Developing Better Asian Capability Education in Australia

Australian article from the Conversation on ‘Supporting our Schools to Develop Asia Capable Kids’ to develop Asian capabilities not just on China, but neighbours in the Asian century. 

It’s the opposite of UK PM Sunak’s policy idea of mathematics till the end of secondary school, due to issues with maths literacy in society, amongst adults, who also need education.

However, on Asian capability, school is important along with general society, especially our influential middle aged elites in media, politics and the corporate world of ‘skip’ or Anglo-Irish heritage of the past decade, many seem to have shared antipathy towards the region?

An example is how many Australians have been to Bali, but neither understand that it’s part of Indonesia, nor the significance of the Indonesian economy now and in future i.e. it is expected to become the 7th largest economy in the world by 2030.

For Australia’s influential elite cohorts, many seem more interested in the ‘Anglosphere’ of UK and USA, than Australia’s role in our region?

‘SUPPORTING OUR SCHOOLS TO DEVELOP ASIA CAPABLE KIDS

Asia capable initiatives that only target adults and young adults leaves it far too late – it has to start in our schools

By Chris Higgins, University of Melbourne

As the world becomes progressively more connected and interconnected, it’s increasingly important for all people to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to engage with different cultures and countries.

This is particularly important for our young people who are growing into an increasingly complex and dynamic world.

More than ever, they need to possess the capabilities to navigate a fast-changing and diverse world and work together to overcome complex global challenges.

For Australia, the world’s largest island, physically located in the Asia-Pacific region, this is of paramount importance.

Our Indigenous peoples have more than 60,000 years continuous connection, histories and culture, and have been trading with international partners for many thousands of years.

These deep economic, social and cultural ties to other countries continue today.

We are one of the most multicultural countries in the world, with a diverse population made up of people from over 200 different countries with a long history of immigration, shaped by successive waves of migrants from different parts of the world.

Today, almost a third of Australia’s population was born overseas, and more than 400 different languages – including 167 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages – are spoken in Australian homes.

Our diversity is reflected in our cities, towns, communities and homes, where people from diverse cultural backgrounds live side-by-side, sharing traditions, customs, languages and experiences.

The Australian government has long recognised our multiculturalism, the benefits of social cohesion, respect for cultural diversity and our place in the Asia-Pacific region.

In 2012, the Australian Government released the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper, which outlined a vision for Australia to deepen its engagement with the Asian region and the advantages of the region’s growth and rising influence.

The White Paper called for a comprehensive approach to developing Asia capability across all sectors of Australian society, including government, business, education and the community.

It also highlighted the need to increase language skills and cultural awareness as well as knowledge of Asian markets and regulatory frameworks across the ‘whole-of-nation’.

Since the release of the White Paper, the Australian Government continued to support development of Asia capability in many areas including initiatives like the New Colombo Plan, which provides funding for Australian university students to study and undertake internships in the Asia-Pacific region.

But, all too often, initiatives like this focus on economic priorities and adults in tertiary education or the existing workforce.

Rarely do they support our young people who will become our adult learners and workforce of the future.

Despite recent references from the Australian government to strengthen ‘whole-of-nation’ Asia capability there has been almost no support for Asia capability in Australian schools since 2012.

Asia capable initiatives that only target adults and young adults leaves it far too late. There needs to be support for our young people to develop Asia capability.

Australian schools and classrooms reflect the very multicultural and diverse nature of our nation. Our students and teachers represent a broad diversity of cultures, languages, experiences and perspectives – which are becoming more diverse each year.

Students need the support to develop these essential skills.

Often economic explanations are cited as the main arguments for developing Asia capability

The Asia-Pacific region is one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic regions in the world, with significant economic, political and cultural influence.

Young people who develop Asia capability will be well-placed to take advantage of the opportunities to collaborate and prosper from shared regional growth and influence.

Another well-worn reason is that Asia capability is essential for promoting national security and diplomatic relations.

