One of the pioneers of Australian foreign policy making, Dr. John Burton, identified a foundational flaw in Australia’s relations with Asia by noting that from 1947 Australia declined to exercise an independent stand in the United Nations, preferring instead to align itself with other British Commonwealth countries (1954, p. 90). This was, he wrote, ‘a severe blow to Australian prestige throughout the world, and in particular in Asia.’ By 1949, Burton writes, ‘principle, facts and even direct Australian interests were thrown aside and the guiding instruction [to the Department of External Affairs] was to “Follow the United States”.’
Deference to America subsequently became habitual among foreign policy makers in Canberra, resulting in Australia becoming what Higgott and Nossal refer to as ‘a liminal state, one that is on a threshold, experiencing two worlds, “old” and “new”, at the same time’ (1997, p. 182). The ‘old’ world they refer to is Australia’s traditional ties with Britain and the United States. And, as they note: ‘Prominently featured in its “new” world, and its “new” certainties, is Asia, and Australia’s attempted relocation in the region.’ They are unsure that Australia will be able to manage this ‘relocation.’ It is the contention of this book that Australia doesn’t have a choice, that a considered and sensitive relocation is essential for the country’s security and prosperity. However, relocation is unlikely to succeed while Australia assumes a dependent middle power identity, in it region and globally.
Middle Power Imagining
The book coins the term middle power imagining to highlight how citizens of a middle power think about (imagine) their country’s standing in regional and global politics. Many Australians would agree with Gareth Evans and Bruce Grant that Australia is ‘manifestly not a great power or even a major power; nor, however is it small or insignificant’ (1995, p. 344). As explained in Chap. 3, middle power imagining is the manner in which foreign policy commentators in Australia have come to identify with what they believe is their country’s regional and global standing since World War II.
Despite its persistent preoccupation with the ‘old’ world, since the 1980s there has been a steady re-awakening to the fundamental importance of Asia in Australia’s elite foreign policy making circles. But by and large it is a constrained awakening, prioritizing benefits accruing from three things: (i) a questionable (if at times blind) faith in the capacity of the Chinese economy to grow at high rates for the foreseeable future; (ii) in the belief that there will always be continuing demand for Australian resources from Japan; and (iii) in febrile anticipation of increasing demand for Australian food products and financial, medical and education services from the expanding middle classes in Asia.
While Australia’s business and political leaders and media commentators look to Asia almost exclusively through the prism of investment, trade and commerce, there is little public interest in educating young Australians about Asian histories, cultures and languages. Professor David Hill pointed to a 37 percent drop in enrolments in Indonesian studies in schools and universities in the decade to 2010 (2014). The study of Chinese language also languishes (Orton 2016). As Chengxin Pan has noted: ‘Rather than ushering in a new era of Australia’s China literacy, the highly charged debate exposes a rich seam of Australia’s Asia anxiety’ (2012a, p. 246).
More recently, a debate has erupted about potential instability in Asia caused by the re-emergence of China as a regional power and American reactions to that re-emergence, particularly in light of Donald Trump’s presidency. As former Foreign Affairs Minister Gareth Evans has noted:
… we have reached a point at which that comfortable leadership on the pursuit and institutionalisation of global public goods, which the US did play a leading role in right back at the beginning in 1945– the UN creation, the Bretton Woods institutions – those days do now seem to be over, and others are going to have to fill those very big shoes that the US has now abdicated. (2017)
The contradictory influences of economic utilitarianism and suspicions about China’s ambitions in the Asia-Pacific widely influence (and at times seriously distort) attitudes to Asia and Asians generally in contemporary Australia. They reinforce a stubborn devotion in the country to its dependent middle power imagining. There is an orthodox consensus in contemporary Australia that it would be dangerous, even disastrous, for the country to assert its independence from its most powerful ally, the United States of America, on whom it has depended for its security since the 1950s. However, with the advent of the Trump administration in Washington, doubts about America’s reliability as a committed alliance partner have begun to creep into the public consciousness. Reporting on a June 2017 Fairfax Ipsos poll, Matt Wade notes: ‘The survey revealed just 37 percent of Australians now believe the United States has an “over-all positive” influence on world affairs, a huge 23 percentage points lower than in 2016’ (Wade 2017, p. 1). Even before the Trump era became a reality, former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser had warned: ‘Australia needs to decide which direction it is to take into the future: are we to continue to follow our policy of strategic dependence or will we, for the first time in our history, move towards a more strategically independent foreign policy?’ (2014, p. 259).
