By Hugh White*
In a speech to the Press Club in Canberra this week, Foreign Minister Penny Wong sketched a fine vision for the future of the Asian order. Wong seeks a region in which no one country dominates, in which every country has a say, and each can pursue its own interests and objectives free from coercion. (The Lowy Institute’s The Interpreter) The key to this order is what she called a “regional balance of power”. She accepts that China’s increased wealth and power will mean it has a bigger and more influential role than hitherto, but its power will, she hopes, be balanced by America’s in what she calls a “multipolar” order.