As Australia’s relationships in the region deepen, it’s important for our students to develop an understanding of the strategic and geopolitical dynamics of the region, as well as the cultural and linguistic skills necessary to engage with people and organisations.

However, these explanations miss the far more relevant and immediate benefits. Asia capability promotes cultural understanding and social cohesion. By developing an understanding of different cultures and languages, our young people can develop empathy and respect for different ways of life – building bridges between different communities and promoting social harmony.

It’s essential our students and teachers are supported to have the knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes to create cohesive, inclusive, diverse schools. In turn, they will become adults who have the capabilities to support cohesive communities, societies, nation and a shared, prosperous Asia-Pacific.

The means to deliver this already exist.

The Australian Curriculum recognises our diversity and includes several Cross-Curriculum Priorities and General Capabilities all educators and schools are expected to support for students.

The Cross-Curriculum Priority of Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia and the General Capability of Intercultural Understanding that all teachers are expected to support, regardless of subject areas taught, are crucial components of the Australian Curriculum.

But they are often perceived as add-ons, the responsibility of other discipline areas like languages. Many teachers don’t have the resources or time to embed them in their classrooms or don’t feel they have strong Asia capability.

Investing in supporting our Asia capability, by making teaching knowledge and resources available to the entire Australian school education workforce is crucial to achieving the intention of the Australian Curriculum and the Australian government’s priority of whole-of-nation Asia capability and strengthened ties with the region.

The Asia Education Foundation has released a Pre-Budget Submission to the Australian Government calling on the Commonwealth to support Asia capability in all schools.’

For more related articles and blogs on Adult Learning, Asian Century, Cross Cultural Communication, Media, Pedagogy, Soft Skills, Teaching in Australia and Younger Generations click through

Australia: Return to the Future of an Asian Century vs. the Anglosphere Colonial Past

Australia Return to the Anglosphere – Ignoring the Australian Eurasian Society and the Asian Century

Asian Century Starts 2020?

History of Globalisation and 21st Century

China PRC – Fertility Decline – Peak Population?

Media on China and Wuhan Virus – Critical Analysis or Political PR?

Neo Conservative Rasputins? Putin and Dugin – Trump and Bannon – Johnson, Brexit and Cummings

Recent events in Ukraine have increased scrutiny and highlighted influences upon President Putin in an autocratic regime, following on from the Czars with Orthodoxy, Nationalism and Rasputin, the Soviets could always claim Marx, Engels, Lenin, The Party et al., but for present day Russia, and Putin, Alexander Dugin is cited as a key influencer (who is manipulating whom?).

Further is there evidence of any relationship with the key influencers round Brexit UK or Trump’s America or Europe?

According to Dunlop (2004) via Stanford’s The Europe Center in ‘Aleksandr Dugin’s Foundations of Geopolitics’, claimed that Dugin, a ‘a neo-fascist ideologue’ with other intellectuals is ‘interested in mysticism, paganism, and fascism’, ‘conservative revolution’, National Bolshevik Party, his theories partly adopted by the military, Russia as Eurasian, and backed up with some hierarchical views: ‘“Russians should realize that they are Orthodox in the first place; [ethnic] Russians in the second place; and only in the third place, people”. 

Further Dugin on America, echoes of Capitol Hill: ‘”It is especially important,” Dugin adds, “to introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements– extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics“.

Martin Lee’s excellent (1997) ‘The Beast Reawakens: Fascism’s Resurgence from Hitler’s Spymasters to Today’s Neo-Nazi Groups & Right-wing Extremists‘ was prescient in highlighting movement of far right ideology post WWII including former Soviet Union, cited Dugin and also that a Putin like figure would emerge to take advantage of new expanded Presidential powers (plus e.g. funding far right in both Europe and US).

The Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin highlighted by Teitelbaum in New Statesman (8 Oct ’20) ‘The rise of the traditionalists: how a mystical doctrine is reshaping the right Steve Bannon, Russia’s Alexander Dugin and Brazil’s Olavo de Carvalho are united by their affinity with a spiritual movement that fundamentally rejects modernity…

…Repudiating the Enlightenment, traditionalists instead celebrate what they regard as timeless values. They honour precedence rather than progress, emphasise the spiritual over the material, and advocate surrender to the fundamental disparities – as opposed to equality – between humans and human destinies‘

In addition to Putin’s ‘project’, related is the UK oligarchs and (not limited to) Tory scandals, the US fossil fueled nativist libertarian ‘project’ which is being challenged; especially with the benefit of hindsight and scrutiny of Brexit and Trump.

Central in these nativist and/or conservative libertarian ‘projects’ were European and Anglo seers, with the former including far right politicians in Europe, funded by Putin including Le Pen or strongly influenced e.g. Hungary’s PM Orban.

However, in the Anglosphere of UK, US and Australia, eccentric figures have been promoted by the right also, often in the late John Tanton’s nativist Tanton Network, who had been an ideological muse of Steve Bannon, while in the UK central round Brexit and subsequent PM Johnson, was Dominic Cummings. 

While Bannon can be easily linked to the influence of Dugin in his ramblings masquerading as analysis and philosophy as New Statesman has done, Cummings can too,  This is reflected in his Russian connections, his writings and Brexit campaign; Gordon of the North East Bylines UK has stated as much in (3 August 2020)  ‘Cummings, Brexit and Russia: Part 1‘ highlighting Cumming’s attitude towards immigration and the EU, in attempts by Cummings to justify his antipathy.

Finally China and Russia, and although there is an agreement for cooperation on the old ‘Silk Road’ or the Belt & Road Initiative with China, one assumes the Chinese security services and academia have studied Dugun closely; if not they should, why?

Not only did he state that Ukraine needed to be part of Russia, and assumed unity in the Orthdox Church in regional states (absolutely untrue as ‘2021 schism between Greek and Russian Churches showed) he stated:

‘China, which represents a danger to Russia, “must, to the maximum degree possible, be dismantled”. Dugin suggests that Russia start by taking Tibet–Xinjiang–Inner Mongolia–Manchuria as a security belt.  Russia should offer China help “in a southern direction – Indochina (except Vietnam), the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia” as geopolitical compensation.’ (Johnson, 2004).

What do President Xi and The Party think of that?

For more related blogs and articles click through below: 

Russian Dark Money – Influencing British Politics, the Conservative Party, the GOP and European Right

The Beast Reawakens 1997 – Review – Radical Right Populism in Europe and the Anglosphere

Anglosphere Libertarianism in US, Australia and UK Tories with Dominic Cummings

Anglosphere Legacy Media: White Nativist and Libertarian Propaganda for Ageing Conservative Voters – Australia, Brexit & Trump

Ecosystem of Libertarian Think Tanks and White Nativism in the Anglosphere

Anglosphere Legacy Media: White Nativist and Libertarian Propaganda for Ageing Conservative Voters – Australia, Brexit & Trump

Good article posted following from John Menadue of Pears & Irritations on White Man’s Media: Legacy media in the US and UK frames and conditions our thinking and actions the first of three articles.

One is shocked at the social narratives and sub-optimal communication in Australia, possibly due to media influence, exemplified by slogans, 20 second sound bites and closed questions round Anglo conservative ‘values’, identity or immigration (avoiding environment), property or FIRE (finance, insurance and real estate), sport, trivia/entertainment, culture and libertarian cost of living or need to avoid taxes;  Australian legacy media no longer informs but manipulates how voters think, or not which includes avoidance of serious issues e.g. environment.

Menadue highlights how legacy media in the Anglosphere of US, UK and Australia is being used to promote and reinforce nativist and conservative libertarian policies, against Australia’s interests, while our media and politics of the centre through right lacks diversity i.e. ‘skip’, still predominantly Anglo-Irish with some European heritage. 

