Welcome to the first issue of my newsletter, the Art of Governing. Here I will each week reflect on a skill in the art of governing and look at events from our multipolar world that demonstrate the importance of cultivating the art of governing. I will also give you book, podcast and video recommendations from my week, and offer you as a gift a randoly chosen page from history and text of literature. Lastly, I will let you know what is happening in my world of writing and reflection on the history of our times of trouble.
Art of Governing - Diplomacy
Diplomacy - is there a more emblematic skill of the artful government official? It is a lot more than lying for your country. Diplomacy is built on listening skills, empathy and intelligent reading of events. It requires skilful conversation, not reading from talking points, but the gentle probing, stretching and befriending of an artful conversation. Most of all diplomacy requires judgment of events and the skilful handling of emotions so that a diplomat’s passions and views do not derail the pursuit of the greater understanding between different nations, and between different cultures. As the great French diplomat, Talleyrand said the most essential quality of a skilful diplomat is “the absence of zeal.”
Yet we suffer today, at least in the Anglo-American countries, from both a surfeit of zeal and a malaise of poor diplomacy. American diplomacy especially pursues the zealous advocacy of its status as the indispensable nation of the ‘liberal rules-based order.’ America invited its favoured nations to a summit of democracies, and insulted all those nations who were excluded from this over zealous embrace of values. Diplomats meet and talk about the shared values of their friends, but neglect the value of talking about shared interests with strangers and enemies. Would not a little more skilful diplomacy have prevented the war in Ukraine and the escalation of military exercises around Taiwan?
Event - A Tale of Two Meetings - Taiwan and Sochi
This week two events are worth study for those interested in the art of governing well. They are studies in contrast of diplomacy.
On 3 August Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the USA House of Representatives visited Taiwan. You can read her press statement on the visit here. Her visit was in defiance of stern warnings from China, and limper discouragement from other leadign figures in the American Government. It produced two things a photo opportunity of Pelosi on the international stage, and a diplomatic crisis. Did the good publicity outweigh the bad diplomacy? I think not but let me know what you think.
On 5 August President of Russia Vladimir Putin held talks with President of Turkiye Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi. You can read the statement from the Russian Government here, and from the President of Turkiye (shortly) here. Turkiye (the name now preferred over Turkey) is a member of NATO, the same alliance engaged in a prxy war against Russia. Yet its Presidents meet often, not because they share values, but because they must negotiate common and differing interests. The outcomes of this meeting were substantial - grain exports through the Black Sea, gas supplies through the Turkstream pipeline, broad economic cooperation, the situation in Syria, arms sales, and of course the situation in Ukraine. The benefits of good diplomacy outweigh misunderstandings in the Western media.
Book Recommendation
This weekend I read Geoff Raby China’s Grand Strategy and Australia’s Future in the New Global Order (2020). It is an excllent antidote to Australia’s currently enfeebled diplomacy. Raby was Australia’s Ambassador to China for a long time, and his understanding of the region is excellent. It is well worth a read to imagine what good diplomacy for a middle-power like Australia could be like
"Australia's strategic objectives should be a stable and prosperous region in which all countries' voices can be heard within a framework of agreed rules.... The time has come for Australia's foreign and strategic policy to be based on a contemporary understanding of how profoundly the world order has been changed by China's inexorable rise." (p. 154)
Podcast/Videocast Recommendation
The latest episode of Between the Lines (ABC Radio, with Tom Switzer) features interviews with John Mearsheimer on the “multidimensional tragedy” of the war in Ukraine and with former Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull on the situation in Taiwan, and more generally Australia-China relations.
A Page from History
I established a habit during the long lockdowns of reading a randomly slected page from one of my many global history books on the shelf. The practice sometimes surprised, sometimes educated, and sometimes even misled. I will adapt this practice here. This week, I confess, the choice is not wholly random.
From J.M. Roberts The New Penguin History of the World 4th edition, 2002) page 1054. Here Roberts discusses the demands from the newly formed People’s Republic of China to reclaim the peripheral territories taken by other states during the Century of Humiliation.
“But from the start the most vociferous demand made for regaining control of the Chinese periphery was for the eviction of the KMT (Kuo-Min Ta-Hui) government from Taiwan, seized in 1895 by the Japanese and only briefly restored in 1945 to control by the mainland. By 1955, the United States was so deeply committed to the support of the KMT regime there that the president announced that he United States would protect not merely the island itself but also the smaller islands near the Chinese coast thought essential to its defence. About this issue and against a psychological background provided by a sense of inexplicable rebuff from a China long patronized by American philanthropy and missionary effort, the views of Americans on Chinese affairs tended to crystallize so obsessively that the KMT tail seemed at times to wag the American dog.”
America's missionary psychology continues in new colours today, and the interests of states like Ukraine and Taiwan continue to wag the American Empire’s dog.
The Gifts of Literature
I also established the habit of reading a randomly chosen poem from from shelf each morning. Many poets and excerpts of literature will appear in newsletters to come. Today I give you the final lines of my poem “The State of Politics from my collected poems, Gathering Flowers of the Mind.
Dr Cogito hears Das Rheingold’s opening note,
And so the sory goes:
We still dig from deep water’s mud:
The ring, the ring, the ring.Jeff Rich “The State of Politics”
What is Happening in My Writing World
This week I am launching this newsletter.
I have finished editing of my essays collection, From the Burning Archive, and will begin final processes to publish in a couple of months. I will let you know when it is released as both an e-book and a paperback.
I will be recording the next episode of The Burning Archive podcast on lessons from history. Check out prior episodes, including my discussion of Australian diplomacy, 62. What is Australia’s Role in a Multipolar World?.
You can buy my collected poems, Gathering Flowers of the Mind: Collected Poems, 1996-2020 at Amazon and other online retailers.
And, in general, I am preparing for my pivot to life as an independent author - and retired government official - from November 2022. I will keep you posted on developments and how you can support me. Please share this newsletter with people you think might like it.