Source — AITW Ep075 — PM to NZ; Samoa; Kabul Embassy Closure; Belarus; Lab Leak¶

Episode Metadata¶

Field	Value
Episode number	75
Title	PM to NZ; Samoa; Kabul embassy closure; Belarus; lab leak
Publication date	2021-06-09
Recording date	Tuesday, 8 June 2021
Guests	None — Allan and Darren only
Allan present	Yes
Format	Regular news episode — five items plus reading segment

Summary¶

Five items: (1) Morrison-Ardern Queenstown meeting — both managed it well; Allan sides with NZ on the criminal deportation issue; wry demolition of a 60 Minutes "NZ-China" special; (2) Samoa constitutional crisis — lessons from the Fiji coup: "it's always harder than you think to get smaller sovereign states to do what you want"; "sometimes waiting around and saying nothing turns out to be a perfect diplomatic response"; (3) Kabul embassy closure — "our allies have been irritated by the speed with which we've cut and run"; "for people of my vintage, there are reminders here of Australia's failure to adequately look after local staff in Vietnam and Cambodia"; (4) Belarus — Allan challenges Darren's premise about rules being more inconsistently followed now: "I'm not so sure — that was the time of decolonisation"; (5) lab leak — two paths: scientific decoupling vs accepting accident and moving on — "that's the way I always thought about arms control." Reading segment: David Brophy, China Panic (La Trobe University Press) — valued for making Allan sharpen positions he disagrees with.

Key Quotations¶

"Sometimes waiting around and saying nothing turns out to be a perfect diplomatic response"¶

"Sometimes waiting around and saying nothing turns out to be a perfect diplomatic response."

— [00:11:26.460 --> 00:13:12.460]

The compression is characteristic: a practitioner's insight that runs against every instinct of political communication advisors. The immediate context is Samoa — Australia's response was a tweet; the situation has a way to go legally and politically; the Pacific way involves talking and waiting. But the formulation is general. It names something real about diplomatic craft: the refusal to act is itself a choice, and sometimes the optimal one. It requires the discipline to resist the pressure for visible action, the confidence to let a situation develop, and the reading to know which situations are the ones where intervention makes things worse. Allan applies this principle elsewhere in the corpus (ASEAN's "bubble wrap" approach to Myanmar in Ep071, for instance) — the value of institutional patience over reactive intervention.

"Yes, the news, Darren, is that we do coercion too"¶

"In response to the Bina Murama coup and the subsequent abrogation of the Fijian Constitution, we tried several different modes of coercion. Yes, the news, Darren, is that we do coercion too. We've closed travel bans on Fijian leaders and we're working behind the scenes to secure the country's suspension from the Commonwealth and the Pacific Islands Forum. And none of it worked."

— [00:10:15.460 --> 00:11:13.460]

Deadpan self-awareness. The "news" framing parodies the moral register in which Australia discusses coercion by other states — as though Australia's own exercise of diplomatic pressure (travel bans, Commonwealth suspension campaigns) is a revelation that needs to be announced. "None of it worked" follows without pause or elaboration — the point is structural, not anecdotal. The conclusion is the same lesson from Samoa: "it's always harder than you think to get smaller sovereign states to do what you want them to do when their political interests point in a different direction." This is stated as a general law — "whether you're Australia in the Pacific or the US in the Middle East or China in Southeast Asia." He refuses the framing that sovereign pressure is something only other powers do badly.

"For people of my vintage" — Vietnam and Cambodia local staff¶

"For people of my vintage, there are reminders here of Australia's failure to adequately look after local staff in Vietnam and Cambodia after the Indochina Wars. And that's getting some political traction here in Australia as we record this."

— [00:18:28.020 --> 00:20:04.460]

"My vintage" is a generational marker — he is positioning himself as someone professionally active during and after the Indochina War period, for whom the failure to look after local employees is not historical background but living memory. This is consistent with his confirmed early diplomatic career (joined 1969; Burma posting early 1970s). The comparison is made without elaboration — it lands precisely because he trusts the audience to know what happened to locally engaged staff when Australian embassies withdrew. "I am disappointed that it all came down to this in the end" — the personal register is unusual for Allan on operational matters.

Historical counterweight on Belarus / rules-based order erosion¶

"Is it true that adherence to rules and institutions is more inconsistent now than it was during the post-war period? I'm not so sure. That, after all, was the time of decolonisation in Africa and Asia. Large chunks of the world were going through quite violent discord and division, often flamed much more directly than now by the two great Cold War powers. More so than after the post-Cold War period that was after the early 90s. You'd have a point there, but at that time, the dominant power of the United States and the rapid spread of economic globalisation gave much larger group of countries a much more common interest in the rules and institutions."

— [00:25:24.460 --> 00:27:19.460]

Characteristic counterweight move: Darren makes a plausible claim (the international order is more fragile now than in the post-war period); Allan challenges the premise before engaging with the substance. The historical corrective is precise — the post-war period was not a golden age of rules-following; it was the time of decolonisation, proxy wars, and great-power-fuelled conflict across Asia and Africa. Where he partially concedes the post-1990s point — "you'd have a point there" — he explains the mechanism: US dominance plus economic globalisation created a genuine common interest in the rules and institutions among a larger group of states. That common interest is now eroding, but the past was not as orderly as the nostalgia suggests. "I do agree that things are looking pretty ropey at the moment, but just compared with the past, I don't know" — the genuine uncertainty is honest.