Australia’s legacy media landscape is also being scrutinised for monopoly behaviour, proximity to the LNP, IPA etc., dog whistling, opaque regulatory benefits, promoting the ‘great replacement’; and authoritarians’ preferred tactic of SLAPPs or shutting down tricky narratives with defamation suits.

While we have closer and more lucrative trading relationships with the Asia-Pacific region, and also significant with the EU, many Australians using legacy media have significant antipathy towards both Europe and/or EU and Asia (except for trip), while deferring to the ‘Anglosphere’ or old white Australia attitudes.  

The Asian region now accounts for most immigration, temporary churn over, international education, tourism etc. and with ongoing post WWII European immigration, ‘Eurasian’, but viewed as an environmental hygiene issue through the prism of unexplained ‘population growth’ (imported via white nationalist Tanton Networks). 

This part of electoral or political focus groups, promoting (negative) policy, polling, campaigning and media PR favouring the nativist conservative libertarian LNP coalition is being helped by ageing citizens, regions, less education, less diverse and ‘white’ in the now dominant upper median age voter cohort.

The concern or question is, same for the GOP in the US and UK Tories, how do you win and maintain power with more diverse and empowered citizens emerging, versus declining demographics of the LNP’s key target cohort but expressing Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Irish values and identity?

From Pearls & Irritations:

‘White Man’s Media: Legacy media in the US and UK frames and conditions our thinking and actions

By John Menadue     Jan 11, 2022

The US Department of Defence maintains, in its own words ‘full spectrum dominance’ throughout the world.  Legacy media in the US and the UK has the same dominance. It frames and  influences how we think and particularly how governments act.

US legacy media – CNN, Washington Post, New York Times, Fox News  and Western news agencies- in association with drivers of US power and privilege, the military, business, think-tanks and security agencies  exert dangerous and destructive influence that has contributed to the killing of millions of people.  Add to that the way legacy media has helped excuse the way in which the US has attempted and often successfully, to overthrow numerous governments around the world.  The ‘indispensable state’ regards it as quite natural that US hegemony should be enforced everywhere.

Just as the British East India Company effectively ran Britain and its empire, so the US military and business complex, along with its elite supporters particularly in the media supports Western hegemony.  No US president, and certainly no Australian prime minister or Leader of the Opposition is prepared to challenge the US Imperium.

Australian media tugs the forelock to the Imperium. A person from Mars who reads and listens to Australian media would conclude that we are an island parked off New York or London.

Our media is dominated by the domestic events and issues of interest to UK and US readers – the latest antics of the British royal family, Donald Trump, the Governor of New York or vaccination rates in Alabama.

Much worse the ‘world view’ we get in Australia is a view of the world as seen from London, New York and Washington.

Most of the news we get in Australia about China, Indonesia, India and Vietnam is via Western news agencies. These media snapshots  are usually about the exotic and dangerous- a coup here, a flood there. Not surprisingly we remain ignorant and fearful of Asia.

Our ‘colonial’ media structure was laid down long ago.  It remains today.

We talk glibly about our future in Asia, but we are stuck in a US and UK media cul de sac.

With the active encouragement of our media, we have been drawn into countless US military disasters not just for the US but overwhelmingly for the people that are attacked.  On top of that, we had the war on terror.  Now we have the vilification of China, perhaps even a war.

It is not that Chinese behaviour and its human rights record has worsened. What has changed and what is feared is the growing power and influence of China. It is successful. That is seen as a threat to US full-spectrum dominance.  That fear of China is reflected in our legacy media in the US and the UK spewing out an endless daily campaign of anti-China stories. And other media follow.

Led by the US, our media showed no interest in ‘democracy’ in Hong Kong throughout over a century of British rule.  But now that Hong Kong is properly recognised as part of China, the US government, supported by its media, suddenly became concerned about democracy and independence for Hong Kong. They encouraged the 2019 insurrection.

