Australia's and America's shared liberal democratic traditions help to account for their generally parallel perceptions of the international scene, and for their close cultural, economic and security connections. Why and how they have responded to human rights practices, especially in Asia-Pacific, informs their post-cold war objectives and their evolving, bilateral relationship.
Respect for the rule of law and for open politics, and opposition to degrading treatment of individuals, are threaded through the collective makeup of both systems. Shadings in societal legacies and sense of purpose do however affect their approach to international issues, including human rights observance.
The American mythology is noticeably more idealistic and expansive than Australia's, and indeed more evangelistic. It is bound up with America's size, strength and status. It also reflects inheritances of patriotic self-congratulation. The virtues of the American Way are widely felt to be destiny as well as fact; hopefully for others to admire and emulate: `... no nation in modern history has been quite so consistently dominated as the United States by the belief that it has a particular mission in the world, and a unique contribution to make to it.'1 The notion that individual and political freedom is part and parcel of America, including in its quests abroad, cuts across presidents and parties. Hence an American official advises an Australian audience that `Our country was founded, in effect, on human rights. This is the feeling that goes very deep into the American psyche, so this is an important issue to the United States and the Americans -- not just a political issue.'2
The Australian idiom has by comparison been more subdued. Australians may have viewed themselves as models of the good, sensible society. They have not however been given to exuberant self-proclamation, to glamorized optimism and idealism, or to high-intensity achievement norms. By necessity or choice, Australia's security and prosperity have throughout been tied to others, beyond: First to Britain, then the United States, and more recently to becoming enmeshed and well-received in Asia-Pacific. If Asia-Pacific was once a source of trepidation for an underpopulated, isolated, western nation, it is now regarded as Australia's inescapable opportunity. Asia-Pacific is recognized as a diversely challenging place, needing to be better understood and assiduously, yet often circumspectly, to be cultivated. In the event, Australia's circumstances, which have not convinced it that it rests at or near the centre of the universe, have not been conducive to projecting itself as a pietistic standard bearer.
Such characterizations notwithstanding, some trends suggest that American-Australian national esprit qualities may be shifting, and differences somewhat narrowing. While the American penchant for high purpose has not been submerged, the closing of decades of cold war US responsibilities and refocused attention to domestic renewal have brought a faltering of both popular and elite public support for the prosecuting of humanitarian goals abroad. Australia has become transformed into a multicultural, refugee-welcoming nation, increasingly attentive to the needs of its indigenous population. Its politial leadership views this societal hybrid vigor as a real asset, transposing it into national pride and purpose at home and overseas. Reform and improvement are natural to the country, Gareth Evans and Bruce Grant have argued: `And, being the size and weight that we are, it is in Australia's interest that the world should be governed by principles of justice, equality, talent and achievement, rather than status and power.'3
Australia's received legacies of mateship and fair play coalesced with other influences to form an underlying Australian distaste for wrongdoing. The effect has been that while much of the American sense of social good has focused on the cumulative outcomes of individual energy and success, group, community and socio-economic distributive values have ranked somewhat higher in Australia. the Australian Labor Party (ALP) Government has emphasized the universality and indivisibility of basic human rights, as for instance embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But, while eschewing 'cultural relativism', i.e., that civil rights are mostly a western artifact, Foreign Minister Gareth Evans has also declined to `countenance the view that comes out of the United States so often, namely that political and civil rights are the only rights worth worrying about, that economic, social and cultural rights are some kind of developing country preoccupation.'4
Like other onlookers, Australia and the United States have responded with understandable outrage to such events as the mass extermination carried out by the previous Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing, and the Santa Cruz Cemetary killing of East Timorese civilians by Indonesian military forces.
More broadly, both countries conclude that a combination of the international climate, their national interests, and a melange of domestic pressures require that they present themselves as nations concerned with promoting dignity and liberties abroad. Australia endorses the American assessment that `Open societies make for better and more stable trading partners because they tend to honor agreements and provide reliable systems of justice. By contrast, repressive regimes foster instability in the long run and put investment at great risk of expropriation or loss,'5 and that there is more than a grain of truth in the adage that democracies do not instigate war against others.
