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Mixed signals in run-up to APEC

By K.C. Boey - posted Tuesday, 4 September 2007


A picture is emerging of how Australia today views the world and how it views itself.

If Downer’s account is to be given credence then Asia looms, writ large, in the markets and strategic weight of China and India and the containment of terrorism at the front line of Indonesia. He offers optimism - and pessimism. As with Howard and Rudd, Downer is optimistic about the “shifting distribution of global power” to Asia. He acknowledges a region “transforming themselves economically and politically”.

“So in the 21st century, two of the world’s oldest civilisations (China and India) are two of its newest powers,” Downer told his academic audience. “Both are engaging more with the international community. And both are seeking to regain what they see as their rightful place among the leading nations of the world.”

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Yet he stops short of prescribing a shift for Australia to meet that transformation. In juxtaposing Australia’s relationships in the region with that of its “natural alliance” with the US, Downer makes clear his distinction. He talks of shared “values” with the US, on the one hand, and on the other hand of relationships in the region, of instrumental “interests” predicated on Australian convictions on liberal democratic traditions and the free market.

The suggestion, not in so many words, is that “Asians” are different: keep relations to the dollars and cents of trade, investment, commerce and economics, and security and strategic interests of terrorism, nuclear non-proliferation, climate change and the like.

Tolerance, pluralism, respect for human dignity - these are the bedrock of Australian values. Where these values, concepts of governance, social and administrative institutions and norms of rights and behaviour are concerned, there is little room for dialogue and exchange of ideas.

Hence there is ambivalence about the worth of informal forums such as APEC, trickled down through to the populace. Yet Howard hints of a socialisation to pan-Asian notions of musyawarah consensus building possibly compatible with the legalistic approaches demanded of Western institutions.

“There is no reason why different approaches cannot reinforce and complement each other,” Howard told his Lowy Institute audience.

Apart from the merits of inter-governmental dialogue claimed by Howard, the bigger prize is the prospects of a better inter-cultural understanding that could come out of an openness and listening to others as much as just arguing one’s own conviction. The possibility of accommodating others’ points of view calls for some knowledge about them.

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On this, Downer gives cause for pessimism in his singular, top-down, statist perspective on foreign policy to the neglect of bottom-up Australian public opinion. In his view, foreign policy is the preserve of government. Thus nowhere in Downer’s address at the Monash Asia Institute does he mention the people - the actors who feed the political decision-makers, the diplomatic and public service, business and services sectors, and social and cultural interlocutors. Nor does he mention how competent these people need to be in matching performance with the rhetoric of a transforming Asia. With few exceptions, scholars of Asia and educators were disappointed.

Professor Marika Vicziany, director of the Monash Asia Institute, believes there is more Asian studies than ever before in Australia. Dr Robert Cribb, associate professor in Indonesian studies at the Australian National University, does not disagree, but the president of the Asian Studies Association of Australia laments the running down of facilities and resources. In 2002, the Government abolished a nationwide schools program established two years before Howard came into office in 1996. There has been no equivalent program since.

“The loss of NALSAS (National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools) was a setback, because there were few other institutional and cultural forces to help reinforce the study of Asia,” Cribb tells the New Sunday Times (Malaysia). “NALSAS helped to make up for the absence of Asian Goethe Institutes and Alliances Francaise, and for the weaknesses of general Australian cultural ties with Asia. In this respect, it was a setback for the study of Asia and thus for Asia literacy.”

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This is an expanded version of an article first published in the New Sunday Times in Malaysia on September 2, 2007.



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About the Author

K.C. Boey is a former editor of Malaysian Business and The Malay Mail. He now writes for The Malaysian Insider out of Melbourne.

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