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Dependent Middle Power or Global Citizen?

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Australian Foreign Policy in Asia

Part of the book series: Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific ((CSAP))

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Abstract

This is the concluding chapter. It advocates a rethinking of the ANZUS alliance and a re-imagining of Australia’s dependent middle power imagining. Re-thinking the American alliance will be unsettling for many Australians. However with growing tensions between the United States and China in the Asia Pacific, and given that China is Australia’s largest export market, Canberra has to become far more adroit in its diplomacy in the region than hitherto has been the case. Devising a more independent foreign policy in Asia has become a necessity for Australia. However this cannot happen in a cultural vacuum. Australia’s educational institutions need to incorporate more sophisticated Asian languages and studies curricula, to enable young Australians to become more Asia literate and Asia aware as the country seeks to chart a meaningful ‘relocation’ into its region. Australia has nothing to lose but its awkward partnering in Asia.

The support and confidence of great friends are great assets; but it is unprofitable for Australia to pay an unnecessarily high price. The present price of our American friendship is some suspicion and wariness towards Australia in Asia, with whom we have to live for a thousand years.

—Arthur Tange (1955)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Dr. Donnelly was co-chair of a major review of Australian education curricula, commissioned by the Abbott Government in 2013, when Christopher Pyne was Minister for Education. The report was published in 2014 (Wiltshire and Donnelly 2014). Donnelly is an influential conservative commentator on education in Australia and is held in high regard by conservatives on the right of the Liberal Party.

  2. 2.

    Two terms that appear routinely in the literature on Asian Studies in Australia are ‘Asia consciousness’ and ‘Asia literacy.’ The former generally refers to Australians educated in important aspects of the histories, cultures, politics, and geography of Asia, and having an understanding of Asian economies and business cultures. The latter generally refers to Australians who are competent in an Asian language (or languages). While language competence is highly desirable, and should be encouraged, it should not be a necessary condition for accessing other Asia-focused curricula across Australia’s educational systems. The aim in the first instance should be the designing of Australian educational curricula for Asia awareness.

  3. 3.

    It is noteworthy that this proposed policy change was given front-page, headline treatment in The Australian newspaper that described it as a ‘significant foreign policy shift’ (Balogh and Shanahan 2015, p. 1).

  4. 4.

    Soon after the Abbott Government came to power in 2013 the White Paper disappeared from the Commonwealth Department of Education’s website.

  5. 5.

    An example is the American anthropologist Ruth Benedict’s much cited The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, originally written as a cultural guide for American officials administering the post-war occupation of Japan, although also (even today) widely read as a ‘classic’ in cultural anthropology (Benedict 1947). It is noteworthy that Benedict never visited Japan, nor did she speak or read Japanese. In a comprehensive and at times scathing critique of Benedict’s essay, noted Japan scholar C. Douglas Lummis concludes: ‘It is policy research carried out for the U.S. Office of War Information. It is manipulative social science, showing how the behavior of the Japanese people can be predicted and controlled. […] It is political propaganda, providing an ideological basis for American domination in Japan and in Asia’ (Lummis 1982, p. 54).

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  1. School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Allan Patience

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Patience, A. (2018). Dependent Middle Power or Global Citizen?. In: Australian Foreign Policy in Asia . Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69347-7_8

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