The US has rained death, destruction and displacement on tens of millions of Muslims in the Middle East over the past 20 years.  Now the US media shows a remarkable and belated concern about the persecution of Muslims in China. The US record, like Australia’s treatment of Indigenous people, is a blemish for all time. But who seems to care? Certainly not our own media, who waste no opportunity to attack China. We cherry-pick human rights abuses that suit our agenda.

The association of legacy media with the powerful is everywhere. As  Alex Lo wrote in August ‘It has long been known that the Department of Defense in the US and other governments such as the CIA, not only support film and cable production in Hollywood but also actively intervene and manipulate their content.’

And in June, Lo described how a long list of former US security chiefs e.g. John Brennan and James Clapper, joined US media — NBC, MSNBC and CNN.

Australian security heads have been leading the demonisation of China with help from the Five Eyes.  But we get a double whammy when our derivative media draws heavily on US legacy media that in turn is heavily influenced by former US security chiefs with their ‘expert opinions’.

But Australian media does not have a problem just being dominated by legacy US and UK media.  We have a particular problem. Its name is Rupert Murdoch, an American citizen who owns two-thirds of Australia’s metropolitan dailies and more.

News Corp was a key supporter of the Iraq War — the Murdoch War. Of the 173 Murdoch papers worldwide only one, The Hobart Mercury opposed the war. Murdoch told us in 2003:

‘I think Bush acted very morally, very correctly. US troops will soon be welcomed as liberators’. His foreign editor on The Australian, Greg Sheridan, could not contain himself. ‘The bold eagle of American power is aloft, high above the humble earth. For as it soars and sweeps it sees victory, power and opportunity’. He is still in his job. Murdoch prefers loyalty to competence in all those around him, including his family.

Even some of the legacy media apologised for their support of the illegal war in Iraq. But never Murdoch nor for that matter John Howard.

News Corp in Australia for over a decade has also led the campaign of denial on climate change.

The US military/business/security complex exercises destructive and pervasive power.  Legacy media supplies a favourable frame for that complex.

Our derivative media ties us to the white legacy media of the North Atlantic. It frames our view of the world.

This is the first article in a series on White Man’s Media which we will be running over the next 2 to 3 weeks. Articles in the series can be found here.’

For more related blogs and articles on the Anglosphere and media click through:

Anglosphere – Radical Right Libertarian Socioeconomics and Authoritarianism

Eco-System of Libertarian Think Tanks and White Nativism in the Anglosphere 

Dumbing Down and Gaming of Anglosphere Media, Science, Society and Democracy

Anglosphere Triangle – Immigration – Environment – Population Growth – Radical Right Libertarians

Nationalist Conservative Political Parties in the Anglosphere – Radical Right Libertarian Ideology and Populism for Votes

Anglosphere Libertarianism in US, Australia and UK Tories with Dominic Cummings

Why are Vaccinated GOP Republicans and Fox Media Killing their Constituents through Covid Denial?

Australia Return to the Anglosphere – Ignoring the Australian Eurasian Society and the Asian Century

Article following from Carol Johnson in Inside Story regarding Australia ‘An intersection society no more?’ being lured or drawn back into some Anglosphere fantasy due to not just Anglo Celtic or ‘skip’ culture but how it’s been allowed to dominate in a diverse society through monocultural elites? 

“Australia turns its back on the twenty-first century, the century of Asia, for the jaded and faded Anglosphere.” (Paul Keating).

It is manifested in narratives, headlines and sound bites in media, society, business and community, while the stories and achievements of ‘immigrants’ and ‘non-skips’ have disappeared from public narratives, and urban centres are criticised for being overcrowded or ‘immigrant hell’?

This is neither organic nor coincidental, but an intentional strategy in cooperation with the media to create a ‘conservative’ voter block for the LNP and right wing fringe parties, especially in regions, why?  

