This article was downloaded by: [North Dakota State University]On: 03 November 2014, At: 07:34Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number:1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street,London W1T 3JH, UK

Australian Journal ofInternational AffairsPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/caji20

What is Left of Engagementwith Asia?Anthony Milner aa Faculty of Asian Studies , The AustralianNational UniversityPublished online: 09 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Anthony Milner (2000) What is Left of Engagement with Asia?,Australian Journal of International Affairs, 54:2, 177-184, DOI: 10.1080/713613511

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/713613511

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of allthe information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on ourplatform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensorsmake no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy,completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views ofthe authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis.The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should beindependently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor andFrancis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings,demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, inrelation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private studypurposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution,reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any

form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of accessand use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:34

03

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Australian Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 54, No. 2, 2000

What is Left of Engagement with Asia?

ANTHONY MILNER

(Faculty of Asian Studies, The Australian National University)

What is left of our engagement with Asia? The answer of course is that there is a good dealleft, but there is also a lot to be concerned about right now. This article will concentrate onthese concerns, and on one suggestion as to how to address them.

First of all, however, let us consider in a narrower sense what is left of our engagementwith Asia. First, we continue to have a substantial trade with the Asian region. True, we havehad some setbacks in the last 3 years, but about half our exports still go to East Asia andsome 38% of our imports come from those countries. A smaller part of our investment goesto East Asia, and from 1997 to 1998 it fell, but it was still some 13.5% of our total overseas’investment. Though the tourist trade of the region remains heavy, it has fallen (in someareas), as one would expect. With regard to immigration, about 25% of our intake comesfrom East Asia alone. Turning next to student intake, despite some minor decreases, theoverwhelming majority of our overseas students still come from Asia.1

With respect to security relations in the region, this area has certainly taken a knock withthe cancellation of the Indonesian Agreement, and the economic downturn has reduced thequantity of joint military exercises, but it is still the case that the current CoalitionGovernment has followed its predecessor in expanding the number of political/militaryagreements in the Asian region, reaching well beyond the old relationships with Malaysia andSingapore. We continue to participate in the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the securityorganisation of the Asia–Paci� c; and, despite the reduction in expensive military cooperationwithin the region, the relatively inexpensive second-track security dialogue that takes place(for instance, in the Council for Security and Cooperation in Asia–Paci� c) is currently inquite good health.2

The Asia expertise present in Australian Government and academia, it could be argued,is another indication of the degree of substance in our engagement with Asia. The successin involving a range of Asian countries in the Timor peace process is one indication of ourdiplomatic resources. In the academic sphere, despite the dire condition of our universitiesand the decline in student interest in Asian studies in many parts of Australia, we continueto house some of the major centres of Asia expertise and Asian library resources in the world.

So, if we look at trade, investment, tourism, student � ow, defence links and Asianexpertise in Australia, there remains considerable substance in our engagement with Asia,and yet right now it is hard not to focus on the challenges the engagement has faced overthe last year or so. We really do have problems.

1 For a summary of recent statistics from AusTrade, see Florence Chong, ‘Recovery at a Record Rate’Inside Asia, 15 November 1999.

2 See, for instance, the AUS–CSCAP (Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Paci� c) Newsletter.

ISSN 1035-771 8 print/ISSN 1465-332X online/00/020177-0 8 Ó 2000 Australian Institute of International Affairs 177

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:34

03

Nov

embe

r 20

14

ANTHONY MILNER

Challenges

The Hanson phenomenon, for a start, was an enormous challenge. Reports from virtuallyevery part of the region con� rmed the damage that was done to Australia. In particular, theHanson phenomenon undermined years and years of public relations and diplomatic work inthe region. It revived or con� rmed the false image of Australia as a white society, opposedto immigration, clinging to Europe and the United States and generally at odds with theregion in which we are located.

