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Ties that bind beyond the dollars and cents

By K.C. Boey - posted Tuesday, 1 December 2009


The report acknowledges relationships between the seven dimensions of engagement, recognising that some lead and influence others.

Education is a lead sector, “providing potential indication of future engagement in tourism and migration in the short term, and trade and investment in the years to come”. Education, an important export earner, provides a “useful insight - and perhaps an early warning system - for longer-term trends in the economy”.

In other words, cultural engagement and business can be mutually beneficial. Or need not be mutually exclusive.

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Elsewhere, in the midst of the bad press of Australia’s challenges in its regional relations, other commentators have similarly argued the case.

Former diplomat Bruce Grant, writing in The Age, is of the view that Australia’s problems with India and China reflect the country’s struggle to find its cultural and economic place.

“Engagement with the region is necessary, not to change Australia’s identity but to improve the nation’s economic prospects and security,” writes Grant, a former high commissioner to India, and foundation chairman of the Australia-Indonesia Institute.

For all the pragmatic benefits of increased engagement that the PWC Melbourne Institute Asialink Index identifies, the more enduring promise in prospect is of the cultivation through familiarity between peoples of the modesty, patience and capacity to understand others that Grant would like to see.

For who can say where that might lead to, when people get together.

University of Melbourne China scholar Pradeep Taneja is as much optimistic in another commentary on the value of pragmatic engagement in Australia’s mending of fences with China.

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Education has a lead role. It is Australia’s single largest services export, and the third largest export overall after coal and iron ore, earning more than A$15 billion a year.

Launching the index report was John Brumby, Premier of Victoria, which together with New South Wales has 71 per cent share of Australia’s total international education revenue.

Last year, close to half a million international students were studying in Australia, up 20.7 per cent from the previous year.

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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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