November 18, 2011
''Americans have bled with you for this progress'' … Barack Obama addresses Australian troops in Darwin yesterday. Photo: AP
THE United States President, Barack Obama, has increased the temperature in the Asia-Pacific with a vow to use ''every element of American power'' to establish security, prosperity and human dignity in the region.
With China concerned and angry at what it regards as a provocative push against its own rapidly growing influence, Australia was in lockstep with the new US strategic shift while maintaining it could still have a strong relationship with Beijing as well.
The Foreign Affairs Minister, Kevin Rudd, said last night the US-Australia alliance virtually predates the establishment of the People's Republic of China and the status of the alliance had long been known to the Chinese.
President Obama's visit: day 2
President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, lays a wreath in the tomb of the unknown soldier at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Photo: Marina Neil
''We are not going to have our national security policy dictated by any other external power,'' Mr Rudd said. ''It's a sovereign matter for Australia.
''We don't seek to dictate to the Chinese what their national security policy should be and therefore this must be advanced on the basis of mutual respect.''
He said China had a stated policy of eliminating US alliances in East Asia.
After a 26-hour visit, Mr Obama left Australia last night for Bali, to attend what is now expected to be a tense two-day East Asia summit.
Mr Obama mentioned twice yesterday the sensitive issue of access to shipping lanes in the South China Sea, an issue China does not want discussed at the summit.
After announcing with the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, on Wednesday plans to increase the presence of US troops, planes and equipment in Australia's Top End, Mr Obama gave an emphatic speech to Parliament yesterday that was clearly aimed at China.
With ''the tide of war'' in the Middle East now receding, America's focus would shift firmly to the Asia-Pacific, a region that, he said, would largely define whether this century would be marked by conflict or co-operation, needless suffering or human progress.
''The United States has been, and always will be, a Pacific nation,'' Mr Obama said.
Australian and US troops had fought side by side in the Pacific over the decades ''so democracies could take root, so economic miracles could lift hundreds of millions to prosperity''.
''Americans have bled with you for this progress and we will never allow it to be reversed,'' he said.
''The United States will play a larger and long-term role in shaping this region and its future, by upholding core principles and in close partnership with allies and friends.
''Let there be no doubt. In the Asia-Pacific in the 21st century, the United States of America is all in.''
A senior Australian official told the Herald that the US push should give backbone to other nations who felt intimidated by China, be it commercially or militarily.
''The whole point of doing this is to say to the rest of the region 'You can stand up' and the Americans haven't left,'' the official said.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Weimin, said: ''When countries are developing relations between themselves, they should consider the interests of other countries and of the region, as well as regional peace and stability.''
Mr Obama said Australia and the US wanted a peaceful and prosperous China and that China had a co-operative role to play, for example, by helping defuse the North Korean situation.
He singled out China's poor record on human rights, free trade, intellectual property theft and its refusal to fully float its currency.
And he warned Beijing that people could not be suppressed forever.
''Democracy and economic growth go hand in hand,'' he said. ''Prosperity without freedom is just another form of poverty.''
The currents of history might ebb and flow but over time they moved decidedly, decisively, in a single direction.
''History is on the side of the free,'' he said.