The second challenge has been the Asian economic crisis. It has had its positive side forus. As Prime Minister John Howard explained in New York in July 1998, it is dif� cult tooverstate the ‘boost that being able to beat that Asian downturn has represented in theAustralian psyche’.3 The Asia crisis also gave Australia the opportunity to act with generosityin the region—for instance, towards Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia—and yet perhapswe were not fully successful in presenting this generosity in a way that would give us thecredit we deserved.

Of course, the relative strength of the Australian economy lifted our prestige in in� uentialquarters in the region. Our image was certainly a more con� dent one than that of theAustralia of the late Labor Government, which sometimes gave the appearance of beggingto gain entry to the Asian, high-growth-rate club.

The new prestige we gained during the Asia crisis, and our new-found con� dence, werecertainly a plus, but this con� dence also seemed to lead to a tendency to swagger. Newspaperheadlines, for example, began to use the word ‘Asia’ in contexts that were as stronglynegative as those of a year or so earlier had been strongly positive.4 What is more, ourpolitical leaders, primarily for domestic purposes, it is true, began to talk of Australia as the‘strong man of Asia’. Given our relative economic success, and given the need to talk-upgovernment policy for electoral and other political purposes, this was perhaps understand-able, but the idea of Australia being the ‘strong man of Asia’ (McGregor 1998) could not beexpected to please sensitive Asian leaders. It is a boast that in the future, when Asianeconomies have moved into a new phase of expansion, may be better remembered than thequiet, neighbourly generosity which Australia displayed towards individual Asian nations.

The constitutional debate in Australia has been a further challenge in the engagementwith Asia. It is true that some commentators and advocates went overboard in suggesting a‘no’ vote would do far-reaching damage to Australia’s standing in the Asian region.Nevertheless, in certain in� uential circles, the ‘no’ vote success has caused surprise, and insome ways suggested that we are not yet a ‘complete nation state’, to quote a phrase usedrecently in conversation by a prominent Asian Ambassador in Canberra.

The Nation from Thailand made the important comment that the ‘no’ victory remindedpeople in southeast Asia that ‘Australia is not, and has never been, part of Asia’. Australiamay be on Asia’s doorstep, the paper observed, but the peoples’ hearts and minds ‘arethousands of miles away on another continent’ (see The Nation, 7 November 1999; and alsoMatichon Sudsapda, 9 November 1999). As is well known, this sense of being attached toa world far distant from Asia and, thus, not really being committed to our own region, hasdogged the reputation of Australia in Asia for many, many decades.

3 Quoted in Richard McGregor (1999). ‘Puzzled PM trips over his feet’, The Australian, 16–7–99.4 For example, see The Australian (1997, 1998); Canberra Times (1998). For a list of headlines from

the earlier, boom period, see Milner (1997:34).

178

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:34

03

Nov

embe

r 20

14

What is Left of Engagement with Asia?

The Timor intervention

At one level, the Australian Timor intervention can be seen as a solid commitment to Asiaon the part of this country—a point that has been made, for example, in Singapore and iscertainly noted in the United States and Europe.5. The intervention in Timor, at another level,demonstrated a respectable degree of Australian military expertise and, furthermore, theability to bring Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Korea into militarycooperation demonstrated a genuine diplomatic effectiveness.

Apart from this, the Timor intervention, as has been widely acknowledged, was outstand-ing in the way it was able to advance Australian values on the international stage; it was anexercise that appealed to the vast majority of Australian voters who would normally � ndforeign policy to be far removed from their everyday lives. Many of these Australians weregenuinely disgusted by the behaviour of the Indonesian army in Timor.

Having said all this, the Timor intervention had quite a number of negative repercussions.Although Australia was successful in attracting the support of a number of Asian govern-ments, and also a certain amount of warm press comment from the Asian region, there hasalso been a great deal of criticism—enough criticism, in fact, to make this a time ofexceptional dif� culty in our Asian relationships.