For now, older population cohorts are white Anglo Irish heritage, ageing and inclined to vote conservative, more nominally ‘Christian’, less educated, declining (electoral roll populations) with youth departing regions, hence dog whistling of divisive proxy issues to spook the oldies (though most are at least partly dependent upon ‘Asian’ immigrant health medical care). 

This white nativist tactic of dog whistling focuses upon immigration, refugees, NOM net overseas migration and population growth, without credible evidence or research, supposedly causing e.g. unemployment, high property prices, load on infrastructure aka ‘carrying capacity’ etc. then blamed for wrecking the environment allowing fossil fuels to avoid scrutiny and potential constraints.  

However, it also hints at radical right libertarian socioeconomic influence by also dog whistling and white anting Labor governments, unions, universities, public service, science, education, minorities or ‘other’, women and future generations to avoid constraints of democracy, sensible regulation, informed and educated voters, plus taxes and government.

The former nativist tactics have been imported from the US via John Tanton Network linking through to and informing Sustainable Population Australia, ‘Australia’s best demographer’, media, unions, non science academics/researchers, Parliamentary committees, MPs and Ministers; ditto UK too.  

The deceased John Tanton was an admirer of the white Australia policy, described by NYT as ‘the most influential unknown man in America’, then by SPLC as ‘the racist founder and architect of the modern anti-immigration movement’, muse of Steve Bannon, groups informed the Trump White (and still inform media) had visited Australia and also described in the US as anti-semitic, anti-Catholic and proponent of ‘passive eugenics’.

This is related to Koch Network which has a strategy of implementing unpalatable socioeconomic policies, by the tactic of masking the same with Tanton’s nativism, cultural or faux environmental issue; aka Brexit. This is like Sustainable Population Australia viewing post 1970’s immigrants as an ‘environmental hygiene’ issue round population growth, to then avoid constraints on fossil fuels, auto and related industry.

Koch Network presence in Australia, via their global Atlas Network, is AIP the Australian Institute of Progress in Queensland, Taxpayers’ Alliance in Sydney, along with CIS Centre for Independent Studies and the infamous IPA Institute for Public Affairs in Melbourne who access media very easily to promote themselves with little if any scrutiny.

One assumes that underlying Howard’s tactics of spruiking the US led Anglosphere was not to simply differentiate himself from Keating and the ‘Asian Century’ but because he personally believed in it.  However, like others Australians involved with and promoting Brexit and/or Trump i.e. Abbott, Downer, NewsCorp/Murdoch, Crosby Textor, IEA (Koch think tank with then an Australian head) et al., Howard seems to look up to the UK and USA at the expense of other nations and Australia’s relationships with the Asian region especially and again masking their obsession over ‘western civilisation’.

However, demography will get them in the end as significant demographic change happens due to passing of the pre WWII oldies, then the post WWII baby boomer bubble followed by lower fertility but much diversity; Australian is not Anglo-Celtic but Eurasian.

From Inside Story:

An intersection society no more?

Australia’s retreat to the Anglosphere has implications beyond defence and trade

CAROL JOHNSON 4 OCTOBER 2021 

Not so long ago, many Australians hoped that Australia would be an intersection society linking East and West — an East not defined by China and a West not defined by the United States, although Australia hoped to play a role in reducing tensions between the two. We were to be an independent middle power, forging our own way in our region and the world, retaining old friends while strengthening relations with other powers in the region, including France, and with our Southeast Asian neighbours.

It was not to be. The creation of the AUKUS alliance shows we have been lured back into our old Anglosphere fold, prioritising relations with Britain and the United States.

Electoral considerations undoubtedly played a role. Having failed to protect us from Covid-19, Morrison is now banking on pledging to protect us from China. The Coalition has a long tradition of using fear of China to try to wedge Labor. Indeed, the 2019 election campaign showed signs that it was gearing up for an assault on Labor as too soft on China. As a result, the opposition has been treading very carefully in response to AUKUS, acknowledging legitimate fears about China while questioning aspects of the government’s approach.

