More than Old Friends? Narrative in Australia's Relationship with Korea

Attempts to come to terms with Australia's relationship with South Korea routinely emphasise material dynamics, such as volume and value of trade, military exchange and security cooperation, or formal diplomatic engagement. This study focuses instead on the nuances of persuasive appeal in “stories”, which comprise a key component of the broader narrative of Australia's relationship with South Korea. I undertake a rhetorical analysis of three key stories conveyed at all levels of official foreign policy communication. I find the Australian narrative seeks to endow the bilateral relationship with authority, establish a sense of similarity and commitment, and invokes indebtedness and reciprocity. While such representations are significant to the broader bilateral relationship, a key challenge here concerns the extent to which these representations are genuinely shared and resonant depictions of Australia‐South Korea relations.     

Re‐evaluating Australia's “Cooperative Security” in Cambodia

Australia's role in resolving the conflict in Cambodia has been described as a triumph of cooperative security that achieved a balance between principles and pragmatism. The pursuit of cooperative security is a familiar theme in discussions of Australian diplomacy during the 1990s, yet there has been little scholarly consideration of whether this accurately captures the nature of Australian foreign policy at the time. This article explains Australia's conflict resolution role in Cambodia using an alternative, neoclassical realist framework. Specifically I demonstrate that expectations of reciprocity meant that Australia, when negotiating for peace in Cambodia, preferred bilateral over multilateral diplomacy. Secondly, Australia actively sought to lead the Cambodian peace‐keeping operation to enhance its regional security credentials. Finally, building closer ties with Vietnam was an important, often overlooked policy outcome.     

The Evolution of Malcolm Fraser's China Policy

This article explores the evolution of Malcolm Fraser's views on China. While Gough Whitlam is fondly remembered as a trailblazer for normalizing Australia‐China relations, Fraser was a pioneer in rendering a sense of bipartisanship in Australia's China policy. Fraser was not initially a Sino‐enthusiast, however. He came from a background of staunch anti‐Communism and throughout the 1950s and 1960s believed that China posed a major threat to stability in the Asia‐Pacific. The Liberal Party fiercely opposed the Whitlam government's decision to normalise diplomatic relations with China in 1972. Following the Whitlam dismissal in 1975, Fraser became Prime Minister and, in what seemed to be an abrupt departure from the Liberal Party's position, thoroughly embraced relations with China. As Leader of the Opposition, Whitlam called out the hypocrisy of the Liberal Party's radical policy shift. This study examines the domestic and international dynamics that shaped Fraser's views on China and ultimate adoption of a successful China policy. This is the untold story of a crucial turning point in Australia‐China relations under the leadership of a conservative government, in which a strong relationship with China became a cornerstone of bipartisan Australian foreign policy.     

Anxious Neighbour: Australian Opposition to Japanese Labour in New Caledonia, 1945 to 1960

In the late 1940s and the 1950s, in the context of the White Australia policy and strong anti‐Japanese sentiment, Australia mounted a successful diplomatic campaign against the use of Japanese contract labour in New Caledonia. Australia also campaigned, but with only partial success, against the use of Japanese labour in the nearby New Hebrides. These initiatives further illustrate Australia's traditional assertiveness, when it saw its interests threatened, in the South Pacific. Blocking the use of Japanese labour probably contributed, as Alan Ward has argued, to increased permanent migration to New Caledonia from the other French South Pacific territories and France, shifting the population and voting balance against the indigenous Melanesian nationalist movement which later emerged. But Ward overstates his case: immigration of this kind would have happened anyway, especially from resource‐poor and over‐populated Wallis and Futuna. In its campaign on the Japanese labour issue Australia profited from its strong relationship with France, which resulted from comradeship in the two world wars, and from the lack of contentious bilateral issues.     