The criticism from Indonesia is well known. There are perceptions that we are deeplyantagonistic; that we see Indonesia as our major military threat; that we are working todismember the Indonesian state; that our troops present the image of white Australianspointing guns at the heads of ‘small, dark-skinned men’.6 Some commentators in Muslimpapers in Indonesia have been quick to portray Australians as acting on behalf of Christiangroups against Islamic Indonesians.7 Even friends of Australia, such as the journalistGoenawan Mohamed, have expressed their concern. Goenawan, for example, is anxious thatthe ‘perceived anti-Indonesia feeling in Australia will feed right-wing nationalist sentimentin Indonesia’—sentiment, he says, which is widespread (Walters 1999b; Crouch 1999;Broinowski unpublished).

Malaysian criticism of Australia in the Timor situation is also quite well known. PrimeMinister Mahathir suggested that we were part of a Western plot to break up Indonesia, andthat our Timor involvement was just another example of our weakness for ‘pressuring orcondemning our neighbours’ (Star 1999a). The Malaysian Star newspaper noted thatAustralia’s Timor intervention follows ‘years of work by Australia to increase its in� uencein Asia’ (Star 1999b).

Less well known than Malaysian criticism is that from Thailand. Despite the cooperativeattitude of the Thai Prime Minister, sections of the Thai press contained quite antagonisticcomments about Australia. The nationalist Thai language paper Matichon warned that ‘aweaker Indonesia is to the bene� t of Australia’, and that the Australians were keen to supportChristians against Moslems. Helping the Australians was seen by this paper to be comparablewith the too-ready assistance given by the Thais to the United States in the Korean War.8

Another paper argued that Australia was driven by economic motives to intervene in EastTimor and expected to control the economy of the new state. The paper also felt theAustralian troops in Timor behaved in an aggressive fashion.9

5 See MacIntyre (1999). See also the Asian Wall Street Journal’s praise, quoted in the Canberra Times,7 October 1999, p. 5 and the article by Frank Devine (1999).

6 Transcript of television program, ‘Australia: The View from Jakarta’, ‘Sunday Programme’, Channel9, 14 November 1999.

7 I am grateful to Tommy Christomy.8 Matichon Sudsapda, 28 September 1999.9 Ban Mu’ang, 26 October 1999. See also Hirano (1999).

179

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:34

03

Nov

embe

r 20

14

ANTHONY MILNER

In Korea the Chosun Daily, a popular Korean-language paper that is often critical ofgovernment policy, saw contradictions between Australia’s long-term support for Indonesiaand then our intervention in Timor. The paper wondered if we were driven in the latter caseby economic motives10.

Even in Singapore, where we received a real measure of praise, questions were raisedabout the need for Australia to adopt what was termed the ‘quieter public style that Asiandiplomacy is known for’ (Broinowski unpublished). In addition, in recent days we have seenin our Australian papers reports of Japanese criticism to the effect that our Prime Ministerbadgered the Japanese government for military support in a way that may have damagedAustralian–Japanese relations (McGregor 1999b). This criticism seems exaggerated, but thereis little doubt that the now famous Bulletin article of 28 September, in which Prime MinisterHoward was presented as giving Australia a United States ‘Deputy Sheriff’ role in the region,undermined many efforts we were making towards quiet diplomacy.

Again the Malaysian response was dramatic. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, hisDeputy, the leader of the youth wing of the governing party (UMNO Youth), a senioropposition leader and the media joined in condemning the Australian leader for whatMahathir called ‘unmitigated arrogance’.11 Here too the criticism seems over the top—especially for a leader who found the word ‘recalcitrant’ offensive—and it is important toremember that the Australian Prime Minister sought to distance himself from the ‘DeputySheriff’ spin in the Bulletin article (see, for instance, Walters 1999a; Garran 1999).Nevertheless, it is true that our Prime Minister did make it clear that Australia would increaseits defence spending, that we would be willing to defend Australian values and that we wouldgive less emphasis to ‘special relationships’. The reduction of emphasis on special relation-ships, of course, could easily be seen in the region as a decision to stand back from a numberof close Asian relationships that had once been prominent among Australia’s internationalpriorities.

