Essay On Engagement Between Australia And Asia

The article by Ann Capling exemplifies Australia’s policy and process of engagement with Asia in the past two decades. Through the use of newspaper article, government speech and scholarly works, Capling highlights the neoliberalism of two political parties and their approaches to improve Australia’s economic, social, security and political levels.

The Australians negative perception of East Asia became manifested when 30 thousand of Australians were imprisoned and tortured horrendously (pg. 604). The Australian government abridged the fear of the country by strengthening their defence system and gaining strong allies such as Britain and the United States, when news of “wartime invasion” of Japan reached Australia (pg.604). Australia’s perception

Capling provides examples using both historic and contemporary peer review literatures which endowed Australia’s fear during Cold War and Vietnam War. I found it interesting how Capling used variety of sources to compare and contrast Australia’s progression with Asia and how the primitive fear of Australia to Asia enabled them to be one of the amiable, closest economic partners. It was remarkable how neoliberalism was a theme playing in Australia and Asia’s engagement, where two different Australian politics had different approaches on developing Australia’s engagement with Asia, UK and USA. This was also interesting how both politics changed Australia’s and Asia’s engagement, for example as Capling stated that the Howards government’s bilateral relationship policy loosened Australia and Asia’s engagement whereas the Hawks government competed to maintain the engagement with Asia. However, Capling did not explicitly explain what and how policies were being created. Furthermore, the text also focuses on Australian attitudes towards Asia during the Cold War were Australia felt profoundly threatened by Japan’s invasion and the movement of communist approach in Australia. Additionally, it was also intriguing that in 1950’s-60’s Australia strengthened their alliances with UK and USA to maintain a great power: to aid Britain during Indonesian war with Malaysia and supporting USA during war in Vietnam. This remarkably transformed Australia’s perception on Asia and enabled them to get engaged politically, economically and militarily. The text consistently discusses the incorporation of Australia’s engagement with Asia and issues that conjoined them on neoliberalism. Capling however, did not explain explicitly what issues arose between Australia and