Lab leak — two paths, arms control frame¶

"One path, which is the evil bastards can't be trusted, leads to further scientific decoupling, less confident knowledge of what the other side is doing, greater incentives to prepare for the worst, and therefore increased risk. And the other, which is accepting that the Chinese might be dissembling, but that the overwhelming evidence is that if the virus did come from the lab, it was an accident and moving on, that might give us a way to limit the chances of future laboratory accidents, increase transparency, and help work more effectively on responses to future pandemics... So that's the way I always thought about arms control, and it's how it worked during the most dangerous phases of the Cold War."

— [00:34:58.460 --> 00:36:47.460]

The arms control frame is analytically significant. Allan is applying a model he has engaged with professionally — not as abstract theory but as practitioner knowledge. The core logic of arms control is: you can know the other party is lying, cheating around the edges, or acting in bad faith, and still prefer verified partial cooperation over the alternative of no framework. "Evil bastards can't be trusted" produces decoupling, opacity, and worst-case-scenario preparation — which increases the risk it was meant to prevent. The alternative is not naivety about Chinese behaviour ("accepting that the Chinese might be dissembling") but a pragmatic calculation about which path leads to better outcomes. He endorses Daniel Engber's Atlantic conclusion: act as if the lab leak happened whether or not it did — i.e., reform biosafety, increase transparency, improve WHO mechanisms — because that produces better outcomes regardless of the truth of the hypothesis.

Biographical Fragments¶

"People of my vintage" — living memory of Indochina War local staff failures¶

Evidence: Ep075 [00:18:28.020]. Directly stated. Confidence: High.

Allan positions himself as a member of the generation with direct professional memory of Australia's failure to adequately look after locally engaged staff when withdrawing from Vietnam and Cambodia after the Indochina Wars. "My vintage" is the key phrase: he is not citing history but experience. This is consistent with his confirmed diplomatic career beginning in 1969 and his early postings in the region. The comparison to the Kabul withdrawal — made without elaboration — suggests this pattern of thought is embedded: he reaches for the Indochina parallel instinctively, as someone who lived through the institutional failure being referenced.

Arms control as professional framework¶

Evidence: Ep075 [00:36:47.460]. "That's the way I always thought about arms control." Confidence: High (direct statement of professional intellectual orientation).

Allan discloses that he has a developed professional framework for thinking about arms control — "the way I always thought about it." Applied here to the lab leak question, the logic is the same as in arms control: the question is not whether you trust the other party but whether a cooperative framework produces better outcomes than the alternative. His ONA and national security background (confirmed in earlier episodes) is consistent with professional engagement with arms control thinking. The framing is applied spontaneously, not in response to a question about arms control — it is his instinctive analytical tool for this class of problem.

Style and Method Evidence¶

Historical counterweight: Challenge to Darren's "rules more inconsistently followed now" premise — the post-war period was the time of decolonisation and proxy wars. Allan refuses to let a plausible contemporary claim go unchecked against historical evidence.
Reading disagreement productively: Brophy's China Panic — "there are parts of his analysis that I would contest. But I did enjoy the way those disagreements provoked me to thinking in new ways or forcing me to bolster the defence of my own position." He reads for the friction, not for confirmation.
Institutional trust distinguished from political trust: On the lab leak intelligence review — "I've personally got enough trust in the institutional integrity of the Director of National Intelligence and the agencies." He trusts the institution, not any particular political actor. The distinction is precise.
Wry self-awareness: "Yes, the news, Darren, is that we do coercion too." One clause; no elaboration. The point is made in the setup, not the follow-through.
Personal diplomatic position disclosed: "That's the side I'm on with this one" — on New Zealand's objection to Australia deporting criminal-record holders who arrived as children. He takes a clear personal position against Australian policy, without elaboration.

Reading / Watching / Listening Segment¶

David Brophy — China Panic: Australia's Alternative to Paranoia and Pandering (La Trobe University Press)¶

Episode: Ep075 (2021-06-09) Context: "At the moment, the Australian publishing industry seems to be churning out China books at the rate of one a week." Allan's comment: He disagrees with parts of it but values the book specifically for making him think harder and sharpen positions he holds. Brophy is a Uyghur expert and activist — "he can be as critical of the PRC as some of the China hawks." Strengths: "good on the need for us to confront racism in our approaches to China and is critical of the way we use the idea of Australian values." Reveals: Allan reads books he disagrees with, and values them for the productive friction. He does not recommend books because they confirm his views — he recommends them because they challenge him. The specific values identified (confronting racism; critique of "Australian values" framing) are analytically consistent with his concern about bumper-sticker China commentary and his preference for nuanced institutional analysis. "Stimulating and well worth reading" — his shortest recommendation phrase, but the caveat ("I would contest") is the recommendation's essential context.

Open Questions¶

Deportation of NZ criminals: Allan explicitly says he sides with NZ on the criminal deportation issue. Does Australia's deportation policy appear elsewhere in the corpus as a bilateral pressure point?
Kabul local staff: Allan raises the Vietnam/Cambodia local staff parallel. Does this develop — either as an Afghan policy story or as a biographical fragment about his Indochina-era experience?
Arms control as professional framework: "The way I always thought about arms control" — does this framework appear again in the corpus? It suggests a developed professional intellectual orientation toward adversarial cooperation problems.
Brophy's China Panic: Allan disagrees with parts. Does he ever specify what he contests — particularly the sections on the US relationship?