CPA - The Guardian

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has had an amazing week, if media reports are to be believed. “G-whiz: high flying PM changes the world”, runs the headline on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald (26/09/09). “The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has won a significant victory for Australia with the Group of 20 largest economies replacing the G8 as the world’s leading forum for economic cooperation.” And for the first time Australia has a seat at the top table!

This “G-whiz” outcome, for which Rudd is being given more credit than is due, is nothing short of a scandalous attack on and undermining of the authority of the United Nations (UN). It is a continuation of trend being pushed by the leaders and corporations of the more powerful industrialised countries to usurp and bypass the UN and assume global governance in their own right through such organisations as NATO, the G8 and the G20.

It was very evident at the United Nations conference on the global economic crisis in June this year. This important conference which gave voice to all nations, including the poorest and most severely affected by the crisis, was shunned by most Western leaders. Australia did not even take the trouble to send a low level representative; instead it was embarrassingly represented by a Canadian representative to the UN.

The Canadian official, speaking on behalf of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, emphasised the critical role of international financial institutions and the G20, and the “complementary engagement of all actors, including the UN” in addressing the global economic crisis. He put the G20 above the UN which he generously allowed to play a complimentary role.

The big powers, in particular the US, did their best during the preparations for and at the UN conference to limit the scope of discussion. They thwarted attempts for the UN to move quickly and decisively to address the global economic crisis, causing considerable anger and frustration amongst delegates from poorer countries, who were hit hardest by a crisis that was not of their making. (See UN sets big agenda for economic crisis action Guardian 29/07/2009)

Last week the PM did not stop for breath, addressing gatherings of US business leaders and academics, meeting government leaders, giving doorstop media interviews, as well as a speech to the United Nations General Assembly and attending the G20 Summit.

UN relegated

In his address to the UN General Assembly in New York on September 23, Rudd spoke of the challenges of our age and how these are reflected in the preamble to the UN Charter and its aims. He lists a number of areas from the preamble including: “to advance economic growth and social progress for all”, saying “these great international values remain constant”.

This reference to “international values” is misleading. The actual wording of the preamble is much stronger; signatories agree “to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples”.

Article 3, on the Purposes of the United Nations Organisation states clearly: “To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character…”

Rudd promoted the G20 in the sphere of global economic cooperation. He told delegates that the IMF had assessed the G20’s interventions as having “succeeded in breaking the fall in what was an economic crisis spiralling out of control.”

Then, later in his address, Rudd told the UN Assembly what its role is: “Mr President – Let the Assembly also not forget the continuing critical work of the UN across the full spectrum of global governance: international peace-keeping operations; humanitarian operations; food security; women; health; children and refugees – all hallmarks of a civilise global order.” The word “economic” was omitted, revealing the total hypocrisy of his opening remarks about the preamble.

“In Pittsburgh we have an historic opportunity to agree on a framework to deliver effective coordination of our national economic policies”, Rudd unashamedly told the UN Assembly. The reference to Pittsburgh was the G20 Summit being held the next day.

Rudd did not stay to hear the other government leaders over the remaining days of the General Assembly. He was off to Pittsburgh to join the leaders of the world’s largest economies, a meeting that insultingly clashed with the final days of the UN General Assembly.

The Leaders’ Statement issued at the end of the G20 Summit declared they had “designated the G-20 as the premier forum for our international economic cooperation.”

The media quickly dropped the word “our” turning the statement into “the world’s leading forum for economic cooperation”. This exclusive, self-appointed grouping operates outside of and undermines the international framework of the UN.

The great victory being accredited to Rudd is that previously the G8, the richest industrialised countries, was the self-appointed group in charge of international economic cooperation. The G8 increasingly lacked relevance with the omission of a number of key economies, in particular China. The G20 brought in China, Brazil and India, facilitating claims that it was highly representative, including both developed and developing countries. Rudd recognised the inevitability of a shift from the G8, and pushed hard for the G20, as it would give Australia a seat at the head table.

