Radio Australia Today Editorial

You Can’t Win ‘Em All (Part 2)

12 June 2008

It’s happened again.

Our prime minister, Kevin Rudd is in Japan right now, and in the theme of damned-if-you-do, he has been criticised for paying attention to the other guy. The other guy in this case is, of course, China.

It might just be that the PM has walked into the middle of an international relations rift between the two countries, but he probably thought that he was just being a good world citizen by talking with everyone in the region. After all, having dialogue with a major power, let alone a big trading partner like China, could only be a good thing.

As I noted yesterday, Barack Obama has been flogged for daring to suggest that, if elected, he would talk to certain countries (Iran and its ‘axis of evil’ partners).

It comes to something when opening dialogue with other countries becomes a scandal.

One of our comments on this blog suggested that this dialogue is akin to appeasement (which has been a dirty world ever since British PM Neville Chamberlain was duped by Adolph Hitler).
But there is a big difference here. Chamberlain also turned a blind eye to Hitler’s early invasions in Europe. That was appeasement. It would be a big stretch to suggest that it would be equivalent to Chamberlain’s appeasement to be simply communicating with a sovereign government, good or bad a government as it may be.

When I was a kid we were taught to talk things out. Never ignore problems, but at least try to sort them.

Barack Obama may become president, and maybe his plan of speaking with difficult governments will not produce results. But it won’t be appeasement.

And Kevin Rudd’s attempts to speak with opposing sides in Asia can’t be a bad thing. There will only be a little bad media to come from it. The only appeasement here would be if he buckles to pressure and doesn’t talk to who he wants to.

I don’t think he’ll be doing that.

- Phil