McCain pledges climate, China push with Australia

CANBERRA (Reuters) - U.S. Republican White House hopeful John McCain pledged On Tuesday to work with Australia to advance international climate change action and said the two allies should together push for a more open and tolerant China.

"Our alliance with Australia sets the standard," McCain wrote in the Australian newspaper, calling for a re-focusing in Washington on Pacific engagement and Asian allies such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, India and the Philippines.

"Firm commitments to our allies will set the stage for an American engagement of China that builds on the many areas of common interest we share with Beijing and encourages candor and progress in those areas where China has not fulfilled its responsibilities as a global power," McCain wrote.

Australia, a key Washington ally and original member of the coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan, faced along with the U.S. "unprecedented challenges in the area of proliferation," McCain said.

"The U.S. and Australia can also do more to reinforce the broader non-proliferation regime. I will also work with Australia and other allies to make the International Atomic Energy Agency more effective," he wrote.

With Australia led by Manadarin-speaking center-left Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, both countries could work to convince China's leadership that their "remarkable success rests ultimately on whether they can translate economic development into a more open and tolerant political process at home, and a more responsible foreign policy abroad," McCain wrote.

He said it was also time for the U.S., as the world's biggest polluter, to join Australia and support a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions in a regime which India and China should be encouraged to embrace.

"Australians have looked to the U.S. for leadership on climate change and it is time for us to answer that call," McCain wrote.

Australia's Rudd, who made ratification of the Kyoto climate pact his first act on winning government last year, has promised introduction of one of the world's most comprehensive carbon emissions trading schemes by mid-2010.

McCain, whose family has military links to Australia stretching back to the 1908 arrival in Sydney of president Theodore Roosevelt's Great White Fleet, said the U.S. and Australia should also work together on trade liberalization.

"America has never won respect or created jobs by hiding behind protectionist walls and I will continue making the case for free trade, regardless of political expediency," he said.

(Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by David Fox)