Amidst the general swooning over Kevin Rudd (to which even we at Global Dashboard are not immune), the latest convert is David Miliband, who last week penned a blog post that ran thus:
…his travels are now being put to good use as he showed in his speech in London last week, arguing for “creative middle power diplomacy”. Rudd argued that we should shape the global response to global challenges together – us because of the links to Europe, them because of their links to Asia, both of us because of our links to the USA. Now fully part of the climate, terrorism, financial regulation debates, Australia embodies the point that in a small world anyone can carve out a leadership role.
Oh dear. Australia not happy about that last bit there. Over to our friend Sam Roggeveen at The Interpreter – the blog of Australia’s premier foreign policy research centre, the Lowy Institute – who’s not best pleased about this
…rather condescending bit about how anyone can be a global leader, even tiny, insignificant Australia. What are we, The Little Engine That Could? Perhaps the next time Rudd speaks in the UK, he needs to put more emphasis on the ‘middle’ in ‘creative middle power diplomacy’.
Fair point. Let’s not forget that once you adjust for purchasing power parity, Australia has a larger GDP per capita than Britain…