The media, as already noted, added the word ‘Deputy’ to Howard’s statement, and indoing so helped to give a militaristic � avour to the Prime Minister’s pronouncement . Inaddition, the way in which the Australian military force in Timor has been presentedin sections of the Australian press has added to that militaristic image. When The Australian,for instance, placed a photograph of Australian troops in battle attire under the huge banner,‘Dressed to Kill’,12 or when it gave another article the lead comment, ‘Let’s knock somesense into Jakarta’ (O’Connor 1999), that paper—usually one of the most responsiblecommentators on regional issues—added weight to Asian anxieties about a growing,aggressive tone in Australia’s approach to Asia.

It is clear enough that despite the genuinely successful aspects of our intervention, wemust cope with the perceptions of many people in our region who are suspicious of ourmotives and critical of our methods. For some of these critics, recent events con� rm thelongstanding image of Australia as a sort of Western outport that is at odds with the Asianregion.

Refugees

Apart from Timor, the economic crisis, the constitutional debate and the Hanson phenom-enon, a further challenge that is being pressed against our engagement with Asia is therefugee trade. It does not help that the trade appears to be growing, that Indonesians seem

10 I am grateful to Dr Gi-Hyun Shin for this reference from the Chosen Daily.11 Mohamed (1999); see also Canberra Times, 26 September 1999; Ususan Express (1999); Utuson

Malaysia (1999).12 The Weekend Australian, 18–19 September 1999.

180

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:34

03

Nov

embe

r 20

14

What is Left of Engagement with Asia?

to be key players and that the Australian press has spoken on their role. To focus onIndonesians in this way incites Australian feeling at this delicate time in Australian–

Indonesian relations, but on top of this, there is another stream of comment in Australia thatis calling our refugee policy ‘racist’ and linking it with Hansonism (Peake 1999a,b; TheAustralian 1999c). This stream of comment, understandably enough, has the potential to fuelpassions on the Indonesian side.

The last item I will mention as a challenge for Australian/Asian relations involves one ofthe great European stereotypes of the Orient—the ‘Malay Pirate’. For centuries, the West hasheard about the so-called pirate-infested Indonesian Archipelago, and a recent newspaperarticle by Michael Richardson (1999), a perceptive and experienced analyst of Asian affairs,notes that piracy has in fact been increasing in the region. The piracy watchdog, theInternational Maritime Organisation, has calculated that about one half of the 180 actual orattempted pirate attacks in the world in the last 9 months took place in Indonesian waters.The photograph accompanying Richardson’s article shows a long-haired pirate. It is a portraitthat might be encountered in a nineteenth century European traveller’s account of thearchipelago, except for the modern pirate’s black T-shirt that carries the image of a whiteskull. In other words, a rise in Indonesian piracy offers a vast opportunity for vivid presscomment and, in turn, for insult and counter-insult between Australians and Indonesians.

East Asian regionalism

A future challenge may well arise with the economic recovery of the region. Of course, suchrecovery will offer economic opportunities to Australia, but it is also likely to present whatmight be termed an ideological challenge. Let us remember that many commentators inAustralia and other Western countries have thought that the crises might have a soberingeffect on the region. Some Western commentators speak of the triumph of liberal or‘Anglo-Saxon economics’ (see Beyond the Asian Crisis, 1999), but as the economies of theregion revive, there are other in� uential interpretations of the crash. Prime Minister Mahathiris only the most outspoken of the many critics of Western economic orthodoxy and theWestern role in the crisis.13 He is outspoken, and it is also true that his own economicmanagement—imposed in some respects in the face of strong International Monetary Fundcondemnation—has begun to win praise, even from the World Bank.

Mahathir, as is well known, has also been advocating throughout this decade thedevelopment of an East Asian Economic Caucus—an international organisation that wouldlink ASEAN with China, Japan and Korea, and would exclude such Western countries asAustralia. This East Asian Economic Caucus, which Mahathir has been urging with renewedvigour over recent months in China, Japan and elsewhere, is of course an alternative to theAsia–Paci� c Economic Cooperation (APEC)—an organisation which does incorporate Aus-tralia, the United States, New Zealand and Canada.

