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Stakeholder Perspectives

Lesley Alway has arts management experience across a range of Australian institutions, including Director of Arts Victoria, Artbank, Heide Museum of Art, and CEO of Sotheby’s Australia, as well as Chair of the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council. Her specialist area is visual arts, but she has a wider knowledge across the arts.			Arts Lesley Alway Director, Asialink Arts The terms of reference include opportunities for deepening our engagement with Asia through culture. This is timely as Asia itself is investing heavily in cultural infrastructure and cultural diplomacy. Likewise, Australia's geographic proximity can no longer be taken for granted, as Europe, the UK and the USA are increasingly active in building cultural relationships in the region. The timing of the White Paper may coincide with the proposed new National Cultural Policy scheduled for 2012 and this should be a major opportunity to position and resource cultural engagement with Asia as a major priority, similar to other sectors. The real challenge for us is to ensure that any initiatives are focused on 'real' engagement with individuals and institutions through collaboration and reciprocity as well as developing new markets for Australian creativity and innovation.

Tyler Harlan is an expert in private sector development in far western China and holds an Mphil in Development Studies. Having previously worked for the Victorian State Government on urban renewal planning and community development policy in Melbourne, His diverse background enables him to provide unique insights into Australia’s relationship with China.			China Tyler Harlan Coordinator, Asialink Applied Research & Analysis It was no surprise that China was front and centre in the Prime Minister’s foreign policy address. As Australia’s largest trading partner and the world’s fastest growing economy, China’s transformation has profound implications for Australia, the region and the global order. The PM argued that China’s rise is fundamentally in Australia’s economic interest, as urbanization and the new middle classes drive demand for Australian resources and services. To take advantage of this opportunity, she said Australia needs to modernize its economy and train its workforce to compete in the Asian Century. The Prime Minister’s remarks demonstrate that the Government is taking Australia’s economic relationship with China seriously and thinking beyond mineral exports. She also alluded to the strategic challenges for Australia inherent in China’s rise, particularly our alliance with the United States. What was less clear in her speech was how a more powerful China will impact on our relationships with other countries in the region. While she mentioned the importance of effective regionalism, there is a need for further work on how Australia can effectively position itself within a rising Asia dominated by China. Further thinking needs to be done on how Australia can forge deeper links with China and the region beyond mere economic ties, particularly in education, the arts and regional humanitarian challenges. All this will of course require major Government investment in the economy and skills development. In addition to economic modernization, it is essential that the paper addresses how the Government will promote ‘Asia literacy’ within the Australian community through education and workplace training. The Government has taken a positive step through the announcement of the white paper, one that will help Australia to stand strongly alongside a rising China. The Australia in the Asian Century White Paper is a fantastic development that will provide much needed clarity around Australia’s long term Asia strategy.

Kee Wong is a member of the Australian Institute of Management and Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. As Managing Director of e-Centric Innovations, he heads a leading Australian e-business solution broker that combines expertise in business and technology to deliver high-level and innovative commercial solutions to select industry sectors. Kee recently joined the Boards of Asialink and the Asia Society AustralAsia Centre.			Business Kee Wong Managing Director, e-Centric Innovations The Prime Minister painted a picture of the speed, scale and significance of the growth of many Asian nations over the last 20 – 25 years. She asserted that the most significant development in the last 20 years has been the rise of both India and China. The PM expressed these in terms of the growth of their economies – tripling their share of the global economy – from less than a tenth to almost a fifth in just two decades and over the next two decades expected to grow to a third. The PM said that the incredible growth in our region will drive economic and strategic change in our world. The shift of growth and influence from West to East will impact the social, economic, strategic and environmental order of our world. The PM mentioned in her speech that by 2025 it is conceivable that the emerging and developing nations could well be net foreign investors, while developed countries become net foreign borrowers. She also alluded to the creation of a new middle class in the Asian Century that will create opportunities for businesses in Australia as consumers in Asia demand higher quality and innovative products, which Australia should be capable of providing. In reference to the new strategic environment, she said “Australia hasn’t been here before”, referring to the notion of the existence of “a New China”, “a New India”, “a New Indonesia”, while the existing might of the US and Japan cannot be denied or ignored. What was missing from the Prime Minister’s speech was the importance of developing a deep understanding of Asian cultures and nurturing and fostering relationships over a long period of time. Leveraging the “alumni” of social, business, personal and corporate relationships that have evolved through Australian education and assistance programs provided over many decades, could do this. The fostering of long-term relationships is something very much at the centre of the agenda for Asialink and the Asia Society.

