and military through those areas. So there’s nothing you can complain about, I think, sensibly about Australian government policy and it’s quite reasonable for them to be presenting those policies to the Chinese in argument and discussion.

Kim Beazley:                         Before I became governor and was then less reticent about putting my views across about what government should be doing, what I used to say-

PART 1 OF 3 ENDS [00:15:04]

Kim Beazley:                         My views across about what the government should be doing. What I used to say was by and large, I think we should do these things on our own. That we have our own view about the legalities here and how these legalities ought to be pursued and we were pursuing it. The marginal zone about where we ought to operate in this regard is about island like features that are being created but do not attract island like legal rights. So that is when you take a rock and turn it into a base, that sort of thing, even when you’ve done that, that attracts no automatic rights to a territorial sea around it.

Kim Beazley:                         Most of what has been done has been turning features which do count as islands into bases. And the position of the Australian government over the years has always been that they treat those entities as though there was an owner because there is than owner. The question about who the owner is is to our mind not settled. But then we would observe the limits that would have been observed if an owner was in place.

Misha Zelinsky:                  How do we grapple with, as a democracy in Australia that we favor these rule based order, where you have contested claims in the South China Sea, they go to court, they’re ruling in one particular which is against China in that particular instance, and that has not subsequently been observed. If it does start to unstitch the entire system when countries don’t observe the outcomes of the great system, or the referee so to speak.

Kim Beazley:                         Well our view of course is they should. And hardly anyone can ever enforce its views on the rest of the globe. You basically have to simply influence folk or try to influence folk. Whether you do actually anything practical about it or not, at least when there is a discussion of these issues, you don’t back away from the principles that you evolved. So any argument that takes place you take the view of the legalities which we have supported for a very long period of time.

Kim Beazley:                         It’s not an embarrassment, I don’t think, for a country like Australia if the views we express are not entertained by others with whom we’re talking. We can’t force them to do anything. And in those circumstances, the best we can do is to articulate those concerns, keep doing so, give support to other people who are doing it who may be more directly effected than we are, and learning the maturity and toughness that comes with somebody or some nation that is prepared to stand up for what it believes.

Misha Zelinsky:                  I’d just like to just quickly talk about China’s relationship with some of the other players in the region. Some of the smaller countries of the Asian nations and also the Pacific in terms of this One Belt, One Road initiative. And we’ve seen initially it’s talked about one of the largest investment in human history to reestablish that trade route through sea and land.

Misha Zelinsky:                  But we’re also now seeing the so called debt book diplomacy where countries have signed dup for projects they don’t necessarily need at terms that aren’t that particularly favorable. Then when they can’t make the payment, that asset’s taken back. Most troubling-ly the example of Vanuatu it looked like there may have been a military lock base or Naval base being built there potentially. How concerned should we be about that the way that China’s asserting itself through trade or through debt in a region?

Kim Beazley:                         I think China might be concerned out it, not just us. International politics is pretty fluid. Reputational issues are very important. You start developing our reputation for using debt to essentially take over parts of other countries, if you start building installations which are of very little value to the country in which they’re built but a substantial value to yourself, if you start projects which can’t be paid for by their own intrinsic merits, or you can’t complete to the satisfaction of the folk concerned, you’re going to suffer immense reputational damage. And people will deal with it.

Kim Beazley:                         This is particularly so in the experience of countries in Africa, but also in Southeast Asia and South Asia. A lot of these things are self correcting. And China’s going to have to learn from that. and will learn from that as people respond. When you actually look at the completion rights of these projects, and then look at some others who engage the infrastructure of the region like the Japanese, at a much lower level the Japanese have a much higher success rate. And what the Japanese actually produce is something usually useful to the countries concern.

Kim Beazley:                         They don’t talk about belts and roads and endless highway of Japanese economic activity, but to all intensive purposes, when you look at the infrastructure projects they’re engaged in, they’re similarly geographically aligned to those which the Chinese do but with smaller amounts invested and better outcomes for the people that are concerned. It’s not just there, it’s Americans, it’s a lot of other people engaged in this.

Kim Beazley:                         But it is an opportunity for many countries, and there will be from time to time an intersection between what is fiscally sustainable and what is actually locally necessary. And that’s certainly, China’s a powerful country, it helps advance their influence. At the moment you’d say that the most impactful in political terms of these Chinese strategies is not so much on the region we inhabit but in Central Asia. And who loses out? In Central Asia, to those Chinese infrastructure initiatives, what? Russia.

Kim Beazley:                         So Russia has this relationship with China which sees Russia’s interests and influence effectively being subsumed.

Misha Zelinsky:                  That’s interesting. So you think that … A lot of people are now seeing it perhaps it’s a Cold War sort of prison, but a lot of people are seeing it as an alignment of interests between Russia and China. But you’re suggesting perhaps there are tensions that will emerge at Eurasian crossover region as China seeks to build up it’s sphere influence. Because Putin’s very concerned about spheres of influence.

Kim Beazley:                         Look, there’s no conflict of interest between the two except perhaps in the challenge to what they think is objectionable features of the rules based order. But the truth is there’s no symmetry there either. Putin just totally rejects it, the Chinese don’t. The are may feature of rules based order which they absolutely agree with. There’s no symmetry between the two of them on that.

Kim Beazley:                         It’s convenient to have that relationship with China, but there are contradiction elements of it too. The Russians built up a lot of influence and Vietnam and a lot of influence in India and South Asia. And the performance of the Chinese is causing all of our lives to be quizzical about them. And there’s no activity which when analyzed in detail to engage in which Russia does not look to complete in theory.