The East Asian Economic Caucus, which met at the end of November in Manila, wouldseem to be bad news for Australia, and it is just possible that the Asia Crisis will give itfurther stimulus. Mahathir has made precisely this point. He has argued that the regional� nancial turmoil has ‘amply proven the necessity for a consultative body where the EastAsian countries could gather to deliberate on matters of regional concern’. He said that itseemed ‘grossly unfair that while Europe can form the European Union and the UnitedStates, Canada and Mexico can form NAFTA’ (Alford 1999; The Australian 1999b:33 ) thecountries of East Asia are ‘not allowed to form such an association’.14

13 See again Beyond the Asian Crisis and the comments by Chalmers Johnson.14 For a report on the Manila meeting, see Richardson (1999b).

181

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:34

03

Nov

embe

r 20

14

ANTHONY MILNER

In Australia we sometimes see the ‘East Asia’ idea as a solely Mahathir exercise, butwhen one listens a little to other voices around the region—in Japan, for example—thereseems to be growing support for the idea. Consider, for example, the words of the JapaneseAmbassador to Korea in a recent article, entitled ‘Creating a New Asia’. The � nancial crisis,he says, ‘caused Asian countries to sense that their fates are intertwined’. It provided a ‘senseof regret and frustration’ over Asia’s lack of a mechanism for consultation and swift responseto the crisis. The author goes on to list other reasons for cultivating what he calls ‘a sharedconsciousness of Asia’, but there is no doubt about the role of the economic crisis as astimulus (Kazuo 1999:12–16).

In the November meeting in Manila, President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines, notusually seen as a country strongly supporting EAEC, displayed some strong support for the‘Asia’ idea. He spoke of ful� lling the dream of ‘an East Asian common market, one EastAsian currency and one East Asian community’.15

Reaf� rming the commitment to engagement with Asia

From Australia’s point of view, what does all this mean? In the aftermath of the Asia crisis,we should expect a revival of talk about ‘Asia’—perhaps not about Asian values but at leastabout Asian exceptionalism. The forces driving the last, early 1990s, phase of ‘Asian values’proclamations from the region were never taken seriously enough in Australia. We tended totrivialise these proclamations, dismissing them as being little more than a smoke screenbehind which Asian autocrats did nasty things to their citizens.

There was some truth in this view, but the ‘Asian values’ assertions, and the whole ideaof ‘Asia’, also have roots reaching back to the anti-colonial movements in the region. As oneSingapore intellectual put it, some of this Asian values rhetoric was an attempt to ‘reconnectwith the historical’ past of the region—a past that has been ‘ruptured both by colonial ruleand by the subsequent domination of the globe by a Western world view’ (Mahbubani1998:35).

Nothing further needs to be said here about these Asian ideologies. It is enough to saythat in post-crisis Asia we should not assume, as Governor Chris Patten has done in his bookEast and West (Patten 1998)—which has, regrettably, been widely read in Australia—thatWestern ideas of democracy and economic management will necessarily become universallyaccepted across the region. It is more likely that not only in Malaysia and Indonesia, but alsoin Thailand, Japan and other Asian countries, Australians will face a degree of culturalassertiveness, along with a renewed economic and perhaps military assertiveness.

Looking back over the list of challenges to the Australia engagement with Asia—Hanson,the Asia crisis, Timor, the refugees and so forth—I think two broad points need to be made.

First, we really do have troubled relations in the region—troubled relations that have nosingle cause and cannot be easily blamed upon any one party.

Secondly, one aspect of these troubled relations has involved the reinforcement oflongstanding stereotypes of Australia in the region.16 That is to say, in these last 2 years orso, we have found ourselves once again condemned as a white, European society, a societythat, far from being engaged with our region, looks across the seas to the United States andEngland—a society that in its defence and immigration concerns is wary and antagonistictowards its neighbours.