Sally Percival Wood works with Professor Tony Milner on Asialink’s regional Track II diplomacy initiatives: the annual Asialink Conversations, the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Dialogue, and the Asialink Commissions. This complements her doctoral work on the Asian-African Conference at Bandung, Indonesia (1955), which focused on East-West relations during the Cold War. Sally has published on India’s non-aligned foreign policy, Australia’s diplomatic relations with India and with the Middle East, and on Western literary perceptions of China.			India Dr Sally Percival-Wood Manager, Asialink Applied Research & Analysis Today the Prime Minister outlined the government’s priorities in setting a policy course for Australia’s engagement with Asia in the ‘Asian Century’. She said the rapid economic rise of China and India is ‘defining our new century on entirely new terms’. The Prime Minister asserted that the rapidity of change appears more dramatic than Britain’s Industrial Revolution: consider that between 1830 and 1900, Britain’s economy grew fourfold – in the last 25 years, China’s has grown twentyfold. Every eight years, China’s economy doubles in size – and India’s doubles every 11 years. The Prime Minister pointed out that India is ‘set to surpass’ the US economy in purchasing power terms by mid-century. India’s economic growth is a phenomenon of itself, but in terms of trade with Australia, in the decade 2000 to 2009 our two-way trade averaged an extraordinary 24.6 percent per annum. Although the Prime Minister’s speech focused on the significance to Australia of the China-India economic boom, India seems inevitably overshadowed by China in Australian policy thinking. Much emphasis is placed on current economic trends and a forecasted boon that China’s rising middle class will continue to deliver to Australia. Australia-India trade has been transformed over the past decade, but an equally compelling case for making India more central to Australia’s long term strategic planning is the like-minded nature and shared interests of our two countries. With a ‘substantial rebalancing of global power’ now underway – and a new emphasis on the ‘Indo-Pacific’, rather than the ‘Asia-Pacific’ – Australia can work much more closely with India. Our shared membership of the G20, APEC and the East Asia Summit provides opportunities to work multilaterally, but deepening bilateral ties with India must also remain at the forefront of Australia’s Asia policy on both economic and strategic terms.

A foundation member of the Asia Education Foundation (AEF) since 1993, Kathe Kirby has held the positions of AEF Executive Director, National Manager and Partnerships Manager. A background in education as a teacher, university lecturer and senior policy officer in the Victorian Department of Education led to her key interest in implementing educational change and innovation in areas of national interest.			Education Kathe Kirby Executive Director, Asia Education Foundation The Asian century sets a challenge of a scale our nation has not seen the likes of before, heralding a new era where “business as usual is not enough”, said Prime Minister Julia Gillard in her speech. The announcement of a White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century could not be more timely. Just at the time we would expect to be building young people’s skills to equip them for the challenges and opportunities of the Asian century, our nation is currently going backwards in terms of the number of students studying Asian languages and cultures. We have one generation left to get this right. Five-year-olds starting school in Australia today will enter the workforce just at the time that China and India resume their positions as the world’s top economic powers. Our young people require a skill set to harness new economic opportunities and a mindset to ensure social inclusion. The Prime Minister is right that Australia has, as she called it, “the advantage of adjacency”. However, to truly leverage this advantage, our nation, and our young people, require the capabilities to do so. It is therefore encouraging that the Prime Minister explicitly mentioned the education sector as part of the whole that will “be touched by the great changes to come.” The White Paper will provide a vital opportunity to gain a crystal-clear picture of the current state of Asia literacy in our schools. As the Prime Minister noted, “this is a vast landscape of change”. The White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century is good news for the long-term future prosperity and security of our nation. But time is running out to ensure our young people receive the education they require to thrive in an Australia in the Asian century.