Kim Beazley:                         Putin may have had a triumph with his conversations with Trump and made the American president look ridiculous or as a satrap. And all of the allies of the United Stares might have been embarrassed by it. But where does it get Putin? Has it got him a relief of sanctions? Has it got him a non-engagement with the NATO powers along his border? Has it got him an American recognition of where he stands in Ukraine? Has it got him anything that actually matters to him?

Kim Beazley:                         And when you look at Russia’s situation, an economy the size of Australia with about four or five times that number of people to look after as Australia with about two and a half times out spending on defense, there’s a few people in Russia who are beginning to start to say to Mr. Putin, “Enough already.”

Misha Zelinsky:                  With a very low life expectancy evidently as well.

Kim Beazley:                         Yeah. Except the Russians are pretty courageous people.

Misha Zelinsky:                  They’re stoic.

Kim Beazley:                         They’re stoic as you say, they’re cynical. They like the fact that they’ve seen him stand up proud, take over property and the rest of it. They also want to be fed. And at some point of time, where Putin stands at the moment means they’re not going to be. So he needs those changes. If I was a Russian I’d be saying of the old lad, I’d be saying, “Oh yeah, you did real well. You poisoned our relationship with the United States, you’ve interfered in their politics in a way beyond any interference they’ve done in ours, you’ve got yourself in your mind a president elected at your own behalf. What’s on my table as a result of that please?” And the answer of course is nothing.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Yes, well that’s interesting. So you talked about economics there, and I think in the old Cold War we had two separate systems that a lot of people now point to the economics being this, perhaps the destiny in terms of security. You have people that look at China’s projections in our region and then say well there’s no way the that US can compare against China’s GDP therefor game over. Some analysts will say that. Others will point to the quad. Now I’m curious to ask you about which is the alliance of Japan, India, the United States, Australia which is very nice and do you see that as a potential counterbalance in our region in terms of economic response and in security response?

Kim Beazley:                         No, I just see it as a useful engagement. We are moving. China’s not the only country rising economically. You’ll see the same set of statistics that you just quoted applied to India, show India in the second half of this century we’ll all be thoroughly dead, taking over that leadership position from China. And you’ll see a straight line projections are all terrific except there are human realities that intervene.

Misha Zelinsky:                  And India has a demographic advantage as well.

Kim Beazley:                         Yeah. That’s right. And at the moment there’s a writing America off which also doesn’t have population problems. It’s economy is going to expand. The relativities that work towards China are not based on collapsing the American position. It’s a the American position advances, US is now starting to compete in new technologies, having let it go to some degree. And they’ve just put humongous amounts of money into it. Another great triumph for Putin. Gets out the and boast about a bunch of hypersonic missiles and related technologies which he doesn’t possess. And threaten to incorporate nuclear weapons within technical strategies which he hasn’t arrived at. He may arrive at that.

Kim Beazley:                         But with his 78 billion a year that spends on defense, he just massively tweaked the tail of somebody spending 715 billion. Brilliant move. You really scored with that one. So what do the Americans say? Oh well, we better got on with the hypersonic, we better get on with a different technical nuclear weapon usable in the battlefields. We’d better get on with the lasers, we’d better get on with the Artificial Intelligence and the rest of it. He’s just invited competition for an outfit spending ten times what he’s spending on defense. Fled losers.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Which is exactly what happened in the 80s with Reagan handcrafting the Soviet Union.

Kim Beazley:                         Exactly. And we need to take a look at that. There’s an awful lot of what the Americans are doing with their massive new defense spending that I think is a bit unwise. They’re focused too much on platforms and personnel and not enough on the new technologies. Though they’re spending a lot on the new technologies. I think the objective of the 350 ship Navy works against the rapid incorporation within the platforms they do have which is about 280 of them, of some of the new technologies which they brought forward very substantially particularly in related to direct energy weapons like lasers.

Kim Beazley:                         Their demand to put another 100,000 men or whatever it is in the Army works against the Army’s clear preference for next generation technologies on the battlefield. So there’s that tension going on. But the amounts of money is so huge that they may well be able to sustain the apparently contradictory priorities.

Kim Beazley:                         So there’s all of that going on at the moment which gives absolutely no attention or focus here at all.

Misha Zelinsky:                  And Australia benefits from that because we use a lot of the same combat systems as the United States, is that right?

Kim Beazley:                         And also we are very adept in sitting down with the Americans and converting those technologies into things that are usable in our environment. And I notice for the recent meeting of OSMET that the American Defense Secretary was pointing out our membership of the industrial recognized, industrial and inventive capabilities that the US will want to partner with. So we have got the possibility of engaging a lot of these technologies given that we can’t any longer do that ourselves. Or count on getting it from anywhere else. At least we are now heavily engaged with the Americans on that front. And we have at our defense …

PART 2 OF 3 ENDS [00:30:04]

Kim Beazley:                         … the Americans on that front, and we have at our defense, science and technology organization exactly the sort of capabilities that we need to ensure that we prioritize those technologies rightly and incorporate them effectively. We’re on the verge of a [walk 00:30:18] in the next generation systems, but only on the verge of that because of the continuing relationship with the Americans and nothing Trump has done threatens that. Trump creates a difficult international environment for us. He has not created a difficult military development environment for us.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Well, that’s very assuring. Just to bring it, we’ve talked a lot about international defense policy. I’m curious to get your views on some of the things that are happening at home in a foreign policy context. We’ve had Chinese interference in our domestic affairs, and all the debates between the so-called China Hawks or the Panda Huggers, how seriously should we be concerned about Chinese interference in our democracy with various financial interference into major parties, and how hard should we be pushing back on that?

