The evolving narrative of denial: the Fraser government and the Timorese genocide, 1975–1980

As research by the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor documents, the years 1975–1980 constituted the worst period of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, during which grave human rights took place involving a high loss of life. In Australia, the government headed by Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser (1975–1983) sought to present itself as a supporter of human rights and the international rule of law. It also prioritized relations with the Suharto regime, which it saw as key to its policy position in Southeast Asia. These two positions came into conflict due to the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. The Fraser government therefore worked to propagate a narrative concerning East Timor which denied the seriousness of the situation, distorted the historical narrative, deflected blame from Indonesia, and depicted the Australian position as principled and realistic. This paper examines the development of this narrative as events progressed and information concerning the crisis in East Timor came to the attention of the outside world. It also examines how the Fraser government employed this narrative internationally in order to protect the Suharto regime from scrutiny.     

Diplomatic Rivalries and Cultural One-upmanship: New Zealand’s Long Quest to Become More Pacific than Australia

Abstract

New Zealand’s governmental and non-governmental agencies, academic commentators and media have long framed the country as uniquely and favourably positioned on cultural grounds to be a strategic diplomatic actor in the South Pacific. Justifications for the framing stem from two linked complexes: the history of New Zealand’s colonial and post-colonial involvement in a number of Polynesian territories in the Pacific; and the related history of relations between settlers and indigenes in New Zealand itself. These different strands of the argument have increasingly been brought together by the growth in numbers of New Zealand-born and domiciled Pacific Islanders. They, along with Maori, have been recruited into the diplomatic service and overtly contribute to the use of Polynesian encounter rituals in New Zealand’s diplomatic outreach. Such histories are used to justify New Zealand’s role in the Pacific in its relations with other external powers, especially in diplomatic jostling with Australia. The claims to special insight and cultural capital are subjected to critical scrutiny.     

Voting after war: Legacy of conflict and the economy as determinants of electoral support in Croatia

In spite of a rapidly expanding literature on democratization, elections, and conflict, we lack systematic understanding of what determines electoral results in post-conflict societies. This article offers a novel initiative in revealing electoral patterns in states recuperating from painful experiences of war by analyzing data from more than 500 Croatian municipalities during five post-war electoral cycles. While the findings suggest voters do respond to parties' economic policies, the underlying pattern of electoral support demonstrates that competition is heavily constrained by the legacy of conflict, with the communities more exposed to the violence being more likely to vote for the principal party of the center-right which led the country into independence and throughout the war. This tendency exhibits a remarkable level of stability over time, which suggests conflict dynamics can become firmly embedded in post-conflict democratic electoral competition – even in societies that are not ethnically diverse.     

当代俄罗斯远东地区的俄汉洋泾浜简

洋泾浜俄语作为一种语言形式,广泛存在于中俄边境地区民间贸易活动中.目前,在远东,俄汉洋泾浜作为一种接触语言,有其自身发展的历史以及社会语言特征.     

Practical vs. identity regionalism: Australia's APC initiative,a case study

On 4 June 2008 Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced his ‘vision for an Asia Pacific community’ (APC). Though failing to win support among Asian countries, the initiative offers a useful case study. This article does not focus on the motives and interests of the various governments responding to the proposal but rather on the different (and sometimes conflicting) understandings of regionalism that underpinned those responses. In its diplomatic advocacy of the APC, the Australian government stressed ‘practical regionalism’ – emphasizing the capacity of such a new ‘community’ to deal with security, economic, environmental and other challenges faced in recent times in the Asia-Pacific region. The Australian campaign gave little attention, however, to the influence of cognitive and emotive factors in community planning: it neglected ‘identity’ regionalism. In particular, it did not seem to take seriously the possible role of non-Western perspectives in shaping the development of post-colonial inter-state relations. Through the investigation of key Asian-language terms – relating to the English terms for ‘region’ and ‘community’ – this article seeks to demonstrate the importance of the identity dimension in both policy development and academic analysis. It argues for an analytic and diplomatic skillset that goes beyond the disciplines of international relations and economics and draws upon expertise in linguistics and regional political cultures.     

作为一种思想资源的“东亚——读白永瑞先生的《思想东亚》

东亚人之间在"已知"与"欲知"相互作用下建构的认知与记忆矛盾重重,而朝鲜半岛的分段体制更是东亚范围内一大隐忧。韩国著名学者白永瑞巧妙地将"东亚"置于知识论的论述场域,提出极具创见的"作为知性实验的东亚"和"双重周边的视角",试图探寻去中心的东亚秩序及东亚脉络里的和平。这种新的思想视角和维度对当下审视东亚的历史与现状具有重要的启示价值。     

Silent witness: Australian intelligence and East Timor

The events in East Timor leading up to and immediately following the vote for independence from Indonesia in September 1999, and the attendant breach in Australian-Indonesian relations, posed the greatest challenge to the Australian intelligence agencies and the national security policymaking organization in more than a quarter of a century. On the whole, the intelligence agencies performed very well, producing timely, accurate and informative reports, with the important exception being the under-estimation of the scale of the killings and forced deportations in the fortnight after 4 September, 1999. However, there were serious deficiencies in the national security policy-making organization, and elements of the intelligence community succumbed to political pressures when the Government found some of the intelligence about Indonesian involvement in planning and directing the violence to be unpalatable.     

Fear,greed, or garage sale? The analysis of military expenditure in East Asia

This paper examines the determinants of military expenditures in eight East Asian countries from 1983 to 1993. In a pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis, it finds that the security threats (either external or internal) have not been a factor in determining the governments' defence burdens. Instead, economic and bureaucratic budgetary factors are better predictors of their defence decision-making. Military corruption and subsidized defence industries are the main domestic elements driving up the budgets; but this bureaucratic 'irrationality' is checked and balanced by economic rationality, for the defence burdens generally correlate with the availability of economic resources.     

东亚与欧美政党在民主化中的作用

本文以政党在民主化过程中的基本作用为起点，在与欧美政党相比较的基础上阐述了东亚工业化国家的政党自20世纪80年代以来在民主化过程中的作用。指出尽管政党变迁的路径各有不同，但全方位型政党及其代表性功能已经成为政党发展的重要趋势，东亚只有发展起具有一定群众性和代表性的全方位型政党才能在民主巩固过程中发挥重要作用。同时，有一个相对自由的宪政环境对于形成既有竞争性又有包容性的政党体制是不可或缺的，这是政治民主化稳定发展的重要前提。     

中国东北经济区与俄远东地区经贸科技合作战略升级问题研究

近年来，中国东北经济区与俄罗斯远东地区贸易和经济技术合作呈现出快速发展的势头，同时双方经贸科技合作中也存在亟待解决的问题，分析这些问题的成因，对于实现东北经济区对俄经贸科技合作战略升级至关重要。