From Missionary to Ministerial Adviser: Constance Duncan and Australia‐Japan Relations 1922‐1947

The contribution of A. Constance Duncan (1896‐1970) to Australia‐Japan relations has been overlooked in mainstream historiography. This article examines her role in the development of these relations from 1922 to 1947. She was one of the few women to be accepted into the elite inner‐circle of intellectuals influencing Australian foreign policy during this period. In 1922 she embarked on a career in Japan as a missionary, or “foreign secretary”, for the Young Women's Christian Association. She returned to Australia in 1933 and took up a position with the Bureau of Social and International Affairs. Her familiarity with Japanese culture and society, together with an abiding interest in promoting world peace, led naturally to her participation in the world of international relations at a time of heightened interest in the Asia‐Pacific region and Japan in particular. She was part of an intellectual movement that considered an educated Australian public to be of paramount importance in future Australia‐Japan relations and international relations generally. This article traces her activities and examines her influence in the educational field and on Australian foreign policy‐making.     

Australia and Japan's Return to International Society: Negotiating Allies and the Afro-Asian Bloc, 1952–56

In December 1956, Japan gained membership of the United Nations, marking a significant milestone in Japan's return to international society. In approximately five years since the San Francisco Peace Treaty took effect in April 1952, this had been a difficult diplomatic issue for the Australian government. This article examines how the Australian government dealt with this issue by focusing upon the intersection of Australia's policy towards Japan and Japan's status as a member of the emergent Afro-Asian bloc. This article argues that Japan's engagement with the rest of the bloc was a rising factor in Canberra's consideration of Japan's place in the world, thereby helping revisit the orthodox historiography of Australia–Japan relations during the early Cold War era which often overemphasises rapid growth of bilateral trade.     

“White Queensland”: The Queensland Government's Ideological Position on the Use of Pacific Island Labourers in the Sugar Sector 1880–1901

This article looks at the Queensland Government's attitudes towards the Pacific Island labour trade between 1880 and the time of Federation. Especially after the failure of the Griffith Government to abolish the Pacific Island labour trade during the 1880s, the dominant Queensland politicians of the late nineteenth century tended to pursue a paradoxical vision of a “White Queensland” in which the settlement and commercial aims of European Queenslanders were partially fulfilled by a barely acknowledged labour force of Pacific Islanders. It will be demonstrated that “White Queensland” was a powerful racial ideal similar yet subtly different to the White Australia policy pursued by the Commonwealth after 1901.     

APEC,globalization, and 9/11

The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) has, in the main, been based on attempts to advance neoliberal ideas about economic governance, although this has stimulated a great deal of controversy and resistance. Having failed—despite much effort—to entrench neoliberalism within APEC the United States and other “Western” members of APEC are now “securitizing” economic policy in an effort to reconfigure the Asia Pacific along lines favored by major capitalist players in the region. Critics argue that this securitization of economics is simply a tactical effort to bring in through the back door policies that APEC members have resisted in the past. Faced with the prospect of not getting its own way through straight trade negotiations within APEC, Washington appears to be promoting measures — “urgently needed in the name of security”—that might never have been accepted otherwise. At the same time, a twin strategy of pursuing bilateral trade negotiations with key APEC states is threatening the multilateral nature of the body, further emasculating APEC's position as a serious trade body.     

“a carefully weighed plan with adequate safeguards for us”: Economic Policy and the Coordination of Australian-US Approaches to Japanese Aggression, 1939-41

The historical narrative of Australia's foreign and defence policy-making during the Pacific War tends to foreground the years 1941–42, characterising them as the turning point when the government realised that Britain alone could no longer protect Australia's regional security interests and turned to the United States of America for its salvation. This article makes a contribution to the alternative view, arguing that Australia was looking to the US well before Prime Minister John Curtin's famous “looks to America” proclamation. It does so with a focus on Australia's thinking and policy towards the engagement of the US in the years 1939-41, arguing that the coordination of its economic policy with the US, rather than seeking insight into high-level strategic planning, offered the nation the greatest opportunity to tie its security interests in the Asia-Pacific region with those of the US. In exploring the role of economic policy in Australia's preparation for war, this article offers new insight into the maturation of Australia's foreign policy apparatus.     

