and again the policy changes are supported !!!, page-2

labor only concerned over exports not 3 mines Uranium sales will pit short-term gains against long-term interests
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The focus should be export restrictions, not the three-mines policy, write Peter van Onselen and Stephen Barton.

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AdvertisementKIM Beazley's decision to support overturning Labor's "three-mines" policy blocking the development of new uranium mines while maintaining export restrictions on uranium may have wrenching fallout for the Federal Opposition, but the Government is not likely to escape scot-free, either. Beazley has noted that "the problem is not where the uranium is dug out; the problem is the exports".

Moving away from the three-mines policy may be difficult for the ALP, but while this debate is underway the issue of export restrictions will be up for discussion, which should put the spotlight on the Government's decision to export uranium to China.

In his 2005 Earle Page lecture, Alexander Downer argued that the ALP has an inherent preference for isolationism and appeasement. At the time his comments caused a fair amount of controversy. Downer has been at pains to continue to attack Labor for historical appeasement, attempting to tie such claims to modern Labor's foreign policy. Yet ironically it is the Coalition, with Downer as the Foreign Affairs Minister, which is now appeasing China - by selling it uranium, inviting President Hu Jintao to address our democratic Parliament and baulking before granting diplomat Chen Yonglin protection.

Granted, dealing with China is problematic for a middle power like Australia: for a start there are the enormous economic benefits to consider and the Chinese, with their historic sense of grievance, can be more than a little thin-skinned.

Asked on ABC's Lateline about the Government's refusal to attend an annual forum in Washington on how to deal with China, Downer mused: "If it was secret, I would have thought it would be less of a problem in terms of your relations with China than if it was public." The subtext, of course, was to avoid anything that could be seen as public criticism of or concern about China.

China is something of an ideological oddity. In its move from communism to capitalism, it managed to exchange a command economy for a market-based one, with some success, so far at least. What's more, population size and the potential of the Chinese economy make it attractive to Western investors and governments.

But the Chinese system retains at its heart a contradiction: can a politically repressive regime be economically dynamic, and how long before people used to buying what they want also start to say what they want? China is a ticking time bomb. Can the Chinese model work or will it implode under the weight of its contradictions? These are questions that need addressing, especially in any debate over whether China should be allowed to consume the bulk of our uranium exports.


Dealing with China needs finesse and sophistication. But if we are willing to invade Iraq and Afghanistan to assist in George Bush's grand democratic experiment, what does it say when we start selling uranium to an authoritarian regime that will be the next superpower?

It is ironic that our support of an expensive Iraq war could have the long-term effect of damaging the US economy, thereby reducing its superpower status, while our export of uranium supports authoritarian China's economic and possibly military rise to challenge US domination. All this while China secures the bulk of its oil and gas from Iran at a time when the US is seeking UN sanctions as an alternative to going to war.

How does it look when Australia displays a preference to supply uranium to China rather than to democratic India?

This hardly squares with Downer's Churchillian Liberal Party thesis put forward in his Earle Page lecture. The argument that uranium exported to China will not be used for nuclear weapons is no justification because our uranium will simply free up Chinese uranium not subject to such restrictions to be used for weapons-grade production. This is why uranium exports should only be made to democratic regimes.

The democratic peace theory, the philosophical roots of which come from the writings of Immanuel Kant, dictates that liberal democracies never or almost never go to war with one another. Australia, like India, is a liberal democracy. China simply is not.

Telling China what it wants to hear may be in Australia's short-term interests. But in the long term, we cannot be so sure. A stronger China, with its internal contradictions, intent on throwing its weight around the Pacific Rim, is not a terribly appealing prospect.

Uranium sales will do little to alleviate our discomfort. Let's see what Labor now has to say on the subject.

Peter van Onselen and Stephen Barton are lecturers in politics at Edith Cowan University in Perth