The military and trade implications of the AUKUS alliance have been widely canvassed. Australians are rightly concerned about an increasingly authoritarian, assertive and aggressive China. But after the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Vietnam decades earlier, many Australians are also cautious about being too closely aligned with American military strategy. Polling suggests that most Australians want our country’s complex relationship with China to be managed carefully.

The trade implications don’t stop with our worsening relationship with China. They also involve France. Under the Turnbull government, France was to be not just a key defence ally but also a key friend in facilitating relations with the European Union now that a post-Brexit Britain could no longer play that role for us.

Nor should we forget the cultural and intellectual implications of this shift. Australia’s projected role as an intersection society involved a different conception of our national identity. The hope was that we could forge a more independent, multicultural and cosmopolitan identity while still valuing our links with Britain and the United States. It was a vision that seemed to be developing an element of bipartisan support, at least during Malcolm Turnbull’s moderate Liberal prime ministership.

But Scott Morrison (ably assisted by Peter Dutton) is increasingly sounding like John Howard–lite when it comes to issues of cultural and national identity. Howard repeatedly emphasised Australia’s Anglo-Celtic identity and its closeness to Britain and the United States, thereby distancing the Coalition from Labor’s more cosmopolitan and multicultural view under Paul Keating.

It’s true that the government’s defence policy has also embraced the Quad of India, Japan, Australia and the United States. But Morrison’s comments regarding India often depict it as an extension of the Anglosphere with common values, including a commitment to democracy and religious freedom. It’s a view that seems particularly inappropriate given prime minister Narendra Modi’s increasingly authoritarian, Hindu-nationalist India, and has echoes of John Howard’s somewhat banal highlighting of the two countries’ shared love of cricket and experience of British influence. Kevin Rudd, by contrast, had a much more nuanced understanding of India’s postcolonial history.

A shift towards the Anglosphere also has implications for our cultural institutions and academia, and not just because of the increasing scrutiny of university research on security grounds. Many academics hoped that Australia could become an intellectual intersection society — that our universities would draw on all that is best of the knowledge produced in European and North American universities and all that is best from the great universities of Asia. We argued that this would position us well in the changing geopolitics of knowledge that characterised the Asian Century and would position us differently from the European and North American universities with which we compete for international students.

Such a vision would have built on and transformed the initiatives of past governments, Labor as well as Coalition. After all, it was a Liberal foreign minister, Julie Bishop, who oversaw the development of the brilliant New Colombo Plan, whereby Australian students would be encouraged to study in Asia. Such intellectual exchanges seem far from the Morrison government’s priorities. Indeed, the Coalition has been accused of carrying out a culture war against universities, starving them of funding at a time when the pandemic’s impact on international student enrolments is wreaking havoc on their budgets.

For all these reasons, AUKUS signals more than a defence decision about submarines and sharing other technology. It also potentially signals a cultural shift that has major implications for Australia and its role in the world. We have to hope that Paul Keating is wrong when he claims that AUKUS marks the moment when “Australia turns its back on the twenty-first century, the century of Asia, for the jaded and faded Anglosphere.” Because that would not be a good move at all. 

Related articles and blogs on Australian society follow:

Anglosphere – Radical Right Libertarian Socioeconomics and Authoritarianism

Economic Research – No Negative Relationship with Immigration and Wages, Income or Employment

Population, Environment and White Nationalists in Australia – US Links

Eco-System of Libertarian Think Tanks and White Nativism in the Anglosphere

Collective Narcissism, Ageing Electorates, Pensioner Populism, White Nativism and Autocracy

Australian Brexit?

Nationalist Conservative Political Parties in the Anglosphere – Radical Right Libertarian Ideology and Populism for Votes