The US and Australia also face reminders that their own nationals can be victimized, and domestic arenas disconcerted, by what to them are uncomfortable standards of law and justice in Asian-Pacific countries. The US is alarmed that it is being flooded by hard drugs from Burma, or Myanmar as it is now styled; a nation controlled by a corrupt and repressive regime ... An Australian court found that, given China's one-child policy and threats of forced sterilization, Chinese boat people seeking asylum had a well-founded fear of being persecuted if they were returned. The ALP Government's legislative efforts to exclude China's one-child policy as a reason for asylum in Australia provoked heated domestic controversy, including criticisms from human rights advocacy groups and Catholic bishops. The Government was later brought under fire for agreeing to pay China for accepting and resettling the asylum seekers. ... There was disquiet in both the US and Australia over the conviction and fining of a Singapore-based US academic, of the American-owned International Herald Tribune, and of the paper's Asian editor -- an Australian national -- for publication of an article that, however obliquely, was alleged to have impugned Singapore's dignity. ... There have been distressed reactions in Washington and Canberra over China's imprisonment without charge of foreign business persons during commercial disputes. In one celebrated case, an Australian national, accused of embezzlement, was held inordinately long without charge and denied access to ordinary contacts and amenities.
Whether the circumstances of human rights violations are case-specific or ongoing and fundamental, questions of how to respond arise. One consideration relates to whether strong and public outside disapprobation can so antagonize targeted regimes that the result will be counterproductive, and dampen the will of accused regimes to extend their needed cooperation in economic, diplomatic and security spheres. Relatedly, while the promotion of democracy `as an endpoint may provide a good means of managing conflicting forces in society, democratization as a process is a risky path in which unpredictable forces are unchained in societies where mediating values and institutions usually are quite weak.'6 In this context, approximating Australia's thinking, US enthusiasm for initiating the process of democracy/human rights has at times been seen to be followed by impatience, and therefore liable to carry mixed results, even setbacks.
This leads to a consideration of American leadership. No American Administration in memory, Bill Clinton's included, has laid claim to anything less than American leadership, mixing `destiny' postulates with pragmatic rationales. The passing of the cold war requires some compass adjustments, but the course of leadership is to be stayed. In Secretary of State Warren Christopher's words, `American leadership is our first principle and a central lesson of this century. The simple fact is that if we do not lead, no one else will.'7 Australia agrees. The US must be encouraged to remain actively engaged, and not slip into misguided isolationism and/or protectionism. The US has too much to contribute to the consolidation of international prosperity and security. It also matters to Australia that the US is more than the world's sole superpower; it bears the stamp of an open society whose tenets and practices can serve the region well. In Paul Keating's formulation, `The more we can involve the greatest of our liberal democracies, the US, and the more the US can leave its imprint on the institutions of the Pacific, the better off we'll be.'8
From Australia's standpoint, the key is of course not only whether the United States is engaged in Asia-Pacific, but how -- including in its management of human rights issues. Politics fuse with cultural norms, yielding somewhat different readings of proper diplomatic style. The readings are also affected by Australian-American differences in their scale, power and regional or nation-specific attentiveness. The US has not in recent decades invested nearly as many emotional as well as other resources as has Australia in the political and social evolution of Australia's own near neighbors, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Unlike the US, Australia has not been historically spellbound by China, and prone to anguish over who `lost' China in 1949.
Being open societies, Australia and the United States are both subject to cross-pressures from a host of interests and lobbies, not the least being organizations, such as Amnesty International, that champion human rights. The Australian trade union movement, traditionally more politicized than its American counterpart and closely associated with the ALP, has become especially vocal about how government should respond to workers' conditions in Asia-Pacific. The major party groups in both countries include protagonists of softer as well as harder human rights policies. American advocates of a firmer line against China's human rights abuses cover a wide spectrum. They enroll the very liberal-minded, and those who, invidiously comparing China's democratization progress with Taiwan's, press for a more open US embrace of Taipei. The ALP Government contends with criticisms alleging insufficient stiffness of spine, or spurious explanations, or even hypocrisy, including from members of its own party.
