Howard Outrages South-East Asian Nations

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, December 03, 2002

Howard Outrages South-East Asian Nations

Australian Prime Minister John Howard outraged the South-East Asian nations by claiming the right to launch pre-emptive strike on their soil in fighting terrorism.

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Australian Prime Minister John Howard outraged the South-East Asian nations by claiming the right to launch pre-emptive strike on their soil in fighting terrorism.

Answering the question whether he would be prepared to act if he knew a terrorist organization in a neighboring country was planning an attack on Australia, the prime minister said Sunday night "if you believed that somebody was going to launch an attack against your country, either of a conventional kind or of a terrorist kind, and you had a capacity to stop it and there was no alternative other than to use that capacity, then of course you would have to use it."

Howard made the important statement without consultation with its Asian neighbors, which all made sharp and quick reactions. Senior officials in the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia denounced it as a threat to their sovereignty and a blowto regional cooperation against terrorism.

The core of the issue is that the Australia's neighbors feel they have not been respected by the developed country and their sense was hurt not by a real and immediate military threat but by an arrogant attitude.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said at a news conference "I think Australia must think they are a big power. They are talking the language of a big power, anyway." While the Philippines's national security adviser Roilo Golez said Howard's statement "is quite arrogant."

In 1999, Howard claimed his country was willing to be the deputy sheriff of the United States in the region. He was criticized of being arrogant by self-appointing the head of the region.

In fact, Australia has not enough military capabilities to launch a pre-emptive strike on its neighbors and tackle a big respond touched by the strike without any US support.

The Australian daily said in an article Tuesday "It used to be said that the best defence was to 'walk quietly and carry a big stick'. We need to be careful, because all we have to carry is a floppy strand of spaghetti."

Analysts believe Howard's statement on a possible pre-emptive strike will hurt the country's relations with its Asian neighbors as well as the newly established cooperation system with them in fighting terrorism.

The Malaysian foreign minister said "If they are talking that way, maybe we find it hard to understand that they want to be partof an Asian community." The Philippines's national security adviser said he would call for a rethink of the bilateral anti-terrorism pact being negotiated with Australia.

But Prime Minister Howard Tuesday denied his comments had damaged Australia's relations with its neighbors. "I don't believethat our relations have been damaged by those statements at all," he told reporters. "The words are clear, simple, direct, people understand what they mean (and) they don't mean any bellicosity towards our friends," he added.

It is not known if the prime minister bears in mind very much the neighbors' reaction and the relations with them. Clear is thathe sees ties with the United States as the most important relations of Australia. He made the statement showing that his country is standing closely by the side of the US president Bush who initiated the pre-emptive doctrine. Anyway there is a defence theory in the country believing "security lies on a big brother", though the United States failed even to protect itself off terrorist attacks.

The Sydney Morning Herald said Tuesday "Instead of Howard's tell-the-world-we-push-with-Bush policy giving us a greater sense of security, we fell increasingly insecure."

Terrorism is the common enemy of human and the best way to battle against it is cooperation not unilateral action. Indonesiancharge' d'affairs to Canberra Imron Cotan said "The best option for us, not only for Australia, to deal with terrorism is to act together, to build cooperation." The Australian daily touched the point by saying "Our prime minister seems unable to view the crisis as one of shared interests with Asia, squandering an important strategic opportunity on a divisive political play."

Source: Xinhua News Agency

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