But it disconcerts me on two fronts. Beijing flings cash around in a somewhat cavalier way, in some mix of decent and poor quality projects, some mix of the transparently obvious and the less than adequately transparent, and our response is to do much the same thing.
It is a bit like financial incentives for kids to improve reading or pass exams: it might appear to work in the short-run, but it commoditises what needs to be internalised. Perhaps that is what happens when you have no values? As various observers have noted, Beijing has no friends and allies, just clients bought and paid for, or intimidated quasi-vassals. It must speak of our character, our values. What we stand for. This is what guides our national interest.
I fear foreign policy these days is too often being assessed through a narrow transactional lens. Taking an overly transactional approach to foreign policy and how we define our national interests sells us short.
If we allow such an approach to compromise our beliefs, we let ourselves down, and we stop speaking with an Australian voice. I imagine the Prime Minister is one of those who believes in the efficacy of foreign aid — and not just transactionally.
Most politicians and bureaucrats tend to. I care quite a bit about Papua New Guinea. When I was growing up our church supported missionaries there — one of whom died flying the inhospitable terrain — and apart from an overnight in Brisbane to get there it was the very first overseas place I ever went to. When people worried there about foreign influence, it was still about people like us a former Governor-General had a newspaper column which he not infrequently used to lambast young Australians and New Zealanders who he regarded as still having too much influence in the public sector generally.
