Australia's policy towards coup-prone and military regimes in the Asia-Pacific: Thailand, Fiji and Burma

Events in Thailand, Fiji and Burma in 2006 and 2007 focused attention on Australia's foreign policy response to regional coup-prone states and military regimes. Australia's official reaction to these events took different forms: for Thailand, a mild rebuke that brought no change in Thai-Australian relations; for Fiji, condemnation, the imposition of sanctions and a call for the people of Fiji to rebel; and for Burma, a change of policy that brought financial sanctions against the military regime. This article argues that, in responding to these regimes in different ways, Australian governments act on the basis of differing prisms of understanding through which they assess regions and states. The differences ultimately arise from calculations of Australian national security, strategic interests, alliance maintenance and power potential, but tend to be obscured by the universalist rhetoric of promoting democracy and protecting human rights, to which Australian governments subscribe. As the security dynamic in the Asia-Pacific changes as a consequence of the rise of China, Australian policy towards coup-prone states and military regimes in the region is likely to favour stability over democracy or the protection of human rights.