The Australian-Asian Connection: from Alfred Deakin to John Howard
Introduction: Contextualizing Australia in Asia Several commentators have seized upon Aus tralia's recent entry to the inner sanctum of East Asian Summit as a turning point in Australia's relationship with its regional neighbours. This goes to the heart of what I have termed the 'Austral ian-Asian Connection', or as others have called it, Asian Engagement or Enmeshment. We indeed have come a long way since the historian John La Nauze dismissed Australia's proximity to Asia as something for the future. As we ponder the significance of joining the East Asian Summit, many questions come to mind: does this signify a radical change in Australia's view of itself? Is this the answer or a clue to the critical question of whether Australia sees itself as an Asian nation' with a firm link to an Asian regional hegemony, or that Australia now embraces more firmly a duality i.e., as an Asian nation as well as a European nation'. If, indeed there has been a change in how we comprehend the Australian-Asian connection, what underlies this sudden embrace of an Asian future' by none other than John Howard who in the past was forthright in his criticism of the regional policies in the Hawke and Keating era? This becomes a perplexing query, particularly when one recalls that Foreign Minister Downer has stated that Australia had no wish to be part of a new regional ism such as that portrayed by Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia and others. Downer went on to describe this as a form of'cultural regionalism' which Australia rejects. By contrast he identified a 'Practical Regional ism' as the model to which Australia was committed. The difference between these forms of regionalism was that one is built on 'commonalities of history, of mutual cultural identity', and the other strictly on the mutual benefits of cooperation in the pursuit of common objectives. In this context, does Australia's not just willingness, but even eagerness, to be a member of the East Asian
From British subjects to Australian values: a citizenship-building approach to Australia–Asia relations
Australia–Asia relations are inextricably bound up with the development of notions of statehood and citizenship. The argument advanced here is that the way a state acts within the international community markedly determines how it relates to its own citizens. Here we suggest that the continuing and politically resonant idea of Australia as a ‘middle power’ is a crucial thread that links the international and national dimensions of citizenship building. From the very beginning of Federation, the contingent sovereignty of the new Australian Commonwealth in the imperial order became necessarily entangled with debate over national political institutions and citizenship building. Long after the end of the British Empire, the notion of middle power politics has determined the nature and shape of citizenship building. These statecraft projects of ‘citizenship building’ are profoundly shaped, determined and reinforced by the institutions and policies of regional engagement. We explore this framework through three critical junctures of domestic and external policy: 1. the emergence of dominion status on the basis of a common racial and cultural identity within the empire in the first half of the century; 2. the developing notion of a good international citizen during the Hawke and Keating period; 3. the invocation of Australian values by John Howard.
European Neutrality in Historical Perspective
This chapter places the neutrality policies of the established European neutral states—Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland—in historical context. It explores the origins of neutrality in the idea of non-belligerency in war and the history of neutrality in modern European international politics, highlighting the way in which quite a wide variety of states were or sought to be neutral at various points in the nineteenth century or the first half of the twentieth century. The chapter then shows how the Cold War division of Europe resulted in Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland (along with Yugoslavia) emerging as a distinctive neutral group of states between the two blocs. The chapter also reviews how the European neutral states’ foreign and security policies have adapted since the end of the Cold War. It finishes with some conclusions about neutrality in general and the neutrality of the established European neutral states in particular.