Joel Backwell is a Senior Policy Advisor with the Department of Premier and Cabinet, in the Resources and Infrastructure Team. Before coming to the Department, Joel worked for five years as a solicitor with Freehills, working in Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines, specialising in public-private infrastructure, energy, resources and project finance. Joel speaks Indonesian, and has also represented two members of the 'Bali 9' currently facing the death penalty in Indonesia.			Indonesia Joel Backwell Asialink Leaders Program 2011 While the Prime Minister focussed mainly on the two Asian powerhouses of China and India, on a number of occasions she singled out Indonesia from other ASEAN nations as a third country to watch. As the PM pointed out, Indonesia’s economy is doubling in size every fifteen years and the opportunities provided by its growing middle class and its proximity to Australia epitomise what The Economist has referred to as our country’s “advantage of adjacency.” Despite this country of 240 million people sitting right on our doorstep, Indonesia often goes unnoticed in forums like these, with China usually taking centre stage. Therefore it was heartening to hear the PM’s positive reminder that this “remarkable and too little remarked-upon country, which has the world’s largest Islamic population living in the world’s third largest democracy, continues to disprove the millions of words spent arguing that Islam and democracy are incompatible”. In another important insight, the Prime Minister emphasised the link between Asian growth and the diversification of Australia’s engagement with Asia beyond the export of our mineral resources. As the PM rightly stated, it is the new middle class of countries like Indonesia that will look to Australia for tertiary education, tourism, sophisticated financial advice and medical services, providing significant opportunities for a State like Victoria, which excels in each of these areas. It is time that Australia re-examines its place in the world and the White Paper announced by the Prime Minister should provide some guidance for long-term policy development. I would like to see Indonesia be given the attention it deserves and hopefully the work done by Ken Henry goes beyond economic and trade considerations to also include education and cultural exchange. As Victoria’s Premier Ted Baillieu recently remarked, when it comes to preparing for the opportunities in front of us, we have really dropped the ball. We need to equip our people with the high-level Asian literacy, intercultural competence and language skills that they will need to thrive in the coming Asian Century. Hopefully the White Paper can suggest some concrete initiatives to help us get there.

Lucinda Hartley is a Landscape Architect and Urban Designer with local and international development experience across Australia, Asia and Pacific including positions with UN, AusAID and Habitat for Humanity. She is the founder of [co]design (Community Oriented Design) studio, a non-profit design studio that provides emerging designers with a platform to engage with community development projects.			Development Lucinda Hartley Director, [co]Design studio The Prime Minister noted the impact of the changing economic climate in the Asian region since the post-second world war period, citing particularly the rise of China and India over the past 20 years as game-changing economic powers. One particular implication of this sustained growth, could lead to the emerging and developing world being net foreign investors, while developed countries become net foreign borrowers, as early as 2025. The Prime Minister noted the relationship between sustained economic growth and human development with “millions of people leaving absolute poverty absolutely behind” in the wake of large and rapidly growing middle classes, particularly in China. The PM noted that increased cooperation between Asian neighbors had also driven regional change, particularly in the area of girls’ education, climate change and capacity building through aid. The new middle class in China, the PM described, live in apartments in new urban centres, ride trains and have mobile phones, computers and cars. The PM described this rapid urbanisation as a “muscular, industrial reality”, which had direct implications for Australia’s natural resources industry, which is proving commodities including iron ore and coking coal to fuel city growth in China. It is worth noting, however, that urbanisation is not only one of the most major structural shifts that we are seeing this century, but also a social shift, bringing with it enormous cultural and identity challenges. It was very positive to see the Prime Minister’s public acknowledgement of the Asian Century, and the key challenges and opportunities that this brings for Australia. It was felt however that a strong focus on China overwhelmed the discussion, with lesser consideration of the issues facing other Asian nations including Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines and others, all of which are experiencing similar challenges of economic growth, urbanisation and social disparity. There also could have been greater emphasis also on education and social development, which are of critical importance in creating a strong region. It is hoped that the White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century will bring forward new ideas for cooperative and sustainable development in the region and will increase Australia’s awareness of and engagement with Asia.