The American political system is institutionally divided between executive and legislative branches; the Australian is not. Decision-making in the US becomes more labored and less predictable in outcome. Congress, asserting its prerogatives, often against the Executive's wishes and efforts to invoke exceptions, has produced a wide array of legislation that mandates economic or defense-related sanctions against human rights offenders. In Australia, far more of what is Government policy on human rights is just that; it is the Government's chosen policy option rather than prescribed legislation.
The interplay of US and Australian reactions toward human rights problems in Asia-Pacific can be illustrated in contexts focusing on particular third parties; and in contexts involving a plurality of national contact points, especially featuring regional, Asian-Pacific groupings.
While often felt to be a thorn in the side of Australia's US relationship, America's institutional division and Congressional showmanship can turn out to be serendipitously helpful. The great majority of Australians, and most certainly the Government, revel in Sydney, having beaten out Beijing, being selected to host the 2000 Olympiad. The games promise economic gain, widespread international acclaim, and the furtherance of the Government's nationalist aspirations for Australia. American commercial interests mostly preferred Beijing, citing China's market opportunities. Many in Congress carried a different torch. China was a gross human violator. Rhetorical importuning went unheeded. An influential Congressman averred that `We can get their attention by denying them things that they very much want, such as the year 2000 Olympics, which was the work of many of my colleagues [and that] we the Congress succeeded in derailing and stopping.'9 Did the Congressional campaign against China make the difference? Possibly, perhaps probably, since Beijing lost out within the International Olympic Committee by the narrowest possible margin. China's loss, over human rights, translated into Australia's gain. The irony was that, from the Keating Government's standpoint, this was the right outcome for the wrong reason, inasmuch as Australia has demurred over overzealous American tactics to push China into human rights compliance.
Under US law enacted in another era and for a purpose unrelated to China, non-market communist nation economies must have their Most Favored Nation (MFN) eligibility annually recertified by the President. After Tiananmen Square, Congress voiced increased displeasure over the Bush Administration's seeming leniency toward China's human and social rights practices, including the President's unconditional recertifications of Beijing's MFN status. Bill Clinton added his own criticisms during the 1992 presidential campaign. In 1993, his Administration recertified China's MFN entitlement, but with the following year's round approval said to be contingent on China making headway in stipulated areas of human rights reform. At the time, the formula attracted considerable Congressional, human rights advocacy group, and even business comunity endorsement.
But American opinion eventually became deeply divided as to whether the MFN conditions set down in 1993 were sensible, and over whether further recertification(s) should proceed with little if any deference to the human rights factor. The weight of American business feeling and of Congress swung toward recertification. When in 1994 the Administration renewed China's MFN status, it pledged that henceforth it would delink commerce and human rights. Human rights would nevertheless remain a `cornerstone' of the Clinton Administration's approach to China. China's progress in this domain would be expected and American representation made -- but without ostentation or commercial threat, a course to which Washington thereafter adhered. The Administration has tried to accentuate the human rights positive in its commercial dealings with China. When in 1995 US negotiators succeeded in prying open the Chinese market for American audiovisual products, they claimed that such Chinese exposure would likely spread understanding of democracy's reach. To be sure, Clinton has issued a code of human rights principles for American companies operating abroad; generally applicable rather than aimed at China and, to the chagrin of critics, voluntary in nature. Because of pressure exerted at the 1984 ALP conference, the Keating Government has organized a human rights review process that will likely eventuate in an Australian business code.
Australia was alarmed by the prospect of China's MFN decertification. It felt that both its own and America's investment and trade fortunes would be at risk. China was a huge and inviting economic opportunity; a blow at its ability to sell competitively in the United States, to which 40 per cent of its exports were directed, would have severe repercussions, setting back its impressive growth as well as its associated, market-liberalizing momentum. Western interests in improving China's human rights record would collaterally be undermined, the gist of Evans' reasoning being that `Economic pluralism does not cause democracy ... but it tends to strengthen civil society by creating centers of economic power independent of the state.'10 Japan, South Korea, the ASEAN nations and others held similar views, fortifying Australia's argument that were Washington unwilling to relent over linking MFN certification to human rights performance, there was cause to be fearful for America's regional standing and capacity for constructive influence. Warren Christopher's description of China's eventual and delinked recertification therefore struck Australia just right: `The President's decision reflects a comprehensive U.S. strategy of engagement and leadership in the Pacific. It encourages Chinese cooperation in building a new regional and international order.'11
Australia lobbied industriously on the MFN issue, and generally stressed what it believed to be the unproductivity of aggressively standing over Beijing. It worked in various fora: US-Australian meetings in Canberra at ministerial level; representations through its Washington embassy; through Keating personally with Clinton and before Congress.