Kim Beazley:                         Most countries, and this country is now included, but wasn’t, most countries extract themselves from the contribution of other countries and involvement in domestic politics. It doesn’t necessarily work regarding the subject of illegal penetration on the scale that you saw from the United States and Russia, but there are some protections there and the protections have come in here. I think we have to be very careful here in how we handle this. We do not want to make the many Chinese Australians uncomfortable in their own country.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Absolutely.

Kim Beazley:                         It is important that they feel welcome, that they are Australians like the rest of us. We have a blessed tendency in this country not to refer to ourselves as Italian Australians or Irish Australians or Chinese Australians or Indian Australians. The Americans do that.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Yes.

Kim Beazley:                         We don’t.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Yep.

Kim Beazley:                         We just talk about Australians and then we may get in the conversation go down the line to look at ethnic origins, but we assume that in the end they get absorbed by the great Australian, lovely cultural system.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Absolutely.

Kim Beazley:                         We’ve got to think about that. That means that when we have a disagreement with the Chinese, and we will from time to time and we do look at the sorts of issues that come up here, we need to be polite. We need to be firm, but we also need to be polite, and we need to avoid humiliation wherever we can. The debate that we had on these various issues at the time of Sam Dastyyari put out of the show late last year. I’m not defending him. I’m suggesting that he shouldn’t have gone, but it spiraled out of that into mutual insults, and there certainly is enough to go around in the political process about engagements of the past, in a way which I could understand why Chinese government would start to look at you sideways.

Kim Beazley:                         See, you’ve got to be sensib;e about it. The Americans are the biggest investor in this. The Chinese are our biggest trading partner. Chinese Australians are critical contributors to the stability of this country and its success. We need to bear all those things in mind and grab some maturity in handling it.

Misha Zelinsky:                  No, that’s interesting because I think there’s some difficulty in how to handle the relationship. You mentioned earlier about reputational concerns that the Chinese have, but also there is a, there seems to be a tension between calling out behavior from the Chinese, be it in island building in the South China Sea, or perhaps in meddling in democracy, but it seems to be the tone that is a concern rather than the … How would we be better to manage that?

Kim Beazley:                         Adopt a reasonable tone. You can make these points without getting hysterical. The points need to be made and you want to be able to incorporate those issues in your conversations without necessarily creating massive damage to your country while you do it. One of the problems is this, and this just doesn’t apply and this issue applies in any issue, if you go out of the top and you create a situation where you were tricked and you left worse off than before when you went over the top in your response. The point is, the object of your attention is no longer the issue. You are the issue.

Kim Beazley:                         Now, how do you deal with that? Well it’s a maturity and it also means too that there are a lot of areas of politics when you’re a nation like us, which is not all powerful, you need to actually learn to manage your words and manage your approaches. We’ve done it in the past. We now have to do it full time.

Misha Zelinsky:                  I was just curious just to peek a little bit about the tension that exists, and it’s kind of the elephant in the room where we say we don’t have to choose between our secured relationship with the United States and our trade relationship with China. Can you see, what are the potential triggers where a choice may need to be made? There’s a whole, Hilary Clinton famously said you can’t argue with your banker. How do we argue with our best customer at the same time as wanting to perhaps stick with our best friend in the United States?

Kim Beazley:                         A good start is not to ask the question, and to actually look at how governments handle issues and not the commentary. Commentary has to ask the questions because there’s nothing else to say. The government doesn’t operate like that.. We decided that it was in our interest to proceed with membership of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. This is a big deal, a far bigger deal than any of the things that we’ve been talking about so far.

Misha Zelinsky:                  The Americans didn’t want us to do it.

Kim Beazley:                         The Americans did not want us to do it, but we decided, particularly with the south east Asians who are very important to us, [inaudible 00:36:45] to us, wanted us to get involved. We decided to get involved, so what do we do then? We go around saying, “Well, we’ve chosen between the US and China and we’ve chosen China.” That would be the height of immaturity, stupidity, and factually wrong. We chose to be a member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. That’s what we chose. What we did with the Americans was to say to them, “Look, we think that we need to get into this.” I used to say to them, “You look at China through the prism of the geographic relationship, through Confucian societies, Indochina.” We look at China from a north south perspective. We go through a whole variety of other cultures before we arrive at the Confucian ones. They are important to us and we take some guidance from them. We take the view that we need to listen to what they want us to do and they said that they would feel much more comfortable in that bank if we are there, so we’re going to do it.

Kim Beazley:                         What we will do is we will firstly say that we’re going to try and make the government’s terms as close to the Asian Development Bank as we possibly can, and we are going to keep you advised on each step that we take. That’s how you handle those issues. We didn’t running around asking silly questions about whether or not we’re choosing between China and the US. You do what is in your national interest. That’s what you do.

Misha Zelinsky:                  That’s interesting, so I would like to actually ask you a questions following on from that because you’ve talked a lot about the economic rise of China and the choices there. Australia has been at every war with the United States, certainly the twentieth century and twenty first century. Is that relationship too strong? Should we be more independent given that what we know now with the Iraq war and the subsequent knock on effects of that? Is there a situation where we can perhaps not necessarily go all the way with LBJ so to speak?

