Destination - East Asia

These include the fact that the United States is the single superpower and two emerging giants in our own region, China and India, could eventually challenge it; a Japan whose economic obituary may have been premature; a strengthening South Korea and a Europe rejuvenated by the addition of members from the old Communist bloc; and the possibility of a resurgent and newly authoritarian Russia.

Put all this together with the horrors that continue to plague the Middle East and the ever-present threat of international terrorism and we do have a scenario as potentially world-changing as the days when the forces of Islam were knocking on the gates of Vienna.

Lynch believes that the type and nature of the challenges mean “the traditional indices, norms and legalities no longer apply. They present a fluid, uncertain and volatile environment for our policy-makers and there are no early signs of world affairs resuming a more stable course.”

It has never been easy for Australia, much more so for New Zealand, to advance national interests within the global community, and the dual constraints of size and remoteness are not going to go away. Australia’s attempt to put itself into lockstep with the United States does not appear to have given it specific influence and apart from a lacklustre free trade agreement, no meaningful advantages.

New Zealand’s policy of defiance of the US with its campaign for a nuclear-free South Pacific, after some initial irritation, has largely been ignored. Apart from a minority who would like to see it turn its back on the rest of the world and survive in a form of New Age isolation, the country seems ready to at least consider a new round of internationalism.

Everything points to the next few years being a defining period for our near Asian neighbours. The momentum begun with the East Asian Summit is likely to gather pace and whether we like it or not, Australia and New Zealand will be swept along. This time we will probably not be able to get away with the role of interested observers. The process that dates back to Gough Whitlam and the recognition of China and kicked along by Keating two decades later has a certain inexorability about it. The bus will soon be boarding, and its destination is the future.