Australia's representations contributed to the change of mind in Washington. The reasons shed light on how and why its influence can take hold. Its presentations, crafted to indicate how US interests were at stake, echoed appeals by many other American friends and allies. Had Australia been nearly alone in its representations, its prospects for `winning' the argument with the US on a globally-impacting issue would have been slim indeed.
Australia's own access and reputation in Washington counted for much. The compliment that has been paid to Australia by US Assistance Secretary of State Winston Lord was uncommonly gracious and generous: `The Australians do have a global perspective. Given their important roles in peace-keeping, in arms control, in GATT, in APEC, it's a very rich exchange. We've come to value their dispatches on a variety of issues.'12 In a communication to Christopher, Lord spoke out for more coherence in America's approach toward Asia-Pacific, and for much-needed resuscitation of eroding Sino-American relations. He specifically, and approvingly, mentioned Gareth Evans' critique of resort to trade to leverage improvement in China's human rights practices. In a letter to the President, over 100 Members of Congress also urged delinking the two subject. Australia was touted by the signatories as an American friend and ally who seemed to have gone about its own concerns with Chinese human rights practices in a reasonable and measured way; focusing on engagement in plain but non-threatening language. The Congressional message made reference to the unspectacular but sensible experience of Australian delegations that had toured China to examine human rights conditions. With the Australian experience in mind, American delegations undertook visits.13
Australia's own experience with human rights delegations is of more than passing interest in the often complex, Australia-US-third party triangulation. In the aftermath of Tainanmen Square, Australia wasinvited to dispatch a fact-finding delegation by China. China found it useful to mend its relationship with a consequential middle power that for years had been friendly. China also understood that as a western nation with western values and uncommon American associations, Australia could send a delegation whose credibility would be taken seriously by the Americans. It was, in effect, China's signal that it was not altogether impervious to international outrage. Nor was China averse to discussing human rights, albeit in ways suitable to itself. At bottom, China was hoping for the large prize of a somewhat refurbished image in and relationship with the United States; the US-Australian connection had become an object of Chinese attention and diplomacy.
In mid-1994, just as an Australian delegation was about to depart for Vietnam, Vietnam strenuously objected; the delegation was to have included a Vietnamese-born Australian of whom Vietnam disapproved, and who publicly announced that the mission's purpose was to investigate Vietnamese human rights practices. The Australian Government aborted the mission. Not until 1995, after a change in membership and a finessing of its objectives, did a delegation undertake the journey. It was not the finest moment in Australian-Vietnam relations, which for commercial and other reasons Canberra was painstakingly cultivating. Apart from being a diplomatic contretemps, it triggered anti-Hanoi outcries from Australia's substantial Vietnamese community, among others. It inspired American anti-Vietnam critics who -- contrary to the Keating Government's preference -- wished to retard the US-Vietnam normalization process.
As in their dealings with China, Australia's and America's approaches to and interplay over Indonesia are instructive. The two governments acknowledge South-East Asia's largest nation's economic vigor and commercial value, its regional leadership role, and its geostrategic importance. Australia has on its part identified Indonesia as being of overriding importance. As a nation on its strategic doorstep, Indonesia is regarded as the key to Australia's focused effort to draw itself and the region into tighter, synergetic relationships. Being on excellent and influential terms with Indonesia has become a tenet of Australian policy. Keating has offered the revealing observation that if Indonesia were unstable and unpredictable, `we would not be spending two per centof GDP on defence; we would be spending six or seven per cent.'14
Australia does make frequent and firm representations over Indonesia's human rights practices. It believes reform in Indonesia will make it an even more robust nation and internationally respected actor. Failure to convey concerns to a country so prominently celebrated by Australia for its importance would contravene and compromise Canberra's claims to using its special Jakarta relationship for fostering progress in human rights. Given the unusual scrutiny to which Indonesia is subjected within Australia, with particular focus on its human rights shortcomings, the Government's failure to intercede would subject it to politically unsustainable criticism.