These stereotypes are quite unfair but they require a response. The fact is that for 50 years

15 Canberra Times, 29 October 1999.16 These longstanding stereotypes are the subject of current research by Alison Broinowski, 1999.

182

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:34

03

Nov

embe

r 20

14

What is Left of Engagement with Asia?

Australia has had a bipartisan commitment to a positive Australian engagement with Asia.The present Coalition Government has made a major contribution to this engagement indiplomacy, defence and other practical areas. In some ways its diplomacy in the region has,in fact, been superior to that of its Labor predecessor.

In its own 1997 Foreign Policy White Paper (Commonwealth of Australia 1997), theCoalition is quite explicit that the ‘Asia Paci� c is the region of highest foreign and tradepolicy priority’ and that Australia must seek to ‘maximise the economic and strategicopportunities offered by even closer engagement with the Asia Paci� c region’.

In the context of our present troubled relations in the Asian region—troubled relationsthat have been largely beyond the control of the government itself—there is an urgent needfor the government to reaf� rm its commitment to engagement with Asia. The need, it shouldbe explained, is a rhetorical one but, as the Prime Minister made clear in a radio interviewsome weeks ago, rhetoric is sometimes of critical importance.

A prime ministerial, widely publicised restatement of the government’s objectives withrespect to engagement with the Asia–Paci� c region would, quite properly, offer theopportunity for the government to identify its genuine achievements in the areas ofdiplomacy, security and trade in the region and, in addition, to list the values that Australianshold dear and wish to promote.

In urging a reaf� rmation of government Asia policy, one should not think merely of theinternational audience, although addressing that audience, especially in the Asian regionitself, is vital. There is also a need to address the domestic audience. Talk of Australia beingthe ‘strong man of Asia’ has been followed by a degree of aggressiveness in Australiancomment on the region and the growth of the unrealistic idea that Australia has the capacityto intervene not just in East Timor but in many troubled areas of Asia. There is anover-con� dent assumption also that Asian societies were chastened by the economicdownturn and have developed a new respect for Western economic and political systems.

One senses in the Australian community a decline in interest in and openness towards theAsian region. It is quite right, of course, that Australian foreign policy should begin to re� ectmore closely the dominant value system in this country and it is understandable that manyAustralians recoiled with a sense of outrage at the spectacle of Indonesian military behaviourin Timor. It is also bene� cial that we have become a more ‘con� dent Australia’.

Nevertheless, as we head towards the opening of the new millennium, we also need toremind our fellow Australians that this country continues to confront a great, historicchallenge. That is to say, we face the historic question of what relationship will Australia,with its liberal–democratic culture derived largely from Europe, be able to forge with theAsian region? Whether Australia succeeds or fails in accommodating itself to the immenserange of political cultures and social development in the region is an issue of international(and what some have called inter-civilisational) signi� cance.17

A country at odds with its region will be a defensive, anxious society, and one which islikely to be dependent on heavy defence expenditure. It will be a country, too, that will beunable to exploit fully its commercial and other potential.18 To engage positively in the Asianregion, on the other hand, means that we must go on acquiring and sustaining the necessaryexperience and expertise. Engaging with Asia continues to be a demanding intellectual andcultural task.

17 On this wider view, see a previous article by the author (Milner 1999:21–24).18 The point has also been made by Rupert Murdoch; see Sheridan (1999). For comments by Dibb, see

The Australian (1999a).

183

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:34

03

Nov

embe

r 20

14

ANTHONY MILNER

It is not, therefore, merely to counter scepticism in the region itself that the governmentshould show leadership right now regarding its commitment to the Asia–Paci� c. It is also tocounter a narrowing of cultural horizons on the part of the Australian community, that thegovernment should proclaim again that the Asia Paci� c continues to be Australia’s ‘highestforeign and trade policy priority’.