The Prime Minister’s most telling remarks were reserved for his address to the Foreign Policy Association, entitled “American leadership and the emerging global order.”

US domination

Rudd argued that “America remains an overwhelmingly force for good in the world,” and portrayed the G20 as the “driving centre” of existing institutions of global governance.

Globalisation brings new challenges and an extremely complex situation, and “with all these challenges, the need for global leadership becomes greater, not lesser,” said Rudd, advocating “US global leadership for the future”.

“Recognising throughout that while the United States can lead, and while the United States should lead, the lessons of recent years remind us that the United States cannot be expected to do so alone,” Rudd said.

“American leadership must also be supported in this new endeavour by a new ‘driving centre’ of global politics and the global economy – a group of nations, both developed and developing, sharing a broad commitment to make the existing institutions of global governance solve the problems existing faced by the global order rather than simply avoid them.” That is the G20’s role.

“This, I believe, is the current direction of the Obama Administration.”

Some of the other members of the G20 such as the EU, Japan and China, see their role in the G20 a little differently!

Rudd then lays into the existing global institutions in an attempt to justify US and G20 leadership. “The new and pressing functional demands of a rapidly unfolding global order are now rubbing up against the increasingly dysfunctional nature of global institutions that are either out of their depth; insufficiently empowered; or reduced to a negotiating stalemate by the politics of the lowest common denominator.”

He includes the UN Security Council amongst those institutions, pointing to failure on nuclear disarmament, climate change and the Millennium Development Goals.

He does not stop to explain why these institutions are not sufficiently empowered, why they were stalemated or dysfunctional, which leading, wealthy nations undermined and bypassed them, refused to look beyond their own narrow interests – primarily the US, the EU, Canada, Japan and Australia. The very countries that have sabotaged the international institutions under the umbrella of the UN, now seek to relegate the UN to a secondary role in global economic governance and other issues. Twenty, mostly rich, nations seek to override the voices of 190 nations.

As for Rudd’s derogatory reference to “lowest common denominator” – is this a reference to the poorer nations or non-aligned grouping that are increasingly refusing to be bullied by the US? Or is it the likes of little Cuba with its proud and proven human rights and social achievements?

Rudd proposes that the failing international institutions be reformed from within: “this can only be achieved by a combination of the national power and the reforming passion of the United States – reinforced by the reforming passion of a core group of states also prepared to help broker the political compromises necessary to make the existing system deliver results.”

“Australia supports American global leadership in these great global challenges that lie ahead….

“And the reason is simple: there is no more important relationship for Australia than our relationship with the United States of America.”

Australia’s Prime Minister left the US corporates, military, academics and White House in no doubt as the to the loyalty of his government to US imperialism’s interests. Rudd, though, differs from former PM John Howard, in that he intends to be a big figure on the world stage. Meanwhile the struggle for the United Nations to play its primary role in international relations will continue.

Barometers of US global power

Excerpt from Kevin Rudd’s address to the Foreign Policy Association, New York City, September 24, 2009.

There is a degree of faddishness, both in the academic literature and in some of the political commentary, about the inevitable decline and demise of US global power.

To paraphrase the immortal Mark Twain, reports of America’s death are greatly exaggerated.

• US global strategic reach remains unparalleled with its total military spending representing almost half of total global military spending and more than seven times that of China’s;

• US naval strength is again unparalleled - with its total naval tonnage exceeding the world’s next 13 fleets combined;

• The US economy has been the world’s largest economy for the more than 120 years, and for much of the last 100 years has represented about one-quarter of global GDP – as it does today;

• The US economy is three times the size of the world’s second largest economy, Japan, in market exchange rate terms;

• More than one-third of the world’s 20 largest companies are American.

The objective barometers of US global power are therefore in reasonable working order.

Next article – Lens-makers achieve long-held vision

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