Australian Foreign Minister, speaking at UCLA, urges ratification of the TPP

UCLA International Institute, February 9, 2016 — The Honorable Julie Bishop, Foreign Minister of Australia, urged the United States to ratify the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal at UCLA on January 29, 2016. Bishop was the featured guest at the “U.S.-Australian Dialogue: Cooperation in the Asia Pacific,” where she was interviewed by Kal Raustiala, UCLA professor of law and director of the Burkle Center for International Relations. Gracious, warm and comprehensive in her remarks, she shrugged off minor disruptions by activists in the audience.

The TPP deal was officially signed in Auckland, New Zealand, on February 4, 2016 by 12 signatories: the United States, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Chile and Peru. Bishop contended that the TPP gave the United States and its allies an opportunity to set “the gold standard for trade and investment rules” in the Asia-Pacific Region.

The day-long conference was part of Australia’s annual G’Day USA Program and was the third U.S.-Australia Dialogue hosted by UCLA in as many years. The event was cohosted by the UCLA International Institute, the Burkle Center, the UCLA Anderson School of Management, the International Comparative Law Program of UCLA School of Law, the Pacific Council on International Policy and the Australian Consulate-General in Los Angeles, and presented by Northrop Grumman.

The U.S., Australia and the Asia-Pacific Region

Bishop, who became Australia’s first female minister for foreign affairs in September 2013, welcomed the Obama administration’s policy of rebalancing U.S. foreign policy toward Asia. Noting that the United States has provided a security guarantee for the Asia-Pacific since World War II, she said the powerful U.S. military presence had enabled the economic growth of nations in the region. Today, she said, “The majority of the countries in the region and the leadership to whom I speak, want to see more U.S. presence, more U.S. leadership, not less.”

She characterized the TPP as “very much the economic manifestation of the rebalance,” noting that its signatories together represented almost 40 percent of global GDP. Bishop considered ratification of the agreement pivotal for the future of the region and for the leadership of the United States in the world. Under the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015, the U.S. Congress will have 90 days upon receipt of the trade agreement to take an up-or-down vote on the deal. Amendments to the agreement are precluded by the 2015 legislation.

Calling the TPP “an outstanding trade agreement” that would contribute to economic growth and jobs in signatory countries, Bishop several times emphasized that the trade agreement was uniquely important because it would establish superior free trade and investment rules in the region. Its success, she added, would attract more countries to join it— perhaps even China.

In her view, a major strategic benefit of the TPP is that is demonstrates that the United States and its friends can take a leadership role in setting international norms in trade. Should the TPP not be ratified by the U.S. Congress, however, Bishop warned that “there will be a vacuum, and that vacuum will be filled.” In such an event, she thought it possible that negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) among ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) members, Australia and China would ramp up instead. Yet Bishop thought it likely that the RCEP would proceed at the behest of China and ASEAN even if the TPP succeeded, creating the potential for an eventual Asia-Pacific free trade zone.

Conference participants listen to remarks by Foreign Minister Bishop. (Photo: Todd Cheney/ UCLA.)

In addition to moving forward on the TPP, Bishop urged the U.S. to engage with ASEAN and its members, both collectively and independently. In particular, she urged the U.S. to continue to engage Vietnam and bring it into the Western sphere. “They are ready to be much more deeply engaged with the United States — you're doing it militarily, we're doing it in a trade sense,” said Bishop. “In fact, Vietnam is our fastest-growing ASEAN trading partner.”

Bishop also made a case for the U.S. to give more attention to trilateral discussions with Australia and Japan, and to include India in some of those discussions. With respect to the U.S. military posture in the region, the foreign minister welcomed the stationing of some 1,600 U.S. Marines in the city of Darwin, on Australia’s northern coast. Australia, she said, needs to communicate transparently to its neighbors the benefits of having a significant U.S. military contingent in the region, including the ability to respond to humanitarian and natural disasters in the region.

The U.S. military presence in the Asia Pacific provides Australia and many other nations a level of level of comfort. Australia, said Bishop, hopes to see an enhancement of the U.S. defense posture . She added that her nation also welcomed Japan's more normalized defense posture and hoped that the close cooperation between the U.S. and Australian militaries could lay the groundwork for the two countries to engage China and India as well.

Australian’s view of China in the region

“China is, in my view, seeking to find a place for itself as a global power,” said Bishop, “and it's coming to terms with the responsibilities that attach to being a regional and global power. It's trying to find its place, given its economic importance.

“[L]et's face it: about 120 countries around the world consider China to be their number 1 two-way trading partner. So what happens in China matters to most of the globe in an economic sense,” she added. “And we're seeing China find that space in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) — setting up their own institutions where there might be a vacuum.”

It is in this and similar arenas, she said, that the United States and other nations have a big role to play in reminding China of the need for a rules-based international order. “What we're seeking to do is embrace China as part of the international system,” she remarked.

Australia joined the AIIB, she continued, when it had met the standards for transparency, accountability and governance that it deemed appropriate. “It's a little bit like the TPP,” explained Bishop. “You've got to be in it to help shape the rules, so we took the view that as long as the thresholds met what we would consider to be an acceptable investment for the Australian government for an institution like this, then we should be on the inside trying to shape the composition, the nature, the standards, the rules, the governance.”

With respect to the conflict in the South China Sea, where China has built artificial islands and unilaterally declared an air defense identification zone over the Senkaku-Diaoyu Islands in 2013, Australia believes the parties to the dispute should negotiate their claims, said the foreign minister. Accordingly, Australia supports their right to take their differing claims to arbitration, as the Philippines have done at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The ruling of that court will, she said, “reinforce, or state again, the principles that apply to the law of the sea and the inherent right of countries to freedom of navigation, freedom of overflight in international waters.” She pointed out that “sixty percent of Australia's trade passes through the South China Sea — we have an interest in ensuring that there is freedom of navigation, freedom of overflight.”

Australia, said Bishop more than once, does not believe that an artificial reef built on a low-lying coral reef creates any particular territorial rights, but it has taken no position on the dispute Chinese rejection of the future ICJ ruling on the Philippines case would, however, be a game changer, she continued, as it would signal a rejection of the international rules-based order that Australia supports. It was the task of Australia and other nations, she said, to let China know publicly and privately that such a rejection would be highly unpopular.

Bishop did, however, hold out hope that the ICJ ruling might give more momentum to the creation of an ASEAN code of conduct, long an item of discussion among its members. “[T]hey are making progress and I think that the Philippines arbitration may well give them the international law platform that they need to require China to agree to a code of conduct, of behavior, in the South China Sea,” she commented.

With respect to North Korea, Bishop claimed it was disturbing that the country’s recent nuclear test had not been preceded by a warning or followed by a demand, as had been the practice of former President Kim Jong Il. Since his son, Kim Jong Un, became president, the regime’s behavior has become far less predictable, she noted.

“China,” she said, “has a diabolical dilemma on its hands — they are considered to be North Korea's only friend, but they're as frustrated with North Korea as the rest of the world.” Yet, she explained, Kim Jong Un has already announced that should China turn against the country, it will use its nuclear weapons. In the end, she claimed that the situation would only be resolved by some kind of negotiation involving the United States, South Korea, China and Russia.