Kim Beazley:                         You make your own decisions. Every one of the wars you referred to we made our own decisions. There was always a factor in those decisions about, at least since World War II, about the character of the relationship we have with the United States is one of the issues that we thought through, but it was not the only issue. We thought through those issues from the perspective of our own national interest, particularly recently, our involvements in Afghanistan and our involvement in Iraq, not the original one. I would say that these are issues which we’ll have to keep on thinking about all the time. You always need to think about it from the point of view of understanding that we’re already deeply embedded in the American system, through the job facilities of which we’ve added another couple over the course of the last decade, in relation to another area of contest that need space, and therefore we’ll always making a substantial contribution to them. We need to work out whether or not we want to make more.

Kim Beazley:                         Tony Abbot, as I recollect at the time of his last latest engagement in Iraq was hardly influenced by American concerns at all. He was influenced by and trying to influence the Americans toward committing themselves because he believed that it would be fatal for the rest of us if that caliphate got underway and successfully ensconced itself in Syria or Iraq. I would have said that our engagement, and I was looking at it from the point of view of the point made in Washington while it was being discussed, not at my level. It was being discussed at other levels, but I was at least in there. It was virtually nothing to do with the alliance and virtually everything to do with the situation on the ground and our concern that the Iraqi government should survive.

Misha Zelinsky:                  That was in response to the ISIS sort of take over over parts of Syria and of Iraq, but the original decision in 2003, I’d like to ask, would you have handled that differently?

Kim Beazley:                         Yes I would have.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Yep.

Kim Beazley:                         To be honest, I’m not quite sure where I would have ended up at the very, very last minute, but I can tell you what I would have been doing in the period of time when the British and the Americans and the rest of the world really was looking at what ought to be done about Saddam Hussein, and I’d be doing my damnedest to try to persuade the Americans not to do what they did because if you look at our speeches at the time, you will see that we knew exactly what was going to happen as a result of all of this. We understood of course that the Americans after 9/11, they’re pretty much a winded society, and there’s a lot of motivation around about punish one, educate a hundred.

Kim Beazley:                         We saw at the time that this was not a sensible way of doing that and that you were likely to get yourself into serious trouble if you persisted with it. I suspect that possibly at the end of the day, as the whites in their eyes time had been arrived at, probably would have redeployed the ships that were in the gulf anyway. That would have been a very last minute point, and that was after you’ve exhausted every capacity to persuade them not to. It would be a bit absurd had the ships sailing around there not engaged in what subsequently emerged.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Have been not perhaps as a starting player in the coalition of the willing, so to speak.

Kim Beazley:                         It would be a concluding point, not a starting point.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Well, that’s a good place for us to finish up. Just as a final question we ask all of our guests on Diplomates, which is, and you’re a former ambassador, so with international guests like to ask them which Australians they’d invite to lunch, but as a former ambassador I might ask you three Americans to lunch with the governor, who are they and why?

Kim Beazley:                         Well, I would love to have ex-President Obama as one of those to lunch. I’d love to have Hilary Clinton, and I would be fascinated to have added to them Jim Mattis.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Oh wow. That would be an interesting group.

Kim Beazley:                         To see what they’ve got to say about contemporary affairs. I’ve got a huge amount of time for all of them and I think that they would make, because all three of them make excellent dinner companions.

Misha Zelinsky:                  That would be a lovely, to be a fly on the wall that would be great, but look, Governor Beazley, thank you so much for your time. It’s been a fantastic conversation and all the best with the new year.

Kim Beazley:                         Thank you.

 

Ambassador John Berry

October 31, 2018 Misha Zelinsky ANZUS, Australia, China, Democracy, Inequality, National Security, South China Sea, US, US Leaders 0:33:19

Ambassador John Berry was the US Ambassador to Australia from 2013 to 2017. He is now the President of the American Australian Association.

Ambassador Berry joined Misha Zelinsky to talk about the future of the ANZUS Alliance, strategic competition in the Asian region, Chinese debt diplomacy, the rise of autocrats globally and how we can get young people to care about politics and democracy.

 

FULL TRANSCRIPT

This is a transcript from the interview with Ambassador John Berry. Please forgive any typographical errors.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Recently, I caught up with Ambassador John Berry. John was the U.S. Ambassador to Australia from 2013 to 2017. Since that time, he’s been named the president of the American Australian Association. Ambassador Berry and I had a great chat about the future of the ANZUS Alliance. Strategic competition in the Asian region, the rise of autocrats, and how we can get young people to care about politics.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Ambassador John Berry, welcome to Diplomates. I honored to say today, it’s a little bit of eponymously named, as you are a former ambassador to Australia, and obviously, I know you’ve said on many occasions that you were a mate of Australia. And we certainly consider you a mate of ours. But, welcome to the show, and thank you for joining us.

John Berry:                            Misha, it’s a great privilege to be with you this afternoon. Thanks so much, I really appreciate it.

Misha Zelinsky:                  The privilege is all mine, I assure you. But look, I though it would be a useful place to start, it’s a big sort of topic, but the importance of the relationship between the U.S. and Australia. You’re a former ambassador. You’re now the head of the American Australian Association. I think sometimes, Australians don’t think that the relationship matters from the American end. And sometimes, we feel that it’s slightly one-sided, or that we’re very much, the junior partner. I’d be curious to get your take on that.