References

Alford, Peter, 1999. ‘Mahathir Does It His Way!’ The Australian, 22 October.Broinowski, Alison, unpublished. ‘A Pebble in Both Our Shoes: East Timor and the Media, 1999’.Canberra Times, 1998. ‘Fears of Asian Fall-out Reduced’, 26 September.Chong, Florence, 1999. ‘Recovery at a Record Rate’, Inside Asia, 15 November.Commonwealth of Australia, 1997. In the National Interest: Australia’s Foreign and Trade Policy (Canberra:

Commonwealth of Australia).Crouch, Harold, 1999. ‘Don’t Rush to Write Off Our Indonesian Links’, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 September.Devine, Frank, 1999. ‘Forget About Big-Noting in Asia’, The Australian, 23 September.Garran, Robert, 1999. ‘Howard’s Doctrine Back� ip’, The Australian, 28 September.Hirano, Chalinee, 1999. ‘Australia—Playing a Hero or, Paying Back? Thai Media Coverage on East Timor’.Kazuo, Ogura, 1999. ‘Creating a New Asia’, Japan Echo, June.MacIntyre, Andrew, 1999. ‘Asian Wariness Compromises Our Regional Role’, The Australian, 30 September.Mahbubani, Kishore, 1998. ‘Can Asians Think?’, The National Interest 52:35.McGregor, Richard, 1998. ‘Strong Man of Asia? You Better Believe It’, The Australian, 13 May.——1999a. ‘Howard Denies ‘Badgering’ Japan’, Weekend Australian, 20–21 March.——1999b. ‘Puzzled PM Trips Over His Feet’, The Australian, 16 July.Milner, Anthony, 1997. ‘The Rhetoric of Asia’, in J. Cotton and J. Ravenhill (eds), Seeking Asian Engagement

(Melbourne: Oxford University Press).—2000. ‘What happened to “Asian Values”?’ in G. Segal and David S. G. Goodman (eds) Towards Recovery in

Paci� c Asia (London and New York: Routledge), 59.——1999. ‘Why We Should Not Swagger in Asia’, Quadrant , September.Mohamed, Mahathir, 1999. ‘The West has Mishandled East Timor’, Mainichi Daily News, 11 October.O’Connor, Michael, 1999. ‘Let’s Knock Some Sense into Jakarta’, The Australian, 12 October.Patten, Chris, 1998. East and West (London: Macmillan).Peake, Ross, 1999a. ‘Detention Policy “Not Racist”’, Canberra Times, 20 November .——1999b. ‘Ugly Face of Hansonism Fuels Refugee Policy’, Canberra Times, 20 November .Richardson, Michael, 1999a. ‘Traders Applaud Attack on Pirates’, The Australian, 23 November.——1999b. ‘Region Lays Foundations for Economic Union’, The Australian, December.Sheridan, Greg, 1999. ‘Be a Hardnosed Nation: Murdoch’, The Australian, 9 November.Star, 1999a. ‘PM: ASEAN Leadership Preferred in Timor Force’, 15 September.—— 1999b. ‘Test of Australia’s Place in Asia’, 15 September.The Australian, 1997. ‘The Downsides of Being in Asia’, 24 October.—— 1998. ‘Business Con� dence Up Despite Asia’, 26–27 September.—— 1999a. ‘East Timor Exposes Folly of Defence on a Shoestring’, 13 October.—— 1999b. ‘World Bank Backs Mahathir’, 20 October.—— 1999c. ‘Immigration Minister Ruddock Predicts 4,000 Unauthorised Arrivals by the End of the Year’, 20–21

November.Ususan Express, 1999. ‘Protest Note on Howard Doctrine’, 27 September.Utuson Malaysia, 1999. ‘Malaysia Tidak iktiraf peranan Australia, “timbalan” de Asia’, 25 September.Walters, Patrick, 1999a. ‘PM’s Doctrine Gets Makeover’, The Australian, 28 September.——1999b. ‘Primed to Ignite’, Weekend Australian, 2–3 October.

184

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:34

03

Nov

embe

r 20

14