Australia has nevertheless concluded that obsession with Indonesian human rights, hectoring about them, and laying on sanctions, are opposite to desired outcomes. Thus, `Recognising the reality of Indonesian sovereignty has enabled Australia to better assist in the rehabilitation of East Timor, and to argue for human rights protection.'15 More broadly, Keating has gone so far as to assert that the right, pragmatic approach can buoy a relationship in which Australia's own `diverse and tolerant people' could be taken as a sound example by Indonesians.16 The upsurge in Indonesian tourists to Australia is construed as one such medium through which to impress and persuade.
To offset American preoccupation with North-East Asia, Australia has worked to influence the United States to take a more dedicated interest in South-East Asia, where Indonesia is a central player. The ALP Government has also urged on the Americans a measured and positive attitude toward Indonesia, meaning in large part a non-combatative attitude on human rights. By early 1994, Australia and other nation efforts had essentially succeeded in making the point. But the `success', while in Canberra's sense requiring ongoing, fine-tuned advice to the Administration, was not altogether secure. Australian interests had to contend with less congenial Congressional opinion, and specifically with legislative directives that the Administration could only partially hope to prevent or circumvent.
As it has regarding China, Australia has utilized its access in Washington to argue against punitive responses to Indonesia's human rights violations. Congress has been disposed to cut civil aid, to require the US World Bank representative to oppose loans to Indonesia, and to invoke American law that mandates withdrawal of preferences (for duty-free entry into the US of certain developing country products) under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) when worker and trade union conditions are defiled. Indonesia has undertaken some redress, and such sanctions have not to date been invoked. Revocation of GSP privileges has been placed in abeyance, subject to the Administration's periodic recertification.17
The US and Australian governments have increasingly found common ground on which to tackle Indonesian human rights. Proactive rather than punitive, the delivery of Australia's aid program is in ways designed to sponsor open society goals. There is closer scrutiny of worker conditions, and a business code of conduct is under study. Both countries earmark contributions to human rights-related NGOs operating in Indonesia, including East Timor. The Australian Government has endorsed an ACTU assistance program initiative to train Indonesian trade union officials. Australia has joined the United States in financing the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute, a leading agent for democratic reform within the country.
Australian and American policies toward defense cooperation with Indonesia have however diverged, producing broad political implications.
Under the American International Military and Educational Training Program (IMET) and the Australian Defence Cooperation Programme (DCP), both governments have for years been providing training for overseas military personnel. While military skills are taught, such programs also are intended to generate good will and useful and long-term connections, and to expose participants to principles of proper management and civil control. They are supposed to inculcate `respect for the civilian population and international law.'18
In Indonesian context, critics in both countries have reasoned that such programs have not succeeded in instilling human rights values in a military that plays a significant part in Indonesia's domestic affairs, and has variously behaved with blatant callousness. The Australian Government has persevered with its program, but after the 1991 killings in East Timor, Congress legislated to block further IMET funding. Increasingly striving to reach out toward Indonesia, the Clinton Administration found this restriction shortsighted. At present writing it is seeking Congressional authority to resume a modest IMET program for Indonesia, with more emphasis on instruction in human rights principles, and in the meantime circumventing the ban on IMET funding by offering the program on a paid basis.
The irony is that, in training as well as other areas Indonesia has by now acquired a wider defense relationship with Australia than it enjoys with any other nation, and that America is in part responsible. Australia compensates willingly. The US Administration is unhappy that statutory constraints have caused America's role to decline, and diminished its standing. But it is not displeased that Australia is taking up some of the slack. Indeed, it feels that the Australian effort is consistent with US human rights and democracy objectives.19
Australian representations to the US have noted that arms transfer embargoes would be prejudical to Indonesia's legitimate wish to maintain a reasonable military capability. It is uneasy that a downsized US contribution spells damage to America's regional acceptance as a serious and contributing partner. Here again the Australian sentiment that post-cold war circumstances call for an American leadership that is not being adequately articulated. Congress at one juncture wished to impose a wholesale ban on weapon sales to Indonesia; the Administration, the US-Asian Council for Business and Technology, and other interested parties lobbied against. The result is that while major defensive systems can be sold, small arms and crowd control equipment that can be deployed in domestic context can not.