John Berry:                            Yeah, I think there’s really no sense of a junior partner. Australia is a full-fledged partner, and really, the best ally of the United States, both in history and in current times. We deeply, deeply appreciate both the creativity, the intellectual power, and the straight-forwardness of the friendship that the United States shares with Australia.

John Berry:                            Sometimes, when you’re heading off in the wrong direction, it’s awfully good to get advice to get you back to the destination. And Australia is not afraid to do that. And you’ve never been, and never will be. We don’t ever want you to. You’re a sovereign nation. We want your straight opinion, and I think the relationship is so deep, because that opinion has been proven time and time again to be so helpful to the United States.

John Berry:                            So, it’s a full partnership. It’s an active one. It’s engaged on every level. Economic is the strongest. But, also, equally important is that the defense and the intelligence and the cultural, and the educational connections that we share, along with sports.

Misha Zelinsky:                  That’s right, and unfortunately, though, whilst we’re good friends with the Americans, we often don’t criss cross in the same sporting arenas. We very enjoy beating the English at cricket, but unfortunately, you guys aren’t really much into it. But, maybe we’ll teach you sometime.

John Berry:                            Yeah, my Tigers didn’t make it to the grand final this year, but they acquitted themselves well this season. Maybe next year for the grand final.

Misha Zelinsky:                  You can’t win them every year, unfortunately. Now, you’re showing your Australian bona fides, but of course, you were ambassador in Australia for a very long time. But, your father was also in Australia for World War II, as I recall. It always fascinated me, that story. Perhaps you could share a little bit about that.

John Berry:                            Yeah, Misha. In fact, it’s interesting. You know, right now from August until December of this year, it’s the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Guadalcanal, which was the first land offense in the Pacific in World War II. And, my father was in the United States Marine Corp, First Division, which was the division charged with taking and holding that land during the war.

John Berry:                            It was a much harder, tougher slog of a battle than was expected or anticipated. Japan appreciated the strategic importance of that battle, and knew that if they could defeat the U.S. land effort there in Guadalcanal, that likely, U.S. attention would prioritize Europe ahead of Asia, and that perhaps, the war would not end up as it did.

John Berry:                            But in fact, those Marines did hold that rock of an island, that’s an important island. And were given R and R to come to Melbourne. It was a tough six months. My dad was a skinny kid, 18 year old from Philadelphia. And he lost 45 pounds on Guadalcanal. He didn’t have that much to lose. But, I grew up with, from the youngest age, of hearing his powerful stories about what a wonderful people he found in Australia, and that not only were they good, they were true. They really reestablished his belief that there was good left in the world, which quite frankly, he and many of his mates doubted after they left Guadalcanal.

John Berry:                            And, you know, he tells a story about how he was just on the trolley car in Melbourne, and he was looking pretty, his clothes were pretty loose on him. And the ticket taker on the trolley said, “Young man, you look like you could use a good cooked meal.” He said, “You know, I get off work at the next stop. Why don’t you come home with me?” And my dad would tell us all the time how that was the best dinner he had the entire war. And he was just so stunned that someone would be so friendly.

John Berry:                            And so, till the day he died, if we were anywhere, when I was growing up and even when he was older and I was older, if my dad heard an Australian accent, he would jump up and offer to buy them a beer. And it was that deep and profound a relationship.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Well, that’s a great way to make a mate in Australia, is to buy them a beer.

John Berry:                            Yeah.

Misha Zelinsky:                  So, if he’s …

John Berry:                            Well, lest you think it’s just one guy’s story, it’s important to point out that it was so impactful, not only on my dad, but on the entire First Marine Division, which is the storied First Division of our United States Marine Corp, when they landed at Melbourne, a band struck up the tune, Waltzing Matilda. And here we are, 75 years later, the fight song of the United States Marine Corp First Division is, and always will be, Waltzing Matilda. And it’s because that tune and the spirit and welcome of the people of Australia, renewed their faith in the goodness of humanity, and taught them not only was it still very much alive in the world, but it was still damn well worth fighting for.

John Berry:                            And so, it is, whenever that division ships out even today, to Afghanistan, to Iraq, they do so to the strains of Waltzing Matilda. And when they come home, it’s to the same song. So, you get a sense of just how deep and power and lasting that friendship is.

Misha Zelinsky:                  That’s an incredible story. And we often like to hear Waltzing Matilda around the water. I never would have imagined you’d hear it in a U.S. Military Division, but that is a fantastic story.

Misha Zelinsky:                  I think that’s a good spot to sort of pivot to the importance of the relationship between the United States and Australia. Because it’s probably at it’s most contested. You recently said that it’s important for democracies to stick together when you were in Australia. And you said that we must defend democracy, our collected democracies. And that second place is not an option for democracies and the geo-strategic place in respect to military, AI, and that we need to avoid a Sputnik moment, so to speak, as you put it.

Misha Zelinsky:                  And I’m curious to take your, get your take on why democracy needs to stick together, and how we might defend our democracy in that context.

John Berry:                            Well, you know, we’ve been lucky. We have enjoyed 75 years of peace, or just under that, because obviously, World War II didn’t end until later. But, the world has enjoyed an absence of world conflict, if you will. Not to say that there haven’t been regional conflicts or terrible battles and troubles around the world, but nothing on the scale that would go back to World War I or World War II.

