30th OSCE Ministerial Council - Asian Partners for Co-operation Group Statement

30th OSCE Ministerial Council

Asian Partners for Co-operation Group Statement  

Delivered by H.E Ambassador Ian Biggs, Australia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and International Organisations in Vienna

1 December 2023

Chair, Secretary General, Excellencies, distinguished Asian Partners.

I would like to begin by thanking North Macedonia for chairing the OSCE this year. And for bringing us to Skopje and making excellent arrangements to facilitate our cooperation. I’m glad we are all here, from our regional group.

I would also like to particularly thank Poland for its leadership of the Asian Partners for Cooperation Group. We have highly valued your commitment to the partnership and your close collaboration with us through our missions in Vienna.

Australia places great value on our status as an OSCE Asian Partner. Our diverse population means we have close people-to-people links with all of the OSCE’s Participating States.

Our partnership provides an opportunity to contribute our perspectives and experiences, and to collaborate with Participating States on shared challenges to peace and security in the OSCE area and the Indo-Pacific.

Australia was delighted to host, with Poland, the OSCE Asian Partners Conference earlier this year. The Conference was an opportunity to discuss many of those shared challenges.

And our fellow Asian Partners have, throughout this year, made valuable contributions to our collective understanding of the threats to our shared security, especially through the excellent thematic meetings hosted by each of them.

Thailand’s focus on humanitarian responses was particularly timely. Under Japan’s auspices we discussed how to sustain peace in our region, and we had an excellent discussion on the unique threats in the Indo-Pacific during the Republic of Korea’s dialogue a week ago.

And of course, we stand in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan in the face of the terrible situation in that country, and as we have heard from Ambassador Bakhtari, particularly for its women and girls. Speaking as the former Special Representative for Afghanistan, as the international community we cannot let Afghanistan down again.

Building and maintaining peace and security requires us to adhere to and protect agreed rules, norms and international laws, and to act collectively in response to aggression.

In recognising this we share much in common with most Participating States of the OSCE.

Like many Participating States, we remain steadfastly committed to Ukraine’s sovereignty, to its territorial integrity, and to empowering Ukraine to end the war on its own terms. We condemn Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion in Ukraine, and its earlier invasion of Georgia, another OSCE Participating State.

Like many Participating States, Australia seeks a world that is peaceful, stable and prosperous, that operates by rules, standards and norms; where no country dominates, and no country is dominated.

In the Indo-Pacific, this means establishing a strategic equilibrium that ensures no state ever concludes that the benefits of conflict outweigh the costs.

Unfortunately, like the OSCE region, the Indo-Pacific is seeing increasing pressure on the rules and norms.

Strategic competition in our region is now occurring across all dimensions – military, economic, strategic and diplomatic – framed by an intense contest of values and narratives.

Destabilising actions, such as North Korea’s ongoing nuclear weapons development and ballistic missile launches, and indications of its military collaboration with Russia, remain an ongoing risk to peace.

And we are concerned by efforts in our region to modernise military capabilities at pace and scale with little transparency or assurance about strategic intent. I echo the Thai Vice-Minister’s mention of flashpoints, including the South China Sea.

Australia supports practical steps to enhance Indo-Pacific stability and prosperity, focused on mutual strategic reassurance, military risk reduction measures, and opening lines of communication at all levels.

Australia will continue to raise these challenges with OSCE Participating States, and to highlight the interconnected nature of security in our region with that of the OSCE area.

We know that as a region, we have much to share with – and much to learn from – the OSCE area, and from the OSCE’s actions to build security confidence and stability.

The institutions of Indo-Pacific cooperation, many of them centred around ASEAN, face many of the same challenges as those faced by the OSCE area –environmental, economic, humanitarian and others – and one can learn from the other.

We appreciate the work being done by our fellow Asian Partners to strengthen our engagement with the OSCE and with Participating States.

And we look forward to our continued close and productive collaboration with the OSCE, with North Macedonia as the incoming chair of the group, and with the Asian Partners in 2024. And with Malta, being the ancestral home of many Australians, as the incoming Chair.

Thanks also to Finland for its promotion of the toolbox, and for its leadership of this group in 2026.

Thank you.