Australia is a minor exporter of defense and related products, the 1992-93 figure amounting to only A$36.8 million. Though the proportion is rising, ASEAN customers during this period absorbed only 6 per cent of the total. Military goods export guidelines, most recently revised in 1994, prohibit transfers to governments that seriously violate human rights, unless there is no reasonable risk that such material might be employed against citizens in violation of their human rights. In early 1995, in the face of sharp domestic criticisms and potential political fallout, and with divisions within the bureaucracy, the Government in principle approved the sale of a small batch of rifles to Indonesia. Export marketing and above all diplomatic considerations outweighed other considerations.
The action was consistent with Australia's desire to broaden and deepen its already coruscating Indonesian relationship. Combined military exercises with Indonesia have been accelerated. In 1995, for the first time, Indonesia (together with Singapore, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Britain and the US) are participating in `Kangaroo', Australia's most elaborate exercise series. It is also the first instance of the Indonesian military exercising on Australian territory. Kangaroo 95 `will become a catalyst for increased security cooperation in parallel with the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum grouping,'20 an insight that invites transition to our next analytical theme.
For Australia and the United States, but most consistently and emphatically for Australia, fostering habits and networks of regional cooperation is at a premium. Highlighted through such bodies as APEC, ASEAN, and the ASEAN Regional Forum (on security), this offers opportunity for Asian nations to work productively among themselves,and for others such as Australia and the US to be engaged with them on a regional basis. APEC itself was an Australian initiative. Among regional leaders, President Suharto of Indonesia shares Keating's view that APEC can discharge a meaningful role in pulling the Americans into concentric, constructive engagement with Asia-Pacific.
For a year or so after taking office, the Clinton Administration was perceived by Australia and others as lacking sufficient regional focus and a fixed set of priorities, including in the handling of associations such as APEC. Keating can indeed be credited with stimulating Clinton's enthusiasm for APEC. He helped persuade Clinton that Suharto was a central regional figure, and insured Suharto's personal participation in the 1993 APEC summit in Seattle. As Greg Sheridan recounts, Keating `told the Indonesians that APEC offered a way of putting American pressure, on everything from trade to human rights, in a structure, a context, which might at least soften the edges of such pressure.'21 As a result, Australia gained currency with Jakarta and Washington alike.
Australia also worked to smooth the path for the following year's APEC summit, held in Bogor, Indonesia, and presided over by Suharto. Australia's determination that the Bogor meetings succeed in achieving their ambitious economic agenda contributed to its earlier efforts to dissuade the US from implementing such measures as GSP sanctions against Indonesia and Malaysia -- two of APEC's most outspoken critics of western sermonizing on Asia's human and social rights obligations. We also recall Australia's vigorous and successful opposition to the American coupling of China's MFN recertification, and its human rights performance. Had the US not uncoupled the two issues in May 1994, China might not have bothered to show up in Bogor, thereby jeopardizing the tenor and productivity of the meetings. It should also be borne in mind that America's earlier inclination to link China's human rights to trade had been very unflatteringly received by APEC's members, including its core ASEAN community, as a potentially worrying precedent for them personally. One way or another, a majority of ASEAN's members had already been chastized over their own human rights conduct, and therefore were suspicious about the sort of agenda the Americans might carry to Bogor. Indications of American interest in injecting worker/trade union rights into GATT's then concluding, Uruguay Round, and therefore into the emerging World Trade Organization, were another unsettling sign for APEC members. Likewise for the Australians, who had fought long and hard for a liberalized, international trade regime, free as possible of divisive, distracting pendants.
