CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIA
11. Great and Powerful Friends
Chris Baker
From the Monash University National Centre for Australian Studies
course, developed with Open Learning Australia
In the eleventh week of the course, Chris Baker looks at Australia as an Asian country.
The British imperial nexus and its complexities: relations with the USA and Japan. The
consequences of the Great Pacific War 1941-1945. Are there such things as ‘friends’ in
international relations?
Chris Baker is a lecturer at the National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash
University, Melbourne, Australia.
11.1 The role of Britain and the US in Australia’s foreign policy
11.2 Australia as part of Asia
11.3 How independent is Australia?
11.4 Further reading
11.1 The role of Britain and the US in Australia’s foreign policy
With its tiny population and huge continental seaboard, Australia was long inclined to
depend for its defence on friendly 'great powers'. Up until the 1940s there was a
particular fear of invasion from a heavily populated Asia. Britain's wealth and associated
power in the world was seriously diminished in relation to the wealth and power of the
United States after the First World War. However, Australia's traditional ties with Britain
continued to encourage a heavy economic and defence dependence on the British.
By late 1941 the three empires of Japan and Britain and the United States were at war,
with the two English-speaking powers for the first time lined up together against a
formidable Asian and Pacific power. Previously, the United States had not been friendly
to British imperial interests in the Pacific, although American rivalries with Japan had
been more aggressive.
In the Pacific war, Japan looked to be in a winning position initially with the United
States naval base at Pearl Harbour demolished in a surprise Japanese bombing raid, and
the equivalent British imperial naval base at Singapore easily over-run by Japanese
troops. The fall of Singapore affected Australians more directly, because that symbol of
Britannia's naval might had been regarded as the key to national defence against alien
invaders, and thousands of young Australian soldiers fell into Japanese hands with its
loss.
Subsequent to the defeat of Japan in august 1945, Australia's post-war leaders hoped to
achieve a balance between their old British Commonwealth relationship and cultural
allegiance, and the influential but newer relationship with the American saviours of
Australia and conquerors of Japan. However neither British nor American
understandings of the region context matched Australian perspectives. Both those powers
© National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University, 2005. All rights reserved.
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were primarily oriented towards Europe, the North Atlantic and the Middle East, and old
American-British rivalries continued to break through the veneer of common interest.
However, Australia shared common Middle Eastern interests with both Britain and the
United States, as recently illustrated by Australian participation in the ‘coalition of the
willing’ during the 2003 war against Iraq.
11.2 Australia as part of Asia?
Historically Australians have viewed their relationship with Asia with a mixture of fear
and optimism. Fears of Asia emerged when Australians had first become conscious of a
potential threat from Imperial Japan in 1894, when a powerful Japanese military force
devastated Chinese armies. This striking Japanese military feat against a 'great empire' of
mainland Asia diminished older fears of military threats to Australia from China's huge
population, but raised the real possibility of a Western Pacific rim dominated by Japan.
Japan's skill in building a potent fleet and an efficient naval service made it a potential
threat to Australia's security, and encouraged Australian politicians to cling to Defence
Alliances that bonded Japan to the British Empire.
But this fear co-existed with respect for Japanese achievements and power, and a desire
to profit from trade with this rapidly developing Asian power. With the realisation that
Britain was a declining imperial power especially in the pacific region, Australia sought
to insulate itself from the risks that attended the British withdrawal east of Suez. The
SEATO and ANZUS pacts emerged to replace the waning British presence during the
1950s.
All Australian governments during the post war period sought to engage with Asia but
never divorcing Australia from the might of the United States. From the advent of the
Columbo plan in 1951 Australia emerged as a significant player in the post colonial
development of the region. Thousands of students from Asia were brought to Australian
universities under the auspices of the plan, thus laying the foundations for future
relations between Australia and the region (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation), often
based on personal and educational links.
11.3 How independent is Australia?
Currently, we certainly like to think of ourselves as an independent nation, formulating
our own domestic and foreign policies. But there is a very real question as to when
Australia actually became independent of Britain - if it ever really has. Unlike the United
States, Australia has no 'Independence Day' that can be clearly marked and recognised.
Unlike the United States, Australia still acknowledges allegiance to a British monarch,
but that is our last formal link to the British Empire within which the Australian
Commonwealth came into being.
Our inability to point to a specific date when Australia became independent creates very
real problems, especially for those who have to negotiate our foreign relationships. It is
not a purely 'academic' question, although constitutional lawyers have certainly argued
the issue in complex academic terms. Our historical links with the British Empire still
influence the understandings that other peoples and nations have of Australia and
Australians, and those understandings have very real repercussions on our international
© National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University, 2005. All rights reserved.
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relationships. Some Australians will argue that Australia has been independent since
Federation in 1901, but that argument assumes a very limited sort of national
'independence'.
The confusion over when Australia actually became independent has contributed to a
feeling that perhaps Australia is not even now really independent. Such feelings are more
likely to affect those Australians whose origins lie in non-British lands, but they can also
be found among those who most fondly value traditional links with British institutions.
There is a real problem for many Australians, in comprehending how we can claim
allegiance to a British Head of State in Queen Elizabeth II, while at the same time
claiming to be an independent nation free to make our own way in the world. Others,
who have long been accustomed to think of Australia as an independent nation
functioning within an international context of British Empire or Commonwealth, cannot
understand what 'the Republic fuss' is about.
Adapted from Out of Empire study guide copyright NCAS 1999
11.4 Further reading
Terrorism
Bali Bombings – Looking for Explanations
Australian Parliament, Library Current Issues E-Brief
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/intguide/FAD/bali.htm
Terrorist Attacks of September 11
Australian Parliament, Library Current Issues E-Brief
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/intguide/fad/usterror.htm
Regional Cooperation
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM)
http://www.chogm2002.net/
Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)
Commonwealth Government
http://www.dfat.gov.au/
‘In the National Interest’ Australia’s Foreign and Trade Policy White Paper
DFAT, Commonwealth Government
http://www.dfat.gov.au/ini
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
Commonwealth Government
http://www.dfat.gov.au/apec/
AUSTRADE, Australian Trade Commission
Commonwealth Government
http://www.austrade.gov.au
© National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University, 2005. All rights reserved.
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Treaties
Australian Treaties Library
Australasian Legal Information Institute
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/
Australian Treaty Making Information Kit
Australasian Legal Information Institute
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/reports/infokit.html
The Australian Treaties Database
Commonwealth Government
http://www.info.dfat.gov.au/TREATIES
Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade
Australian Parliament, Library Internet Guide
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/intguide/fad
Essays and commentary
Loyalties by Geoffrey Blainey
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Radio National Boyer Lectures
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/boyers/stories/s427620.htm
War Talk
ABC Radio National, Background Briefing
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s683111.htm
‘Australia in Asia: looking back, looking forward’ by Gareth Evans
ABC Radio National, Deakin Lectures
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/deakin
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