Australia's Asian Engagement   Address by The Hon Alexander Downer, MP, Minister for Foreign Affairs, to launch "Seeking Asian Engagement - Australia in World Affairs, 1991-1995", Canberra, 28 May 1997.

I am delighted to launch the eighth volume in the distinguished Australia in World Affairs series : Seeking Asian Engagement - Australia in World Affairs, 1991-1995.

In the first volume of the series, the editors - Gordon Greenwood and Norman Harper - said their aim was to produce a "better understanding both of the problems confronting Australia and of the policies and methods which have been pursued by Australian governments."

That objective has been met magnificently over the years, to the extent that the series has become a standard reference work for scholars, practitioners and the general public. The many qualities evident in the first seven volumes - uncommonly astute analysis, thorough coverage of the facts and consistently readable prose - are on display again in Seeking Asian Engagement which has managed to be even more comprehensive than its predecessors.

I congratulate the Australian Institute of International Affairs, the editors - James Cotton and John Ravenhill - as well as all those who contributed essays, and Oxford University Press. The Institute should be very proud of this publication.

Australia's Asian Engagement

One of the great virtues of the Australia in World Affairs series has been its illuminating documentation of the fundamental continuity in Australia's foreign policy since 1950, particularly in Australia's relations with Asia.

Australia's extensive engagement with the region first gained real momentum in the 1950s and 1960s. The Menzies Government and its successors had the courage to chart the course for Australia's growing regional presence as well as the prescience to recognise where Australia's national interests lay - my predecessor Richard Casey made clear that Australia's own special role lay in South East Asia and that consequently Australia's foreign policy would be largely but not exclusively concerned with the Asian region

In 1957, for example - the year the first Australia in World Affairs volume appeared - Australia and Japan signed a landmark Commerce Agreement which, at the time, attracted bitter opposition from many quarters including the Labor Party. Six years later, the controversy had all but disappeared, and the Commerce Agreement was renegotiated successfully, thus establishing the basis for the flourishing and vital partnership that Australia and Japan now enjoy.

Seeking Asian Engagement covers the final five years of the Hawke/Keating Government's foreign policies. This was a period when Cold War patterns - the "strategic rigidities" described in David Goldsworthy's overview chapter - yielded increasingly to a transformed regional environment under the extraordinary impact of globalisation, runaway economic growth, and momentous social change. The new challenges and opportunities created by these forces hammered home anew the message first laid out by Menzies, Spender and Casey that Australia's future prosperity and security were tied inextricably to Asia.

Engagement under the Current Government

This goal of engagement is one which has been pursued consistently by Australian Governments of both hues since the 1950's and one which the current Government is proud to continue.

The Coalition Government has made closer engagement with the region our highest foreign policy priority by seeking concrete practical outcomes at the bilateral level. At the same time, we have focused the key regional forums - APEC and the ASEAN Regional Forum - on tangible outcomes that deliver real benefits to Australians such as a stronger regional commitment to trade liberalisation and more effective regional security. The Government's approach to a range of humanitarian regional issues has also been characterised by the same focus on practical results. Key examples of these practical outcomes in dealing with the region include:

. the Australia - Indonesia Development Area which was inaugurated last month and which is the first such sub-regional agreement Indonesia has entered into with any country outside of ASEAN;

. the landmark Maritime Boundaries Agreement with Indonesia which was signed in March and which completed over a quarter of a century of negotiations;

. the negotiation of a revitalised trade agreement with Malaysia ;

. establishment of a security dialogue with China and agreement with China to a formal and regular bilateral human rights dialogue which I am proud to say after yesterday's announcement will commence in August this year;

. the inauguration of political-military talks with South Korea which built on similar talks recently commenced with Japan;

. agreement last month that the Australian and Japanese Prime Ministers will hold an annual summit on bilateral and regional issues; and

. strong and practical support for a regional secretariat for national human rights commissions and a region-wide approach to demining.

More than that, the Liberal/National Party Coalition - in opposition and in Government - has refused steadfastly to politicise, cheapen or demean Australia's Asian engagement.

We have not claimed - as our predecessors did - that Australia's Asia focus was solely the result of the commitment and policies of one side of politics, or that our political opponents lacked a genuine desire to improve Australia's links with the region when in government.

Instead, the Coalition Government has devoted its considerable energy and commitment to achieving outcomes which actually matter for Australia.

Let me add one more point.

It disturbs me as I read the editorials of some newspapers and browse through press releases that there is still a surprisingly large proportion of commentators who believe we should pursue a European-style foreign policy with Asia. We cannot do that and engage successfully with our region.

We have to develop our own unique way of expressing our views and values while arguing our case without causing deep offence in our own region thereby dimminishing our influence and isolating ourselves.

Rejecting a Fortress Australia

There are of course those, most notably Pauline Hanson, who would pursue an economically isolationist as well as culturally monotone fortress Australia. But a fortress Australia would be an insular, narrow minded, intolerant and protectionist Australia. These are ideas which in reality would cost Australia countless jobs. These views, if they ever became official policy, would leave us internally divided, economically downtrodden and morally bereft.

No Australian Government with a shred of responsibility and concern for the wellbeing of future generations of Australians would choose blithely to turn the nation away from the very region where our prosperity and security lies. Yet that is exactly what is offered by views which would leave Australia sitting alone in the corner like a petulant child at a party.

There is simply no place for a fortress Australia in the modern world.

These views also fly in the face of the positive direction which has characterised the movement of Australian society throughout this century.

They deny what the vast majority of Australians from all walks of life strive for every day of their lives - a better, more confident and prosperous future built securely on the achievements and widely-admired freedoms and liberties that Australians have cherished unreservedly throughout our hugely successful experiment in nationhood.

One of the great challenges of Australian public leadership is to explain to a rather sceptical and uncertain public this fundamental importance of engagement with Asia.

Some have believed that it was a definition of leadership to confront the public, to tell them we are Asian and if they doubt this then they are to be condemned. That, if I may say so, is not effective leadership. It is not the sort of leadership which is going to carry Australians comfortably to their destiny.

Australians have to be pursuaded that engagement with Asia doesn't mean abandoning our unique values and way of life; that it doesn't mean turning our backs on our historic links with other parts of the world.

It is a difficult task which demands the ability to explain to Australians that if we do not engage with Asia we will have no control over our security environment, we will never reduce our unemployment rate and our living standards will at best stagnate and at worst, fall.

Importantly, it also means we must engage with Asia with confidence, making the point that not only does Asia have a good deal to offer us but that we have much to contribute to Asia.

It is in Asia's interests to engage with Australia just as it is in our interests to do so with Asia. In other words, we must engage with Asia with a sense of self-confidence and pride not embarrassment and self-doubt. If we pursue that approach we are much more likely to carry the public with us - and that is true leadership.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I believe that everyone here today would agree with me that Australia's relations with Asia are a two-way street. Most assuredly, Australia is with Asia for the long term, just as every country in the region looks to Australia for a constructive contribution to our common regional destiny.

That is why Seeking Asian Engagement will provide its most enduring service to the nation by underlining the ever-increasing diversity of Australia's relations with Asia in the 1990s, and by emphasising how it is not just impossible and undesirable, but completely senseless for Australia to do anything other than to proceed forward arm in arm with the countries of the region.

In that genuinely bipartisan spirit, I have great pleasure in launching Seeking Asian Engagement - Australia in World Affairs, 1991-1995.