Australia's Friendliness Towards Asia example essay topic

Australia- Trade and Immigration Background As Joycelynhas mentioned Australia's having greater and greater interaction with its Asian neighbours, through the areas of trade and its active role in the regional trade organization -APEC. Despite its location, Australia can hardly be thought of being an Asian country. Not so long ago, Asian were looked down upon, with a mixture of fear because of the communist aggression, pity because of their poverty, and contempt, as they dumped cheap and poorly made products to do Australian workers out of job. For decades, high prohibitive tariffs blocked the imports of Asian goods, and a'White Australia' policy fenced off Asian migrants. However, the situation is reversed in the past 2 decades. With East Asia being the fastest growing economy, and the development of regional trade blocs in their traditional trading partners such as the EC and NAFTA that tend to emphasize internal trade, Asia becomes Australia's single most promising opportunity.

And now, Australia is eager to be Asian. Trade (See overhead - Exports) In 1994, some 60% of Australia's total exports equivalent to more than 60 B A$ went to Asia. While Japan remains to be their largest trading partner, S Korea replaced US to take the second place. But at the same time, Australia's share of Asia's total imports is declining, down from 3% in 1985 to 2% in 95.

The main reason is that Asian countries are trading more among themselves, and importing more hi-er value-added products, rather than the common Australian exported commodities. However, steering towards value-adding industries is not easy. Besides infrastructure and labor reform, Australian manufacturers will become head on with some of Asia's most efficient operations. Anyway, Australia has shown its commitment to free trading. The former Labor government has committed to cutting the average tariff for most imports to 5% by 2000, compared to 20% in 1983. And the trend towards a more open economy will be continued by the new Liberal-National gov't.

Most domestic business will not survive under such open competition, but Australia sees this as an opportunity to reshape its manufacturing base to become narrower and deeper, and more competitive. They see an ideal picture of Australia importing cheap manufactured goods from Asia instead of making expensive ones at home behind tariff, and Asia buying mineral and food from them. Yet the Asia's super-achievers have never been the faithful worshipper of free-trade. And Australia has found it hard to dismantle the barriers to processed minerals and food in the Asian markets, and this impedes their development of value-adding industries and job creation.

But from the Asia's pt of view, Australia's tiny population of 17 M means little to the Asian giants, for example when compared to Indonesia's 180 M. A from the Malaysian Info minister, 'Australia depends on Asia and not the other way around. ' may reflects Australia's position, at least this is the way the Asians see it. Immigration (See Overhead - Immigration) Another sign of Australia's willingness to open is its generous immigration policy. The # admitted stayed over 100,000 in the 80's, but was cut back to 80,000 in 92. Most of them were from Asia.

Besides the categories of family reunion and refugee, Australia, like Canada, also attracted hundred of thousands of skilled or business immigrants from Hong Kong where people fled as the Chinese takeover approaches. These people brought in an enormous amt of capital, and also initiated a boom in the real estate market. The proportion of Australian with Asian origins are expected to increase to 7%in 2000, as compared to 4% now. Most Australians feel uneasy about this sudden change in the ethnic mixtures of their countries, and opposing voices are high.

The unemployment figure is double digit already, and most of the immigrants are unskilled since they were admitted for having relations in Australia. New policies call for lower # admitted, and more quotas given to people with skills and higher education background. Australians are apprehensive about the pace of Asian immigration, and tension is rising. Many complain that the new comers keep themselves separate rather than integrating into community life. But this from both sides, and it's not easy to be done right the way. Most of new comers have language problems, esp those came for family reunion.

Australians on the other hand, have little knowledge of other Asian cultures, and conflicts can occur easily due to misunderstanding. On the extreme side, fringe groups such as the neo-Nazi Australian Nationalist Movement and the League of Rights explicitly claimed that immigration was bad if it meant more Asians. And the cases of racist violence is increasing. The last PM Paul Keating actually started some initiatives to narrow the gap between the local people and immigrants, such as introducing Asian culture in the school curriculum. An interesting pt to note, the current PM Mr Howard publicly opposed the multi-cultural policies, such as hiring interpreters.

His attitude can be contrasted to Canada which take pride in its multiculturalism, and we " ll discuss it further later. Challenges So far it seems that Australia is heading in the right direction, but its successful integration into Asia won't be easy. Opposing fore cs come both externally and internally. At home, few Australians see themselves as Asian. They already felt hostile about the Japanese investment in their real estate and tourism, and more interaction with Asian countries is uneasy esp to many old Australians. On the other side, after all these years of isolation and avoidance of its Asian neighbours, Australia can hardly convince its neighbours that it's Asian.

Instead they try to be an odd man among its neighbours, that is to integrate fully into the economic life of the region, while preserving its western values. But from the Asian side, they may not easily accept Australia's western practices. The main issue lies in the difference in their attitude towards individual freedom and respect of human rights. Take some examples.

Dr Mohammad resented that Australia refuse to censor a tv program 'Embassy' which he claimed was mocking Malaysia. Australia also got into diplomatic problems with certain authoritarian regimes for their behaviors. Its relationship with Indonesia is always tense for its criticisms of Indonesia over human rights, corruption, and the status of East Timor. Even Singapore didn't like Australia's comment on its harassment of the Asian Wall St Journal and other newspaper. As other Asian countries all share similar culture and values, Australia with its western nature would easily be labelled as intruder. And they all understand that Australia's friendliness towards Asia is economically driven, it comes out of the mind, not the heart.

Moreover, some of them even suspect it of acting as a stalking horse for western interests. Malaysia proposed a regional East Asia Econ Caucus which will exclude the US and Australia, and this is clashing over with APEC in which Australia and US are active participant. So, how can Australia manage its odd man role in the Asian region? Should it go for Multiculturalism or a melting pot policy like the US? How can it balance its relationship with its neighbours while preserving its western values?