John Berry:                            And, I think we, you know, would be looking at history through rose-colored glasses if we felt nothing like that could ever happen again. And look, I think a lot of us who’ve worked in diplomacy over many years hoped and continue to hope that China’s rise will continue to be peaceful. But, there are many signals that are warning signals, that democracies need to pay attention to.

John Berry:                            First, we need to admit we’re not dealing with a democracy in China or in Russia, or in Iran, or in North Korea. And these countries are increasingly coordinating their efforts, and they are significantly, not only singling us out, but attacking each of us individually, through our democratic processes and using our own liberties and tools against us, if you will, in such a way that you have to call into question what their end goal and end objective is.

John Berry:                            You know, I was very happy when President Xi stood in the Rose Garden and promised that there would be no militarism of any of the land reclamation efforts in the South China Sea. He lied. We now know they’ve been intentionally militarized. There are three runways on those islands, now longer than the runway, the international runways at JFK here in New York City, right behind. Those are not runways needed for life-saving missions.

John Berry:                            The hardening and the missile installations and the radar installations that are being installed on those islands are not for life-saving missions. And no one should kid themselves about what’s going on there. And when you see what China’s done with the internet and the use of information, and artificial intelligence, what they have done has been able to increase the ability of authoritarian governments to suppress liberty, to suppress freedom, and to clearly, as they’ve shown both there, as well as other countries, like Russia’s involvement in our elections and other countries around the world, that they are not supporting democratic values, vision, or future.

John Berry:                            And we ought not kid ourselves that this is all going to end without some troubles. And so, you know, democracies are slow to recognize and prepare, oftentimes, for these things. As the world gets more technologically proficient, the time to prepare may grow even shorter. And so, that’s why I think it’s a good time for all democracies around the world to be on guard.

John Berry:                            I’m not saying it’s time to hit the panic button. I’m not saying conflict is a given. But, we shouldn’t be caught off guard.

Misha Zelinsky:                  No, it’s interesting, you’ve talked about the South China Sea. It gets discussed quite a bit in Australia. How do you think Australia and the United States should be responding to the militarization of the islands in the South China Sea? I mean, you know, part of China’s strategy is seem to be, to break up some of the will to resist, particularly with the Asian region, you know, with the Philippines. Is there a way that those countries can actually stick together in a way that gives them confidence? Or, is China gonna be able to pick countries off one by one?

Misha Zelinsky:                  Some countries in our … Well, there’s some discussions of the quad which is India, Japan, United States, and Australia. I’m just curious about how do you think you can resist that kind of, almost, irresistible force from the China’s government in the region.

John Berry:                            Well, we ought to not kid ourselves. It’s not gonna be … There’s no simple solution, Misha. This is gonna be a long-term effect. And I think Australia’s doing a great job already with your response right now. And Papua New Guinea, and you know, to …

Misha Zelinsky:                  In respect to the cables, you mean, or …

John Berry:                            Yeah, well, in terms of the one belt, one road expansion throughout the Pacific. You know, that’s not only the Pacific, but the Indian Ocean, around the world, and Africa, and beyond. And, these 99 year leases are all, when you step back and look at the map, are very interestingly located in strategic military and trade choke points. You know, again, not saying that they have to end up being military or strategic choke points, but we ought not kid ourselves. We ought to prepare. And one of the ways we can do that is to … You know, nations are already realizing this debt burden that they’re being saddled with is taking away a great deal of their sovereignty. And that’s of great concern to their populations and governments.

John Berry:                            And as the awareness of that grows, I’m concerned for this initiative as a true trade initiative will be called into greater question. But, the responses that are happening by democracies, you’ll notice, not only is the United States regularly exercising these rights of free travel and navigation throughout the South China Sea, but many other nations do as well, including Australia. And Great Britain has stepped up its actions in that regard.

John Berry:                            So, it’s again, a sign of democracies recognizing that you can’t just let an existing situation rule the day, especially when it’s been done by might and not right.

Misha Zelinsky:                  And you touched there on the 99 year leases. In Australia, we were quite alarmed to find out that there was discussions of a potential port being funded by the Chinese government in Vanuatu, and given the situation that occurred in Sri Lanka, where that port was funded by the Chinese government through the One Belt, One Road Initiative that government can’t pay. And, of course, that port is then handed over. The prospect of a port that could be militarized, 200 nautical miles up Australia’s coast, is very alarming.

Misha Zelinsky:                  It’s debt diplomacy, it’s called, which is, you know, you lend on terms that are somewhat unfavorable. And then, of course, when you can’t pay, you take that strategic asset, as you said, and in key points. How can the U.S. and Australia resist that type of easy money for these countries? You know, the Papua New Guinea government has made it very clear that they’ll take the best deal on the table, commercially.

John Berry:                            No, I think that’s where we have to be involved. And Vanuatu is a very good example of that, Misha. And Australia’s response there has been very, very helpful. You know, the United States is stepping up its efforts and increasing resources that’ll be available. I think other democracies will hopefully do that. And I think coordinating that effort is going to be something that we really need to think through.

John Berry:                            There are many institutions that can do that, but we need to, we could increase and leverage the power of our investments on the democratic front, if we were to work more carefully, in careful coordination. And so, I think that’s begun. That’s under way. And it will hopefully, only continue to improve.