Is Politics Behind Trade? The Impact of International Trends and Diplomatic Action on Brazil's Exports during Globalisation

Although it is well known that domestic and international factors converge to affect a nation's foreign policy orientation and trade, their actual weights vary. Brazil's situation during globalisation sheds light on this issue. Through statistical and qualitative analysis, this article shows how structural factors, rather than diplomatic action, influenced the direction of Brazil's exports as the country became more integrated into the world economy. It was only under Cardoso's presidency that trade had an impact on bilateral diplomacy. The findings contradict conventional wisdom, which emphasises the state's role in driving Brazilian integration into the global economy.     

Empire, Region, World: the International Context of Australian Foreign Policy since 1939

What have been the most important factors in international relations for Australian foreign‐policymakers over the last sixty years? Five broad themes stand out: the end of empire; Cold War dependency; the changing nature of security; economic development; and race and national identity. Cumulatively, and often in intertwined ways, these themes have amounted to little short of a revolution in Australia's place in the world since the Second World War. The challenges facing Australians have, as a result, been considerable. The international context in which Liberals have made foreign policy has been reshaping Australia as it has been reshaping the external environment.     

Australian Support for an Independent Taiwan Prior to the Recognition of the People's Republic of China*

Australia's efforts between 1950 and 1972 to create an independent Taiwan are an important, largely overlooked element of Australia and Taiwan's international relations. Australia saw de jure independence for Taiwan as a means to support the US while pursuing the interrelated goals of accommodating the People's Republic of China (PRC) and minimising contradictions between US China policy and the policies of the UK and other countries important to it. Initially Australia favoured the establishment of a Taiwanese majority‐controlled state. This preference later gave way to greater support for an independent Republic of China on Taiwan under Chinese Nationalist rule. Australia nevertheless consistently justified its policy via reference to the principle of self‐determination for Taiwan's people — either immediately in the case of a Taiwanese Taiwan, or postponed into the indefinite future in the case of a Chinese Nationalist Taiwan. Championing Taiwan independence lost its utility for Australia when Sino‐ US relations improved in the late‐1960s to early‐1970s, and it became possible for Australia to make the concessions over Taiwan demanded by China without damaging its relationship with the US. This shift preceded the election of a Labor government committed to building a friendly relationship with China. Australia then dropped its policy of advocating Taiwanese independence, and established official relations with China in late 1972.     

Australia and a Post-Brexit Britain

This article, based on the Robert Menzies Lecture delivered by the author in London on 31 October 2017, provides a survey of Britain and Australia’s bilateral relationship from the 1930s to the present. In the earlier period particular attention is given to the role of Sir Robert Menzies. The relationship is examined in the light of Britain’s accession to the EEC/EU with reference to bilateral trade, security and global politics, and migration, with emphasis on strong people-to-people links. The author expresses hopes for renewed co-operation over free trade, a rules-based world outlook and links between universities in a post-Brexit world. He argues that although the bilateral relationship went through some troubled times in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, it is now getting back to the natural strength that it deserves.     

Settler Colonial Strategic Culture: Australia,AUKUS, and the Anglosphere

Australia's history as a settler colony within the British Empire fundamentally shapes its sense of security within the Indo-Pacific region. Australia has consistently looked outside of its region for security and sought partners on the explicit basis of political, cultural, and ethnic similarity. What role does Australia's history play in shaping its foreign policy? We argue that these choices in foreign policy are inextricable from Australia's history as a settler colony on the farthest reaches of the British Empire. The AUKUS Agreement (AUKUS) is an example of how Australia operates to preserve racial hegemony in the face of non-white threat — real or perceived. This research utilises critical discourse analysis to interrogate elite-level discourse around AUKUS to ascertain the dominant narratives that inform its creation, the issues it seeks to address in Australian security policy, how it is structured by historical narratives of security, and how it functions to structure those narratives going forward. This article seeks to participate in the growing push to decolonise International Relations by illuminating the way Australia is ontologically and epistemologically invested in the preservation of racial hegemony.     

