But Shanahan doesn\u2019t have Mattis\u2019s authority or\u00a0backstory, and his delivery was poor too (although he made a good stab at pronouncing the name of the Australian frigate HMAS\u00a0Toowoomba<\/em>). Watching on with several Lowy Institute colleagues, I thought it was revealing that Shanahan intervened several times to limit the number of questions put to him by delegates through the IISS director-general John Chipman. It\u2019s always better to show confidence by taking all the questions, as Mattis did \u2013 even hard questions put by\u00a0blunt Australians<\/a>.<\/p>\n The message matters, but so does the messenger. Mattis casts a long shadow and it will be a while before Shanahan escapes it.<\/p>\n Shanahan wasn\u2019t the only one to miss a note. British Secretary of State for Defence (and possible Tory leadership candidate) Penny Mordaunt was underwhelming\u00a0later in proceedings<\/a>. For some reason, perhaps to compliment the Chinese, she characterised the United Kingdom as a \u201cwin-win\u201d nation, like Singapore. In fact, the UK\u2019s strategic circumstances and foreign relations are very different from Singapore\u2019s, and the Brits know from centuries of diplomacy that relations between great powers rarely play out on a win-win basis.<\/p>\n In an effort to downplay British bellicosity, Mordaunt compared future British Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) in disputed Asian waters to a ship visit to Manhattan. The only effect of this comment will be to undercut the impact of future British ship movements on the minds of those in Zhongnanhai. These are the fruits of Brexit.<\/p>\n The best performer on the same panel \u2013 indeed the star of the Dialogue \u2013 was French defence minister Florence\u00a0Parly. Parly slayed. She was plain-spoken, tough-minded and funny. It helped that she was accompanied to Singapore by an aircraft carrier strike group: the magnificent\u00a0Charles de Gaulle<\/em>, which was berthed at Changi Naval Base\u00a0over the weekend<\/a>. Parly\u00a0had some fun<\/a>\u00a0with Mordaunt on this point. Thank goodness for France, I thought at the end of Parly\u2019s speech. True, the French can be frustrating \u2013 but they are also magnificently obstinate, to use Parly\u2019s own word. These days, the West sorely needs some obstinacy.<\/p>\n I\u00a0asked<\/a>\u00a0Parly about\u00a0Michael Kovrig<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the Crisis Group analyst from Canada who was a delegate to last year\u2019s Dialogue but who is now in detention in China. This has had terrible consequences for Kovrig and his family \u2013 but it has also affected China, dampening intellectual exchange and making it much harder for outsiders to visit China and meet with Chinese policymakers. My question was a tough one for defence ministers, and Parly chose not to respond, but I felt it was important to say Kovrig\u2019s name aloud.<\/p>\n That same afternoon there was a packed session on strategic interests and competition in the South Pacific. Australia\u2019s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Secretary Frances Adamson performed impressively on the panel. When asked to comment on the likelihood of the People\u2019s Republic of China establishing a military base in the Pacific, she deftly invited Senior Colonel Zhou of the People\u2019s Liberation Army to answer instead \u2013 no doubt the last thing the colonel was expecting or hoping for. Zhou\u2019s careful response \u2013 along the lines of \u201cthere is no military base\u201d \u2013 reminded me of former US president Bill Clinton\u2019s expert use of the present tense\u00a0back in the day<\/a>.<\/p>\n Australia has a good story to tell about its contribution to the Pacific, but our weakness is our policy on climate change \u2013 an existential issue for some Pacific island nations. Adamson put the best case she could, defending the government\u2019s position and talking up the practical results being achieved. But Pacific discontent with Australia\u2019s climate stance was apparent throughout the whole session. New Zealand\u2019s Defence Minister Ron Mark made a point of praising France\u2019s approach to the issue, for example, while remaining silent on Australia\u2019s approach. The Fijian military chief Admiral Viliame Naupoto said that there are three strategic competitors in the Pacific \u2013 the United States, China and climate change \u2013 and climate change is winning.<\/p>\n This week Scott Morrison went to the Solomon Islands bearing gifts and the PM won\u00a0terrific press coverage<\/a>\u00a0as a result. But our climate policy limits Australia\u2019s influence and prestige in the region. It is hard to step up when our climate policy keeps pulling us down.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/GettyImages-1153575495.jpg\")
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