Misha Zelinsky:                  And I’m just curious to get your take, you know, we’ve talked a lot about the contest between democracy and autocracy, and perhaps the autocratic countries coordinating in a way that, perhaps, they haven’t in the past. And that the importance of liberal democracies coordinate amongst ourselves. And I think that makes a lot of sense in a geo-strategic sense.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Curious about the credibility of democracy. You know, that’s another thing that is new, perhaps, in the modern debate with the Brexit debate, you know, what’s happening in Europe with the rise of autocratic governments in parts of Europe with the … Italy has a pro-Russian government. Hungary and Poland have right wing governments. You know, the Brexit election was very troubling for Britain, but also the recent United States election and the discussions of Russian meddling. What’s the … How does the credibility of democracy impact on this broader piece of countries competing against one another?

John Berry:                            Well, I think it’s important, each generation has to revive it’s appreciation for those core values of being able to have governments created that are responsive to the will of the people. That is still a very legitimate goal. And it is a goal that every one of the authoritarian nations fear mightily. And much of their actions are meant to undermine it, wherever they can, because they do not see it washing onto their own shores.

John Berry:                            So, first, we need to recommit our own selves to our own values. Those core values that our fathers and mothers fought, died, and suffered and sacrificed for, over so many generations. And I think we ought not take them for granted, because we’ve been fortunate to have enjoyed Australia … You’ve enjoyed the longest period of economic growth, I think, in any country in the world. You have a really phenomenal …

Misha Zelinsky:                  For 27 years.

John Berry:                            It’s a pretty phenomenal result. You know, you didn’t go through the global financial crisis like we did. You didn’t make many of the mistakes that we did. But, you know, so each generation can sometimes forget amidst its good times, the importance of those core values that allow those good times to exist. That allow people to exercise their creativity and earn a living, and to benefit from their creativity and their ideas and their hard work.

John Berry:                            As you, so you say it so beautifully in your National Anthem, wealth for toil. That is not a given around the world. And it’s important for democracies to continue to support and continue advancement. We have to always get better. As Winston Churchill said, it’s the worst form of government ever invented, but no one’s found anything better. And so, so we’ve got to keep at it. We’ve got to … We need to deal with … You know, in our own country, we have issues with student debt. We need to resolve that.

John Berry:                            We need to resolve our overuse of our credit card. You all are much more fiscally responsible than the United States. Here we are, in very good times ourselves, we’re running up increased debt at a time when we should be paying it down. So, you know, democracies make mistakes. Let’s not kid ourselves. But, it doesn’t mean that the core values of allowing people to control their governments and protect their liberties isn’t important and still worth fighting for.

Misha Zelinsky:                  It’s interesting, because you’ve talked about student debt and the economic piece. And I think that that’s also an interesting part of what’s going on around the inequality story and how that’s eroding the capacity of democracies deliver for ordinary people. I find it very concerning in an Australian context, but it’s certainly global, that young people don’t automatically consider democracy to be the best form of government. And I think that’s very troubling.

Misha Zelinsky:                  You’ve, in the past, said that, from an Australian context, that you’d like to take back what we call independent redistricting, or having the government, an agency, set the boundaries of electorates. In the United States, that’s a political exercise done by the politicians in charge, who unsurprisingly, draw up the boundaries to suit themselves; What you guys call gerrymandering. And also, you have non-compulsory voting in Australia, compulsory voting is in place, which the theory goes that the more people that vote, the more that they [inaudible 00:22:06], and you get less extremes. Do you think that those would be useful in an American context, still?

John Berry:                            I think they would greatly assist us, Misha. It would be a great thing, not only those two ideas, you know, correcting gerrymandering, compulsory voting. Americans don’t like to be told to do anything, so we’ll have to find a different word than compulsory. You know, maybe a national holiday voting, or something that would encourage higher turnout would be how we, maybe, have to approach that.

John Berry:                            But, you know, other ideas you do that are brilliant, I think, you limit your entire election time, is it to 60 or 90 days? I forget the day limit.

Misha Zelinsky:                  The minimum is about 31 days, I think. But sometimes that could be longer.

John Berry:                            Americans would think they’ve died and gone to heaven, if we could have a 31 day or a 60 day, even a 90 day election. You know, as you know, our presidential election for the next, which is three years out, has begun already. So, you know, obviously, we have a mid-term coming up here in three weeks, which will tell a lot. But the other thing you have … I’d say there’s four things that would really benefit our democracy that you’ve pioneered. And the last one is campaign contribution limitations.

John Berry:                            And, prohibiting, you know, the impact of so much money that can have such an untold influence on elections these days. So, you know, the secret ballot was invented by Australia. And we adopted it after much debate here in the United States. And while it was being debated in the late 1800’s, it was referred to in the United States as the Australian ballot. So, you gave us our secret ballot, which now we take for granted.

John Berry:                            I hope that the four lessons you all have also pioneered in this past generation of having a national commission that draws up unbiased legislative districts, having 99 percent of your population voting, you know, limiting your election cycle so that they don’t endlessly drag on, and controlling campaign contributions, are four very smart things for democracies to undertake. And certainly, the United States would benefit from all four of them.

Misha Zelinsky:                  No, although I will say that we actually had a … Our last federal election was eight weeks, and it was considered to be the most longest, most oneriest, you know, turgid campaign. And so, even an eight-week campaign in Australia seems like a long time.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Just on, you’ve touched on contributions and the effect of money in politics. You made some comments about, that the United States was alarmed about donation interference from the Chinese government in Australia’s democracy. It was very alarming to a lot of Australians, as well. I think it was something that we, a little bit, as a country, slip on the wheel and have sought to correct. But how concerned should all democracies be of that foreign interference of that nature?

