Trilateral dialogue
Foreign affairs and defence correspondent, Graeme Dobell, looks at the development of the Japan-Australia-US dialogue.

In a conference room in Washington the other day, the Australian Foreign Minister and the US Secretary of State, nailed another piece to a growing structure, what the academic gurus call the emerging architecture of East Asia.

Condaleeza Rice and Alexander Downer announced that the trilateral security dialogue between the US, Australia and Japan, currently conducted by senior officials, will be lifted to their level.

That is, the creation of a regular three-way strategic dialogue between the Foreign Ministers of Japan and Australia and the US Secretary of State.

It will probably be held on the sidelines at other bigger annual gatherings such as APEC, ASEAN or at the United Nations.

The trilateral dialogue puts in the third leg of the triangle between two bilateral US alliances in East Asia with Japan and Australia.

When the then US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, first floated the trilateral idea in July 2001, Alexander Downer leapt in to say it'd be an informal dialogue, not the creation of an East Asian NATO.

That denial of any NATO style alliance was, perhaps, the most interesting element in the birth of the Japan-Australia-US dialogue.

In diplomacy, denials are interesting currency.

Bearing in mind I.F. Stone's dictum about governments: believe nothing until it's been officially denied, or Henry Kissinger's dictum that when a country denies its intention to do something, it is telling other countries that it does have the capacity to do that thing if it so decides.

The invisible participant in this new bit of regional architecture is, of course, China. When it's being polite, China calls the US alliance system in Asia, old thinking. When it's being rude, China talks about Japan and Australia as the north and south claws of the US containment strategy.

While stating the obvious, that the rise of China is reshaping our world, Canberra is also becoming quite explicit about its special regard for Japan as, quote "a strategic partner".

Unlike Beijing - vehement in its opposition - Canberra is a staunch supporter of the idea that Japan should have a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.

And the Prime Minister, John Howard, talks about the US, Japan and Australia as the "three great Pacific democracies", with the trilateral security dialogue adding "a new dimension" to the value the three countries place on their alliance relationships.

This adds a distinctly different element to the line unveiled by the Foreign Minister in Beijing last August, when Alexander Downer argued that under the ANZUS alliance with the US, Australia is not bound to automatically enter any hypothetical conflict between China and the US over Taiwan.

The formal alliance obligation, of course, is to consult.

And increasingly, it seems, that consultation will be more than just the old bilateral Washington-Canberra dialogue but with a third Tokyo leg.

It is about the rise and rise of China, but also about the way that Japan seeks to reinvent itself, to use its own term, as a normal country.

For much of the last 50 years, when Australia was talking about China, often it was really talking about the United States.

The biggest example of this is Australia's refusal to give diplomatic recognition to the People's Republic of China from 1949 to 1972.

As the official documents of the period make clear, this non-recognition was more about Australia's alliance with the United States than it was about China.

The reverse of this, increasingly, is that now when Australia talks to the US or Japan, often it is really talking about China.

With luck, this dynamic will stretch far into the future, the longer the better, with plenty of questions, and we hope only the vaguest final answers.

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