Australia is in a unique position to show leadership and initiative on the vexed question of North Korea. Using its seat on the Security Council, Australia might seek to broker an ongoing UN-based dialogue between the United States, China, South and North Korea and Japan.

Australia has a respected record within the international community for addressing and negotiating outcomes on difficult issues, including nuclear proliferation, law of the sea, the Antarctic, apartheid, the environment and the visit to China in 1971 by Gough Whitlam, which helped pave the way for other Western states to end China’s international isolation.

At the time Whitlam made his famous foray into the Middle Kingdom, it was a dark and tortured communist state, just emerging from the bloody and cruel Cultural Revolution instigated by Mao Zedong. Following the Whitlam visit, China slowly and unevenly began the process of engagement with the rest of the world and of modernisation of industries and cities.

“Australia once had the capacity to undertake creative and front-footed diplomacy. It is worth a try …”

Maybe with the right sort of diplomacy, North Korea might also be gradually induced towards more positive engagement towards the rest of the world. Anything to do with diplomacy and North Korea is high risk, but Australia once had the capacity to undertake creative and front-footed diplomacy. It is worth a try, and there is not a lot for Australia to lose should it not produce results — and a lot to be gained if it does. Australia could be right for the job, as the US uses North Korea as a cover to deploy sophisticated weaponry close to China, South Korea is a beneficiary of the American presence and limited largesse, China has bigger fish to fry, and Japan is fed up with both North Korea and China.

North Korea is like the pound dog; there is little to be gained by kicking it when it bites or barks. It needs to learn some new responses through rewards rather than attempting to match its own bad behaviour. The big stick has been wielded, and it only provokes bared teeth and a frantic straining at the leash. North Korea has been subject to 14 adverse Security Council resolutions, a record close to that of apartheid South Africa.

Australia might institute, through the Security Council, a permanent forum for dialogue on an ad hoc basis for discussion to occur even when a crisis is not underway. Australia needs to also concentrate efforts on the US, seeking to curb its aggression and posturing, not only with respect to North Korea but also Iran. The US has little concept of how other states view it. Additionally, it finds it very hard to process criticism. Australia has a role in helping to protect the US against itself.

Using the Security Council as a base of authority and as a means of expressing leadership, Australia might seek to engage members of the UN General Assembly on the issue on an ongoing basis. Although North Korea engages in posturing, it would take very little for a miscalculation to occur and for an exchange of arms to spiral out of control.

Naturally South Korea and Japan would need to be engaged in close dialogue, but in this process China would need to be a close ally of Australia — and that would be no bad thing for our relationship with both America and China. It would serve to demonstrate to the US that while we have its best interests at heart, we are not a mere cipher of its greater aims and ambitions.

The world has a choice: more of the same or a North Korea gradually brought into the community of nations.