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Collateral damage: Asia and Australia post-Iraq: Australia''s unerring support of America''s jingoism will have serious repercussions on relationships with our Asian neighbours.

Article Excerpt
There has been some unwarranted Australian triumphalism since it has become apparent that victory is assured in Iraq. The war may have furthered the Bush Administration's aspirations, but it has done nothing to benefit Australia, especially in our region, where the damage is considerable. For fifty years and through successive governments of both persuasions, our foreign policy has coincided, more or less, with our best interests as a nation. My fear is that this is no longer so. Recently we have not acted in our own best interests, and the future looks much bleaker than it did.

If we are honest about where we stand in Asia, we have to acknowledge that our relations with the region had been growing increasingly difficult for some years before we joined the coalition of the willing (or eager). We started this adventure from a base of mutual appreciation which had already declined. If you were looking at a graph, calibrated since the early post-World War II period, you would at first see an increasingly upward slope, as Australia's foreign policy focused on giving substance to the fact of our geographic position in Asia, through growing involvement at all levels of diplomacy, business, tourism, culture and education, involving much of the population. But over the last six-years that graph has taken an increasingly sharp turn downward, and since the start of the war with Iraq has plummeted to a depth of mistrust and dislike not seen since the old white-Australia days. In adding to our recent mistakes by aligning ourselves too closely with the United States, we are in danger of being isolated from our own region.

You might say I've had a front seat on the climb up the graph's slope, and I have to admit this has made me a little one-eyed on the subject. Since the 1960s, when I started teaching what was then quaintly called 'Oriental Studies' at Melbourne University, I've had the good luck to be involved with an exciting community of scholars and students who've worked to give substance to our regional relations. We were backed by a series of governments which from 1950 supported the innovative Colombo Plan, which brought many thousands of Asian students to our universities, followed by their children, and now even their grandchildren. Think what it means to have this pool of goodwill in our region, including those alumni of Australian institutions who are now professionals and government officials in their home countries. And despite problems from time to time with particular countries, and the odd Blainyism, we were able to assume an underlying empathy between ordinary Asians and ordinary Australians. Even when our government was at odds with the Indonesian government, or being berated by the Malaysian government, we noted that vital indicators, such as trade and the exchange of students, scientists and artists, were not affected. But this state of healthy and beneficial friendship has been badly damaged by our recent attitudes and behaviours and our current actions. I notice Paul Kelly says in today's Australian (April 9, 2003) that because the war in Iraq will be short, and no Australian military have been killed, Prime Minister Howard has 'got it right'. I think this is pretty shortsighted.

Since the election of the Howard Government in March 1996 a chill has crept into the relations between Australia and its neighbours. Indeed as early as that year's election campaign the Coalition indicated that it would reduce Australia's involvement with Asia, although this was more a distancing from Labor's policies than an assessment of our vital interests. During the campaign Paul Keating had warned against 'those Australians who wished to see ties with the United States and England re-invigorated while Asian ties were relaxed'. He said:

Australian engagement with Asia is not a temporary enthusiasm. Asia is not flavour of the month ... If we know anything about dealing with Asia it is the importance of building relationships for the long term.

We are suffering from the Coalition's refusal, or inability, to heed this warning.

It was soon evident that our present Prime Minister was far more relaxed and comfortable engaging with Europe, the UK and the US than with Asia. This predilection was given substance by early Coalition actions such as the financial cut backs to Radio Australia in 1997-8, which caused...

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