Down Under and all over: Australia is still finding its place in the world, a work very much in progress.
Reeking
of Austro-centrism: The White Paper has been criticised for remaining
centred on Australia’s own concerns and interests, with scant
consideration for Asia. — AFP
TWO
Sundays ago, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard released the White
Paper “Australia in the Asian Century”. For many, it was a long-awaited
document.
Australia’s history, polity and geography make for an
odd mix. Anglophone settlers had to reconcile themselves with a strange
terrain, unfamiliar Aboriginal people, isolation from mother country
Britain, even conflict between allegiance to the British crown and
incipient republicanism, and now a rising Asia.
White settlers
“tamed” the land and established thriving outposts around the edges of
the vast island. Asian immigration followed, driven by push-pull factors
of a relatively undeveloped East Asia and a more developed Australia.
As
the 20th century began, a racist White Australia Policy restricted
non-white immigration while encouraging European settlement. It lasted
half a century and took another quarter of a century to dismantle.
Meanwhile,
the indigenous peoples suffered disproportionately lower levels of life
expectancy, education, employment and higher imprisonment rates.
Then later in the 20th century, East Asian economies surged. Trade links with East Asia multiplied in number and volume.
The
self-image of Australia, the largest country in Australasia, Oceania or
the South Pacific, became more fraught. Its geography, history,
politics and society were not characteristically Asian, yet it felt
increasingly overwhelmed by a rising East Asia even as it experienced
the prosperity.
When the Labour Party’s Paul Keating was prime
minister in the 1990s, he “declared” Australia an Asian country. After
he left office, he reversed that stand and admitted that Australia was
not an Asian country.
John Howard of the conservative Liberal
Party next became premier and distinctly identified Australia as a
Western, US-led ally in the world. President George W. Bush affirmed
that by saying Australia was not just Washington’s “deputy sheriff” but
its sheriff.
Labour’s Kevin Rudd next became premier, and much
was made of his fluency in Mandarin. This was to be an Asian Century of
economic paramountcy, led by a rapidly rising China.
Interactions
with Asia and Asians, particularly in economics, continued and grew.
But Australia remained firmly rooted in the US-led Western sphere with
its geopolitical concerns.
This added to Canberra’s fuzzy
regionalism and amorphous identity in relation to Asia. The more Asia
grew in global stature and consideration, the more vexed Australia’s
strategic relationship with it became.
Amid these rising stakes, a
White Paper as an official declaration of intent assumes considerable
significance. But the heightened expectations produced general
disappointment instead: most of the White Paper’s 320 pages and nine
chapters concerned Asia, but seen narrowly for Australia’s own
interests.
Reception to the document within Australia was
reportedly supportive, but criticism from various quarters was also
evident. There was more agreement over the need for the White Paper for
an insular Australia than with the contents of this particular White
Paper.
The parliamentary opposition criticised it for being long
on rhetoric but short on detailed directions. The business community
found it redundant since it was already relating very much with Asia.
Evidently
these business critics saw international relations only through the
prism of their business deals. The social, cultural, strategic and other
aspects of external relations typically escaped them.
The White
Paper itself begins with a decent outline of an ascendant Asia, a vast
continent with mounting prospects, growing middle classes and expanding
markets combining to change Australia’s priorities and “strategic
environment”. Where East Asia was once seen as the source of unwanted
migrants, it is now regarded as the fount of fresh capital and trade
orders.
Much of what follows is an Australia-centric diagnosis
and prescription of what Australians should do to benefit from such an
Asia.
That Australia itself is so moved by Asia’s rise testifies
to the cross-border nature of such fortunes, yet the White Paper remains
centred on Australia’s own concerns and interests, with scant
consideration for Asia.
A commentary by the Australian-born
veteran industrialist, technical consultant and academic Murray Hunter,
who has spent a productive working life in Asia, is telling. Writing in
Indonesia’s
Jakarta Post newspaper, he wondered aloud whether the
White Paper actually depicted Australia finding its way in the Asian
Century or just getting lost in Asia.
He said the document
“reeked of Austro-centrism”, one-way concerns to get what it wants from
Asia, and “niggling China with its staunch loyalty to the US” even
though “China saved Australia from a deep recession”.
Action
spoke louder than words, he said, and “Australia needs the region more
than the region needs Australia”. He said the country had to overcome
its deep-set belief that its own cultural values were somehow
universally accepted across the region.
Murray said “the White
Paper is still haunted by Australia’s past”, with Asia “seen only as a
means for Australian incomes” to rise. He found the document failed to
provide the “vital key” of “accommodation of Asia to what Australia
really has to offer” as an independent country “willing to put its lot
with Asia and not with the US”.
A recent high-level bilateral
forum organised by ISIS Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur examined several
aspects of the White Paper. “Chatham House Rules” meant that speakers
could not be quoted or identified, but several comments remained
pertinent.
The White Paper was seen to omit, among other things,
measures for building relations with Asean countries and Asean itself.
Some questions were also raised.
It was then explained that the
“US military base” in Darwin was more of a facility than a base, since
it would host only a rotation of US troops rather than a permanent
emplacement. Australia was said to respect China’s right to modernise
its military, while feeling equally entitled to nurture its security
with the US.
It was further explained that Australia’s role was
originally to find ways to engage the US in the region. It was “in
Australia’s DNA” to seek security from US involvement in the region.
In
a brief exchange later with visiting Australian Foreign Minister
Senator Bob Carr, I asked him how the White Paper positioned Australia
differently from the past in its relations with Asia.
He said
Australia now better understood that its economic future was dependent
on Asia, adding that Malaysia’s development was an example of what a
growing middle class in the region signified.
On how Australia
could better partner with East Asian countries for mutual benefit, he
pointed to good governance, a record of economic reform and an exchange
programme with young Malaysian Muslims for better understanding.
Carr said Australia should seek its security in Asia but not from Asia, while accepting Asean centrality.
He alluded to Australia’s role in the peace agreement in the southern Philippines brokered by Malaysia.
When
asked about policy fluctuations between the Liberal and Labour parties,
he said that although Australia is seen as a country with a security
relationship with the US, there was more that could be said of that. He
added that a country was entitled to look after its own security with
its own foreign relations (Australia with the US).
Then when
asked how Australia’s foreign policy was changing in respect of Asia,
Carr said the fact that he was here in Malaysia while Gillard was in
Vietnam, and both of them were heading to Bali (for an Asean-convened
meeting), said it all.
Behind The Headlines By Bunn Nagara
