WHETHER WE SEND TROOPS OR CASINOS, OUR ISLANDS FACE THE FALKLANDS FACTOR

 WHETHER WE SEND TROOPS OR CASINOS, OUR ISLANDS FACE THE FALKLANDS FACTOR

By Peter Robinson
1,420 words
10 November 1987
Australian Financial Review
12
English
© 1987 Copyright John Fairfax Holdings Limited. www.afr.com Not
available for re-distribution.

Although it is still as tiny in the totality of Australia's strategic
concerns as a rocky outcrop in the vastness of the Indian Ocean,
Christmas Island is just now beginning to hint at its potential for
trouble.

Suggestions at the weekend that after the phosphate mining operations
are closed down Australia may establish a permanent military presence
on the island indicate the possible dimensions of the policy decisions
which will have to be made.

However remote it may still look, moreover, the real concern which
pervades any consideration of the island's future is the possibility
that it may ultimately become Australia's Falklands - a symbolic,
economically useless piece of territory which for reasons of national
prestige or credibility might actually have to be defended at vast
cost in lives and money.

It may seem incredible, crazy and inconceivable, but the fact is that
the development of policies to deal with such possibilities is what
defence and foreign policy planning is all about.

Equally, it is an undeniable fact that changes in relationships with
Asia and the US demand a broader and more sceptical Australian
assessment of regional threats.

The fact that the assessment is made does not mean that there is any
change in previous attitudes, but merely that the totality of the
national position has been refined.

Australian defence planners have this problem as far as the minuscule
Christmas Island situation is concerned. The country really has three
or four choices - establish a token military presence to maintain the
airstrip there in good working condition, maintain a non-military
government presence of some kind simply to assert Australian
sovereignty (for example, a meteorological facility), abandon the
place altogether, or, as one cartoonist wittily pointed out yesterday,
"send in a casino".

In every rational economic sense, the mined-out island will be of no
significance to Australia or anyone else, yet as a kind of static
aircraft carrier it does have a potential strategic role - more,
perhaps, for a potential aggressor than for Australia itself.

Christmas Island is about 3,000km north of Perth, less than 400km
south of Java and about 1,000km east of Australia's other island
territory in the Indian Ocean, Cocos, or the South Keeling Islands.

Clearly, the island would be important in any confrontation with
Indonesia, but equally clearly it would merely exacerbate problems if
it ever were developed into anything that could be called a "threat".

To that extent, it is surely a "neutral" factor.

Its phosphate deposits have been a vital source of materials for
making superphosphate fertiliser and in 1947, just after World War II,
Australia had asked that sovereignty be transferred to Canberra. But
at that time, the British still firmly saw themselves as a world power
with a deep involvement"east of Suez" and the approach was rebuffed.

However, the following year Australia and New Zealand did acquire the
exclusive right to mine the island's phosphate deposits.

In 1954, the Menzies Government made another approach to the British
for a transfer of sovereignty and in 1958 control was transferred to
Australia.

The British - looking at the island mainly from a Singapore
perspective -clearly regarded it as being of strategic importance and
with good reason -and were not in any hurry to transfer it to
Australia.

First of all the guerilla war in Malaya and subsequently the
confrontation with the Indonesia of President Sukarno gave it a
particular significance.

Papers released in 1985 disclosed that strategic considerations were
also an important factor in Australia's persistence in trying to gain
formal control.

A submission to Cabinet by the then Territories Minister, Paul
Hasluck, and the External Affairs Minister, Richard Casey, proposed
the building of an airstrip and added: "An air-staging post on
Christmas Island would provide a fighter reinforcement route between
Australia and Singapore vastly superior to the long and circuitous
routes through Dutch New Guinea and the Philippines which would
otherwise be necessary."

The same submission stressed the importance of Australia acquiring
control of the island before Singapore gained independence from
Britain.

It is difficult to see any reason then, or any today, why Singapore
should wish to claim sovereignty over the island, but such a claim
would probably be somewhat more valid than the successful claim which
Indonesia made on West Irian on the grounds that it was always
administered by the former colonial power, Holland, as an integral
part of the Netherlands East Indies.

Christmas Island, before Australia took it over, was administered from
Singapore and most of its inhabitants were (and are) from that island
State.

There is, of course, no reason why Australia and Singapore should ever
become embroiled in a dispute over the despoiled hulk of Christmas
Island, unless Australia either in actuality or in a de facto way
simply abandoned it like a piece of space junk. In that case, perhaps
some dispute over sovereignty could arise.

In fact, after it took control of the island, Australia several times
assured Indonesia that it had no intention of building significant
military facilities on the territory.

Given the island's proximity to Indonesia as well as its closeness to
the Timor Trench, which is still regarded as being an oil-prospective
area, sensitivity in Jakarta over what Australia might do with the
island is understandable.

Yet according to a report published in The Times on Sunday last
weekend, Australia is now considering "a military presence" if various
civilian plans to rehabilitate the island fall through. Phosphate
mining is due to be phased out in three or four years and unless other
commercially viable activities are found, the island may be
depopulated.

The main civilian plan to rehabilitate the island is a casino-resort
complex which according to some reports will depend on wealthy Chinese
from Singapore and Malaysia, and on others will service Australians
anxious for an Indian Ocean paradise.

Quite frankly, I find it difficult to believe in these projects. There
is by now no shortage of casinos and the money being pumped into
Australian-based resorts suggests anything on Christmas Island would
have to be exceptional to compete.

The island itself as far as I know is not particularly attractive and
will be even less so by the time the mining is finished, even though
there may be some grotesque attraction in observing the horrible
results of a mining culture.

The alternative of establishing a kind of military base there seems
even more ludicrous to me.

The place had an obvious significance when short-range aircraft were
being ferried frequently to South-East Asia, but this has long since
disappeared -just as the former Cocos strip which served Qantas
flights to South Africa has become irrelevant.

To place any sort of military base on the island (or on Cocos for that
matter) is surely an undesirable military gesture. No matter how small
the"base", it is a military presence. Indeed, the smaller it is, the
less scope there is for negotiating a reduction in size some time in
the future.

Australia has a genuine long-term problem about both Cocos and
Christmas islands. It either indicates that it takes them seriously
and therefore, on one or both of them, puts a decent military presence
or it tries to reduce the level of discussion by putting no military
presence.

The latter decision is theoretically fine - but it makes no provision
for political reality.

If there should ever be any kind of dispute at all with places like
Indonesia or Singapore - or any kind of discussion with the US about
using Australian territory for American bases in the Indian Ocean -
Australia will be very vulnerable if it has already airily decided
that the islands have no military significance.

The idea of "sending in a casino" has already been initiated, although
commonsense suggests that it will depend much on the marketing skills
of the companies involved.

Abandoning the territory is really inconceivable, simply because the
political reaction to any foreign occupation would be insupportable.
This is so whether it is totally unoccupied, occupied by a few
scientists or by a tourist hotel.

Australia should have some minor military presence on the island
because it indicates a determination to remain there. The alternative
is to indicate that we simply don't care - which in political terms
means that sooner or later we will face a Falklands situation.

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