Our place in Asia

Living with Dragons:  Australia Confronts Its Asian Destiny
Edited by Greg Sheridan
Allen & Unwin

In a recent article in The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof asserted that if America was looking for a model in the Pacific, it is Australia.  According to the author, at the beginning of the 1980s Australia was a European country that happened to be located at the tip of Asia;  now it was in many ways an Asian country of European stock.

Kristof drew this conclusion on the basis that, compared to America, Australia had been much more successful in getting to understand Asia.  Australia had also put more effort into achieving this, particularly through the teaching of Asian languages and cultures at school.  Compared to America, we are certainly more integrated with the Asia-Pacific, but to assert that we are an Asian country is, I believe, drawing the wrong conclusion.

Sheridan's edited book, Living with Dragons, is an attempt to deal with this subject -- Australia's role and future in the region.  This is a highly topical and at times controversial subject, particularly given the Australian Government's drive to be integrated -- economically or otherwise -- in Asia.  So Sheridan's book is a welcome contribution to the debate.  Unfortunately, as is often the case with edited books, contributions are of mixed quality.  While there are some interesting chapters, including Sheridan's own on human rights, others either lack focus or are not directly relevant to the subject.

ASIANISATION EXAGGERATED

Sheridan's hyperbolic opening statement sets the tone for the first part -- "Charting the Revolution":  "A revolution is sweeping across Australia.  The nation is changing fundamentally and irreversibly.  The old order is gone, a new order is taking shape with astonishing speed and force.  An old mental universe has died, a new universe has cone into being ... the old order can never be restored".  He's referring to the Asianisation of Australian life which he defines as Australia's "thorough engagement with Asia" and which he claims has affected "almost every sphere of Australian life".  While Australia's engagement with Asia is deeper today than 10 years ago and a world apart from what it was 50 years ago, Sheridan certainly exaggerates the extent of the Asianisation of Australian life.

Notwithstanding Australian Government statements about our place in the region, including the latest that we are an "East Asian hemispheric nation" and that we have been accepted by the other countries of the region, the percentage of Australians who identify themselves culturally, politically or psychologically with Asia (whatever that may be) remains a small minority.  This should come as no surprise to anyone, given that Australia is still fundamentally a Western nation whose Weltanschauung is determined by its Judeo-Christian background, as reflected in our respect for freedom of speech, religion and association, our deep commitment to democracy and our adherence to human rights.  These are not principles to which most countries of Asia adhere.

If there is some confusion about Australia's integration in Asia it is mainly because the debate about our place and future in the region has been confused, confusing and ill-defined.  While economic integration with the region is one thing -- and it must continue, "cultural" integration is quite another.  Still, Sheridan attempts to tackle the thorny question of "cultural" integration with the region, mainly in the context of how Australia can best enter into a dialogue with its neighbours on the issue of human rights, and concludes that the challenge is "to remain self-confidently true to our own culture and values while appreciating and productively interacting with the cultures of our neighbours, recognising all the while that culture, while enduring, is not static".  As the Australian Government knows, this is a difficult policy position to maintain and it often leads human rights activists to accuse the Federal Government of opportunism and of lacking principles.

If there has been a "revolution" it was in the scrapping of the "White Australia" immigration policy and the taking in of an increasingly large number of migrants from Asia.  But this was an evolutionary process which, as Sheridan admits, took off almost 25 years ago under Gough Whitlam and has picked up momentum under every subsequent Federal Government -- although still today the immigration debate is a political minefield which politicians, regardless of their political hue, are generally reluctant to enter.

LANGUAGE GAP

In a chapter examining education, Kevin Rudd, a former diplomat posted in Beijing and until recently Director-General of the Queensland Cabinet Office, questions the Australian Government's commitment to becoming an Asian-literate economy and society in light of a recent Asian Studies Council report.  According to the report, the proportion of Australian final-year school students studying a second language of any description has declined from almost 40 per cent to only 12.5 per cent in the last 25 years, and of this 12.5 per cent only 4 percent are studying an Asian language.  Rudd believes that Australia has no alternative but to adopt the European model of compulsory second language education if it hopes to integrate better into the region.  While this is a recommendation which should seriously be looked at, the mandatory learning of an Asian language would require bipartisan support at the Federal and State levels, not a likely development in the near future.

In a valuable contribution on commerce, Paul Barratt, Executive Director of the Business Council of Australia, suggests a policy framework to deal with the challenges and opportunities facing Australia as it engages more deeply with the region.  He currently states that the overarching challenge facing Australia is to set in place policies which will allow us "to remain both one of the economic heavy-weights of the region and one of its highest income societies".  Most of the suggestions are commonsense and drawn from the Business Council's recent report, Australia 2010:  Creating the Future Australia.  His advice, however, that the Australian Government should seriously consider a consumption tax, which would relieve Australian exporters from the cascading effect of indirect taxes, will fall on deaf ears among politicians -- at least for the foreseeable future -- regardless of its economic merits.

Michael O'Connor, Executive Director of the Australia Defence Association, reviews Australia's defence policies since Federation.  He rejects perceptions in Asia that Australia's security planners have only recently "discovered" the region, stressing instead that the region has been a factor in Australia's security considerations since early this century.  In the context of discussing Australia's future security outlook, O'Connor writes that "if Australia is to win the cooperation of its regional neighbours in keeping conflict at a distance from Australia, we must show that we are prepared to contribute willingly ... our young men [to their security] as we expect Asians to commit theirs in our mutual defence".  While Australia's strategic engagement with the region has advanced remarkably in the last few years, the bilateral relationships will need to mature significantly before any Australian Government could consider implementing the sort of defence policies which O'Connor is suggesting.

Foreign Minister Gareth Evans reviews Australia's important role in ensuring the success of the UN operation in Cambodia.  Our deep involvement in the whole operation -- from inception to end -- demonstrates that Australia's voice is heard in the region and that our diplomacy of persuasion counts for something among our Asian neighbours.  It would have been useful, however, given our UN involvement, if the article had examined what Australia's role will be in assisting the Government of Cambodia to rebuild the country's institutions, including the armed forces, Until the terrorist Khmer Rouge, who continue to kidnap and murder innocent tourists -- including Australian citizens -- are brought under control, our success story in Cambodia will remain clouded.

In a discussion about cultural convergence, Sheridan supports Prime Minister Keating's statement that "no country is more important to Australia than Indonesia".  He argues that were Indonesia to be confronted with a total political breakdown, this could be catastrophic for Australia.  This is certainly true, but to elevate Indonesia to the top of our bilateral relations is to overstate the importance of that relationship and to understate the importance of our trade and defence relations with, for example, the US and Japan.

DEBATE AND LEARN

Professor Stephen FitzGerald of the Asia-Australia Institute at the University of New South Wales argues sensibly that if we are serious about being more integrated with the region we must first "debate and develop perspectives on what we want for Australian society 50 years hence;  perspectives which are not cast in or determined only in economic terms".  Second, we need to establish ourselves in forums with Asian countries for the shared discussion of the whole gamut of fundamental issues which determine societies, i.e., values, principles, beliefs, visions, morals, ethics and education.  Third, we must educate ourselves about Asia.  As he correctly states, how can we pass judgments about societies of which we know so little.  He firmly believes that this education should start with politicians -- "the only group in society which ignores -- at least in respect of Asia -- its own calls for lifelong education".

All in all this book is quite readable.  Not surprisingly it doesn't provide many answers, but it does provide the reader with questions worth pondering.  And while a concluding chapter bringing it all together would have left the reader with a clearer message, at the end of the day Sheridan has achieved his aim of moving forward the debate about our place in Asia.