From “Endemically Pro‐Israel” to Unsympathetic: Australia's Middle East Policy, 1967–1972

The hardening of Australian Middle East policy toward Israel in the early 1970s is often attributed to the election of Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister. Whitlam's December 1972 victory may well have opened a new, problematic chapter. But the evidence suggests that a deterioration in Australia‐Israel relations occurred gradually in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War. This deterioration reflected changes in Australia's political leadership and change at the top of the Department of External Affairs (renamed Foreign Affairs in 1970). Individual decision‐makers such as Whitlam did play a significant role in determining Australian Middle East policy. As Prime Minister, Sir John Gorton was willing to put aside advice from External Affairs not to antagonise and risk disrupting trade relations with Arab states, and to offer heartfelt support for Israel. His successor Sir William McMahon vacillated under opposing influences of a department determined to secure Australia's trade interests on the one hand, and Australian Jewish leaders and Israel's envoys in Australia on the other. With the support of the Australian Jewish community, Israel sought to influence Australian political leaders — especially within the ALP — from turning away from Israel.     

Asia‐Pacific economic cooperation: Progress and prospects

Secretary of Foreign Affairs Domingo L. Siazon Jr. of the Philippines discusses the Asia‐Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum's path to the present, and charts a map for its future. Siazon sees the importance of promoting greater private‐sector involvement in APEC and enhancing economic cooperation among member economies. Siazon discusses the special significance of this year's meetings to be held at Subic Bay in the Philippines, the former home of the US Pacific Fleet and now a growing industrial and tourism center. Pursuing APEC's free‐trade goals, he says, holds the brightest economic future for the Philippines and the region.     

The “ANRC has Withdrawn its Offer”: Paul Kirchhoff,Academic Freedom and the Australian Academic Establishment*

The main focus of examinations of intellectual suppression and censorship of scholars and academics in Australia has been on the post‐1945 period, particularly the Cold War. The interwar years have, in comparison, received little attention, resulting in a lack of historical understanding of the development of censorious structures and traditions in Australia. In this paper I discuss the exclusion of Paul Kirchhoff, a German anthropologist, a member of the German Communist Party and a Jew, from undertaking anthropological research in Australia, including its external territories, between 1931 and 1932. Kirchhoff applied for a research grant from the Australian National Research Council (ANRC) which, although awarded, was withdrawn once the Executive Committee was informed by the Australian government that the British MI5 considered him a security risk. His membership of the Communist Party was the reason put forward. This case also underlines the transnational aspect of security services and the international reach of academic anthropology. Kirchhoff was a victim of the ANRC's sympathetic collaboration with the Commonwealth Attorney‐General's office to stifle academic and civil freedom.     

欧盟战略自主与欧版“印太战略”

为提高国际社会影响力,实现“新安全战略”,应对“美国优先”、英国“脱欧”等危机和挑战,欧盟强化战略自主并培育安全力量建设。随着印太地区地缘战略重要性的增强,欧盟及其成员国不断加强与印太的联系,力求成为该地区新的战略参与者。欧版“印太战略”,以日欧贸易协定为蓝本,优先发展对日关系,联合介入印太,通过与印太国家签订双边或多边自由贸易协定,探索在这一地区建立多边自由贸易体系;强调经济与安全并重发展;法英在欧盟介入印太过程中充当先遣队。它以维护自由与开放、繁荣和稳定的印太秩序为切入点,使欧盟成为这一地区解决传统与非传统安全问题的利益攸关方,谋求与中美在印太地区实现战略平衡。     

The Atlantic economy after German unification: Cooperation or the rise of ‘Fortress Europe’

With the end of the cold war and the weakening of the security bond between Europe and the United States, economic relations assume increasing importance. As Europe's dominant economic power, Germany has a central role in the management of the trans‐Atlantic economy. This analysis of economic relations between Germany and the United States shows that whilst investment flows between the two economies suggest common interests and mutual dependence, the structure of German and American trade reveals a strong potential for conflict. Moreover, the experience of the 1980s suggests that economic ties between Germany and the United States are not sufficiently intense to guarantee unconditional cooperation in the management of the Atlantic economy. Divergence in macroeconomic policy has inevitably led to tensions over trade, exchange rates and interest rates. Unless this tendency is checked, the result will be the emergence of ‘Fortress Europe’ with a heightened potential for conflict with the United States.     

Singapore Inc: A success story

The success of Singapore's government‐led and managed economy has allowed it to box above its weight in the international trade and financial arena for decades. However, globalisation and technology are forcing a policy shift.