In certain respects, however, the regionalism-human rights nexus may promise something positive, beyond Washington being able to sidestep the indictment that `While preaching multilateralism, the administration has practiced unlateralism in pursuit of trade and human rights objectives.'22
Consider the 1993 Bangkok Declaration of Asian States. Its language was hedged; human rights had to be considered in the context of a dynamic and evolving process of international norm-setting, bearing in mind the significance of national particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds. And, decidedly, `human rights should not be applied as a pretext for commercial, political or other pressure.' That to some observers was little short of a copout on human rights. But the Declaration also accepted the universality and desirability of personal and associational dignities, and pledged signatory compliance. 23 The Declaration was in other words a `compromise', but it did incorporate broad, western-promoted concepts. The Declaration is only hortatory. Nevertheless, as an Asian document crafted by Asians, it is part of their public record. It arguably becomes a kind of template when Asian-Pacific nations gather, debate and negotiate in increasingly common regional settings. The 1994 Australian Parliamentary report on human rights recommended establishment of a ministerial-level, APEC member dialogue process on human rights, through regular contacts among national human rights commissions. Noninvasively treated, such a format would be a human rights plus, and not unconnected to the Bangkok Declaration idiom. For Australia and the United States, it is coincidentally plausible that the economic successes of the regional dynamic will, however unevenly, translate into more open and accountable societies.
This leads to an assessment of US and Australian styles in using regional fora for the promotion of their human rights concerns with regional partner nations. What elucidates the picture is not really `whether or not', but `where and how.' APEC's Bogor meeting pulls together a number of the strands.
Prior to Bogor, the US announced that it would not inject human rights issues into the meetings. Clinton and Keating had been in close contact on the approaching summit. They mostly discussed its intended, economic agenda, but the President was aware of Australia's position on leaving human rights alone. In the event, the US delegation at Bogor kept the Administration's word.
Clinton did however raise American human rights concerns with Suharto. This session was bilateral, not APEC-bound, and occasioned by Clinton being present in Indonesia. It was not a subterfuge, to skirt around the pledge to avoid human rights with APEC as such. As Clinton advised his host that mistreatment of Suharto's people would inhibit US-Indonesian ties and rob Suharto of his chance to flourish as a world leader, the New York Times referred to the `tensions' among Clinton's senior advisors `that underscored the Administration's stated desire to export American values and the need to export American goods.'24 In Bogor, Keating did not in any way raise human rights issues with Suharto. There was no need, he later explained, since he and other official Australians had addressed the subject with Indonesian counterparts many times before. In one sense, especially since he knew that Clinton would be speaking with Suharto, Keating did not wish to weigh in with still another western litany. In appearance as well as in fact he wanted to keep Australia focused on the urgent economic business at hand. Still, only days after Bogor had been adjourned, Evans publicly warned that `It would be a matter of grave international concern utterly counterproductive for Indonesia internationally,' if any maltreatment were to be meted out to East Timorese protestors who had been detained without trace following demonstrations in Jakarta and Dili.25 The lesson to be drawn from the episode seemed to be that while Australia was in respects more circumspect than the US, i.e., not raising human rights with Suharto at Bogor, it was not timid about challenging Indonesia's human rights practices, and admonished in language similar to Clinton's.
At Bogor, again in bilateral rather than collective APEC setting, the US addressed its concerns about Indonesian workers and trade union conditions. As a matter of conviction, the Administration wanted to get some results. As a matter of politics, it was under pressure from the AFL-CIO, a traditionally pro-Democrat constituency, with which it had a running argument over Clinton's embrace of NAFTA. At least some in Congress also were in a fighting mood. Shortly before Bogor, 76 Congressmen wrote to Clinton, urging that, since low-priced Asian labor was flooding overseas markets, APEC consider worker rights protection. Thus the Administrative did have incentives to raise worker rights, but it do so bilaterally, and departed Indonesia with something; a relatively vague Indonesian promise to adjust labor regulations and to make the government-run All Independent Worker Union more independent.
Australia was pleased; honor seemed to have been satisfied on both the American and Indonesian sides. Australia had not however simply been a distant spectator. Months before Bogor, it was making plain that it desired accommodation, not confrontation. Don Russell, Australia's Ambassador to Washington, explained that ` ...