Realpolitik gets in the way
It is very difficult to maintain a moral foreign policy. Self-interest and reality keep on getting in the way. Those who believe that nations should conduct themselves in the world in line with their ethical and moral values have a hard time when confronted with the reality that many other nations do not share those values, or prefer their own norms.
Wanting countries to behave in line with your values is just foolish. The failure of the League of Nations is a startling example of basing foreign policy and international order on values that not everyone shares.
Naive US President Woodrow Wilson proposed his famous 14 points as the basis for the conduct of international relations after World War I. Just what a small-town academic like Wilson knew about the realities of European politics could be written on the back of a postage stamp, but the league was duly set up and disputes between and among nations were to be settled by negotiation, mediation and compromise.
The first problem was that the US Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and the US never joined the League of Nations. The second, and more serious, problem arose because when Germany (1926) and the USSR (1934) were eventually admitted, they, along with Italy, refused to comply with the league’s resolutions where these conflicted with their national ambitions.
The league and its successor, the United Nations, had no standing army and could not enforce their own decisions. Only on rare occasions has the UN found the political will to act militarily (Korea and Kuwait).
My point is that wishing the world was a better place is great, but don’t allow yourself to ever believe that wishing something will make it so.
When it comes to our relations with China (and read other countries into the same equation), it would be great if they stopped mistreating their Uyghur people, ceased their aggressive expansion in the South China Sea, gave up on incorporating Taiwan into the People’s Republic of China, and allowed democracy to flourish in Hong Kong, but these things won’t happen.
What should we do? Utter condemnatory words? That won’t change anything, and the Chinese might retaliate. OK, we can tolerate that. What’s the loss of several hundred million dollars worth of trade compared to standing up for our principles?
Why confine ourselves to China? What actions should we take against the US for the ongoing and entrenched racism inherent in so many of its police forces and other institutions? We should stop selling them beef, wine and other goods to show our disapproval, and of course we should stop two-way tourism.
Ditto Australia for a host of reasons, but particularly for their treatment of Aboriginals, handling of boat people, and cheating at cricket.
In the end, realpolitik will likely prevail. Nations don’t have friends; they have interests. Our interests are fundamentally about trade, because that is how we feed ourselves and provide a First World standard of living for our people. (Achieving even that is hard work as our poverty and related statistics show only too clearly.)
To take on the added burden of standing up for what we value against people who reject our morality is a task relished only by the most naive and blinkered idealists.
Of course, we must not sink into abject cynicism, thinking our words and moral examples can achieve nothing. But it is also futile to think posturing and parading our virtue will achieve anything worthwhile other than gratifying ourselves.