Big powers must avoid 'diplomatic deep freezes' for stable world order: Australia's Albanese

The stability and security in the Asia-Pacific region and the world can only be secured through the collective responsibility of all countries, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Friday, adding that any "diplomatic deep freezes" by big powers would invite misunderstanding and arouse suspicion.

Giving a keynote speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Albanese said peace, stability and security could not be taken for granted, and warned that no nation must think it was above multilateral rules.

To be collectively responsible, all countries must always engage, maintain open dialogue and diplomacy - that is, establishing guardrails and for all countries to follow the agreed-upon multilateral rules.

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When any country thinks it is above those rules, then stability would break down, Albanese said, citing the importance of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to the region.

"Australia's goal is not to prepare for war, but to prevent it through deterrence and reassurance and building resilience in the region, doing our part to fulfil the shared responsibility all of us have to preserve peace and security," he said.

"And making it crystal-clear that when it comes to any unilateral attempt to change the status quo by force, whether Taiwan, the South China Sea, the East China Sea or elsewhere, the risk of conflict will always far outweigh any potential reward."

Globally, Albanese said complacency that free trade and globalisation would support a stable world order appeared to be fading, and countries were now realising they had not paid "sufficient attention to the maintenance and effectiveness of multilateral institutions and global rules".

To do better, big powers and nations must establish the most fundamental guardrail - that is, to move away from "diplomatic deep freezes", Albanese said.

"The silence of the diplomatic deep freeze only breeds suspicion, only makes it easier for nations to attribute motive to misunderstanding, to assume the worst of one another," he said.

"If you don't have the pressure valve of dialogue, if you don't have the capacity - at a decision-making level - to pick up the phone, to seek some clarity or provide some context, then there is always a much greater risk of assumptions spilling over into irretrievable action and reaction."

To that end, Australia had moved to set that example by stabilising its relationship with China, Albanese said.

While there remained challenges, Albanese said Canberra had sought to recognise that "it was always better and always more effective if we deal direct", regardless of the differences between the two governments.

"China's extraordinary economic transformation has benefited not only its own population, it has benefited our entire region," Albanese said.

The Australian leader also addressed concerns about the potential instability that could be triggered by his country's purchase of nuclear-powered submarines through the security alliance Aukus.

"The submarines we are acquiring - the single biggest leap in Australia's defence capability in our history - reflect our determination to live up to those expectations ... [of being] a stronger partner and a more effective contributor to stability in our region," Albanese said, adding that Aukus was about partnership, not competition.

Earlier at a press conference in Singapore after conducting the eighth Australia-Singapore Annual Leaders' Meeting with the city state's Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, Albanese said his government made personal calls to more than 60 countries to provide transparency on Aukus.

Besides Albanese's meeting with Singapore's Wong, Australia's defence ministers also met their counterparts from Fiji and Ukraine at the dialogue.

With Singapore, Albanese agreed to support multilateral cooperation as he had indicated in his speech and to maintain Asean centrality.

Albanese and Wong also launched a joint A$20 million (US$13.2 million) Go-Green Co-Innovation Program, to provide grants over a four-year period to drive co-innovation between Singapore and Australia. They also agreed to establish a Green and Digital Shipping Corridor by the end of 2025 to help decarbonise and digitalise the port and shipping industry.

Australia committed to being a reliable supplier of energy to Singapore, including gas to meet global emissions targets. The collapsed Sun Cable project to transmit solar-generated electricity from Australia's Northern Territory to Singapore was recently resuscitated.

The Shangri-La Dialogue is in its 20th edition, and the second meeting after a two-year absence due to the pandemic. Ministers from more than 40 countries attended the meeting, including 48 ministerial-level delegates and more than 35 senior defence officials.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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