The post-Cold War period has seen important changes in the global organisation of human affairs, not least in Australia’s own Asia-Pacific region. However, d espite a profusion of economic transactions and significant cultural exchanges, the Asia-Pacific faces complex and difficult problems: civil conflicts, geopolitical tensions, economic uncertainties, proliferation of nuclear weapons, and flashpoints that may lead to war.
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| Australia’s future in the region and the world |
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There is no doubt that in an increasingly contracting world Australia’s future lies within a secure, prosperous, peaceful, stable and environmentally sustainable region. However, Australia’s historical and geographical exceptionalism has often coloured its political outlook on the world: a certain insularity characteristic of island nations, a profound sense of dependence on American power, a deeply entrenched incapacity to acknowledge the darker side of its recent history, a habitual Anglo-centric dominated perspective, all of which have severely impeded a coherent sense of national identity and prompted a marked ambivalence towards Asia. It is only within this context that we can make sense of Australia’s troubled relationship with Asia, and begin to identify the anxieties and insecurities that continue to shape Australia’s image of itself and its place in the world.
After a decade where Australia’s conception of the world was formulated through western, and in particular American, notions of cultural and political superiority, a new government that re-embraces multilateralism and reengages with the region, offers a unique opportunity to set a new and comprehensive agenda for change. In this context, the key question for Australia over the next decade is whether, as a significant regional power, it can contribute, individually and/or collectively, to a more effective system of regional and global security and cooperation? By linking with other allied states (South Korea, Canada, New Zealand, Japan) Australia could, in concert with ASEAN, play a creative role in advancing peacekeeping and peacebuilding mechanisms and processes in the region. Working together at the United Nations and at a regional level, Australia could help avert the looming arms race in East Asia. For this to occur Australia needs to rediscover and reinvent its middle power identity so as to enable it to address more effectively issues of poverty, governance failure and aid delivery – not least in the South Pacific where weak states are increasingly becoming failed states.
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