John Berry:                            Look, I think it’s one of the areas where we have to play a very, very strong defense. There is no legitimate purpose, Misha, for any foreign government, especially a foreign authoritarian government, to be involved by contributing dollars in any other sovereign nations, a democratic nation’s, elections. There’s just no legitimate purpose. It’s illegal in the United States. It should be illegal in every democracy, because there is no argument on it’s behalf. It is, it has no good, positive effect. And, I hope, I know Australia has a number of efforts that it’s considering in that regard that it will continue, but not let the issue die. Because you know, if it’s allowed, we will eventually, if it is allowed in democracies, I believe that democracies can eventually lose control of their ability to maintain their sovereignty in dealing in important issues. And, you know, no democracy should allow itself to be so prostituted.

Misha Zelinsky:                  I think that’s very, very good advice, and that’s certainly something that we’re looking at very closely in Australia. But, I think you’re right. We need to guard against the easy money that can seem easy. But, as we talked about, even in the context of the 99 year leases with the debt diplomacy of the One Belt, One Road Initiative, money often comes with strings attached, as you rightly point out.

Misha Zelinsky:                  So, yeah, I just wanted to, perhaps, pivot to last couple of questions, but pivot to, you’re a former ambassador, but you’re also our most recent ambassador in the sense that the chair has not yet been filled. Let’s [crosstalk 00:27:41].

John Berry:                            Very, very hard to replace, Misha.

Misha Zelinsky:                  That’s right, irreplaceable John Berry. So we’ll, well, you’re welcome to come back, mate, at any time. That’s …

John Berry:                            I would in a heartbeat, but I don’t think I’ll be being sent your way.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Well, we did actually have an ambassador en route who was then directed to some important work in South Korea. Are you able to give a scoop? Are we gonna get an ambassador soon?

John Berry:                            Well, he would have been fantastic. He’s a dear friend, Harry Harris, Admiral Harris, is a brilliant man. And he would have made an outstanding ambassador. I know there’s a bunch others being considered now. I hope the president will pick a good one and send them down as quickly as he can. It’s important, and thank goodness we have a great [inaudible 00:28:28] in James Carouso there. He’s doing a great job during the interim, and I think James would make a great ambassador.

John Berry:                            So, there’s plenty to pick from. There’s plenty of good Americans who would do an outstanding job in Australia, and I just hope the president sends one soon.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Well, we’d love to have one. But as I said, mate, the chair’s still warm for you if you’d like to come back. But, just lastly, the question I’d like to ask our guests is … particularly, foreign guests, it’s a show that’s about, we call it Diplomates. It’s about mates you put in diplomacy, and it’s a hokey pun. But, I would say, in your time in Australia, if you could invite three mates to a barbecue, perhaps at the ambassadorial residence, given it’s still vacant, we could have a party there, who are the three Aussies that you would invite along as your mates?

John Berry:                            Well, the hardest thing, Misha, would be narrowing it down to three.

John Berry:                            Oh, boy, well, one, I’ll tell you, would be Quentin Bryce, who is the most wonderful person I’ve ever met in terms of everything, intellect … She has more class in her little finger than I will ever have in my entire life. And whenever I get to spend 10 minutes with her, I learn something. And so, I would love to have Quentin Bryce be one of those people. She is one of the crown jewels of Australia, in my opinion.

John Berry:                            The other is someone who I just love. He’s a native of Cambra. He’s president of the University of Cambra, Dr. Tom Calma. Tom is a brilliant leader in the Aboriginal community. He’s an indigenous Australian, a proud indigenous Australian who has done so much good in his lifetime, advancing his community within your wonderful country. And, we … Just like you, we talked about how you could help improve our democracy through some of your reforms, there’s many things that I think we could learn through more exchanges between our indigenous cultures. Because our history with Native Americans, Native Alaskans, and Native Hawaiians, for example, here in the United States, has been a sad one. And we’re still wrestling with many, many issues that are a result of that sad history.

John Berry:                            There’ve been some great success stories in Australia, just like we have had success stories in the United States. And I think Tom is one of those people who is a glass half full kind of guy, who is always coming up with new ideas and creative ways to make the future better, for not only indigenous people, but for all people in the country. So, Tom would be my second person.

John Berry:                            Who, who’d be the third? That is tough. Gosh, it’d be a toss-up between … You know, you’ve got two LGBT leaders there that I think are wonderful. Ian Thorpe and Alan Joyce. Alan comes at it from the business perspective, Ian from the, sportsman perspective.

John Berry:                            But, both of them have been amazing leaders in the LGBT community. And as you know, that’s one of my lifetime Civil Rights engagements and involvements.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Absolutely, yep.

John Berry:                            So, maybe you can give me the luxury of having four, and I’d invite Ian and Alan together, and then, we’d have a wonderful barbecue.

Misha Zelinsky:                  Well, I wouldn’t, couldn’t possibly deny having the Thorpedo there, so it’s more … And Alan can fly everyone in, so it’s no problem at all.

John Berry:                            And all of them should bring their spouses, so that would be, that makes it more than three. You can’t have a barbie without their good partners along, so …

Misha Zelinsky:                  Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for your time, Ambassador Berry. I think Admiral Phil Davidson recently said that there’s friends, allies, partners, and then there’s mates. And Australia and the United States are mates, and I think you’ve proven that today. So, thank you so much for your time. And good luck with everything over there. And we look forward to getting an ambassador soon.

John Berry:                            Misha, thank you so much.