Without Rudd, Aussie diplomacy is rudderless

With the recent poll's outcome, sensible Australian politicians would certainly not dare to venture far away from home turfs as Rudd did. After all, he showed that a grand diplomatic blueprint from Australia, while widely debated and praised in some quarters, has many undesirable side effects. The worse is the weakening of government's home-based support. Rudd was sidelined because his party feared damages caused by his continued leadership in a general election. Throughout the past three decades, since former prime minister Bob Hawke, successive Australian governments adopted distinctive diplomatic platforms towards the region but none of them suffered as much as Rudd's premiership.

Truth be told, the Australian elite and public are familiar with the diplomatic engagements with the West, especially the U.S. and on major issues such as climate change, international peace and security and nonproliferation. They often get excited and sometimes perplexed when Canberra is trying to woo Asia, which is now synonymous with rising China. It used to be Japan, the U.S. alliance and the world's No. 2 economic power. In this case, the Putonghua-speaking Rudd did not help ease the anxiety. Moreover, the Asian diasporas in Australia are not keen to push for cozier ties with their former home countries either.

For the time being, Australia has temporarily dropped off from the radar's screen just as a new strategic environment is shaping up in the region — ironically similar to what Rudd envisaged both in scope and purpose. First off, Australia along with Russia, will be abducted into the Asia-Europe Meeting (Asem) in Brussels, Belgium early next month when the European and ASEAN leaders meet for their eighth summit.

What can Australia now bring to Asem? Australia, Asia's fourth largest economy, is a leading member of G-20 and Rudd's contributions to the previous meetings in London and Pittsburg were enormous. Whoever succeeds Rudd must display the same level of competency. If the Labor Party retains power, there is a possibility that Rudd could again join the new government as a foreign minister in order to retain Australia's diplomatic leverage.

Regionally, thanks to Rudd's proposal of Asia-Pacific community (APc) and his relentless pursuit, the ASEAN leaders were obliged to do some soul searching among themselves. Exactly two years later, they responded to the initiative with an expanded East Asia Summit (EAS), the premier leaders' forum found by ASEAN in 2005. The U.S. and Russia will now join EAS next year. India is expected to join the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders' meeting in Yokohama in November. All the missing links that Rudd alluded to are coming together.

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