Australia’s Middle Power Imagining in Asia
The central contention of this book is that Australia’s dependent middle power imagining is a major factor in the country’s ‘liminality’ in Asia – in confecting its awkward partnering in the region. This is defended through a survey of historical scholarship, media reports, and recent academic analyses and political commentaries about the country’s bilateral relations with three Asian states of high strategic and economic importance to Australia: Japan, China and Indonesia.
It is not often acknowledged that issues explored in recent accounts of Australian foreign policy had already been canvassed by earlier scholars. Not a few contemporary accounts of foreign policy are striking for the a-historical approaches they take. Too many assume that Australia’s foreign policy making has only quite recently begun to come to grips with the complexities of Australia’s geopolitical location on the edge of Asia. As Dan Halvorson argues, it is time to challenge ‘the orthodox [Australian] position in the literature that genuine and substantive engagement with East Asia began only in the 1980s’ (2016, p. 131). As shown in Chap. 3, not only are there earlier examples of engagement, but also they have been written about and discussed over several decades, often with a clarity and prescience unmatched in more recent writing.
Australia, Japan, China and Indonesia
By the middle of the 1960s Japan had emerged as a major market for Australian resources (especially coal, iron ore, and bauxite, and wool, meat and dairy products). In July 2014 the two countries signed a Free Trade Agreement. Increased cooperation on defence matters is mounting, largely as a response to perceptions about China’s ‘rise.’ Increased defence cooperation is now firmly on the agendas of both countries, especially in light of Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ mantra that apparently influences his foreign policy (Flitton 2017).
Following Deng Xiao Peng’s 1978 economic reforms, China embarked on its re-emergence as growing economy and formidable power in the Asia-Pacific. Early in the twenty-first century it surpassed Japan as Australia’s biggest trading partner. In November 2014 Australia and China signed a Free Trade Agreement and plans were approved for joint military exercises. However China’s construction of military bases on its man-made islands in the South China Sea has raised security concerns for Australia and its western allies. Donald Trump’s seemingly inchoate approach to security issues in the Asia Pacific has intensified concerns among nearly all states in the western Pacific. Gareth Evans’ description of Trump as ‘manifestly the most ill-informed, under-prepared, ethically-challenged and psychologically ill-equipped president in history’ is not without substance (quoted by Hunter 2017). How Australia handles the diplomacy (or lack of it) arising from the Trump era will be absolutely critical for the country’s regional future.
Indonesia is Australia’s closest Asian neighbour. Its attitude to, and cooperation with Australia is vital on a wide range of important security issues including terrorism, international crime syndicates (especially drug smugglers), people smuggling, asylum seekers, trade, and climate change. Of all its Asian neighbours, Australia has most to lose by partnering awkwardly with Indonesia. Yet all too often that has been the character of its Indonesian diplomacy. It seems that too few Australians properly appreciate that their country’s need for a positive relationship with Indonesia outweighs Indonesia’s need to be concerned about Australia.
The importance of Asia to Australia’s security and prosperity came into sharper foreign and defence policy focus in 1989 when the Hawke Government commissioned a report entitled Australia and the Northeast Asian Ascendancy. This Report (known as the Garnaut Report) is a milestone in the making of Australian foreign policy in Asia. In drawing attention to the economic, political and social transformations taking place in Northeast Asia, it announced:
This is a time of great opportunity for Australia. It is a time when Australians have a chance to grasp the prosperity, self-co...