Introduction
For a long time, Australia has always been outward-looking nation that is strongly engaged and involved with the rest of the world. The last two centuries have particularly witnessed Australia build strong as well as enduring ties with countries across the global landscape. The bonds between Australia and many countries across the world have been forged and facilitated through a variety of aspects that range from history, trade, common strategic interests, sporting events and so on. The nature of the Australian society has also played a great role in facilitating the forging of superb relationships with other countries. Twenty-eight percent of the nation’s population, for example, is made of people who were born overseas. In addition, about 40% of the nation’s population comprises of individuals who are of mixed cultures (Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2014). In every 10 Australian citizens, one of them speaks an Asian language and more than 1.3 million people in the nation communicate in a language from Europe other than English (Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2014). It is therefore clear, that even at home, the Australian society is made of composed of people from various nations across the globe who have over the years immigrated to the country and subsequently intermarried leading to a very diverse society and culture. In a government white paper titled ‘Advancing the National Interest”, the government clearly lays out its foreign policy where the place of Australia in the world is assessed and an assessment of government’s strategies in promoting and protecting the security as well as the prosperity of the nation and its people is also performed. According to this document, Australians should generally feel confident and positive about their future as well as the nations’ standing in the international arena. The main aim of Australia’s engagement regionally and internationally is to build greater prosperity not only for Australia but also for the rest world. Therefore, even in its interactions with outside countries, Australia has always supported efforts and initiatives that are likely to lead to global prosperity. Such efforts include the liberalization of trade, enhancement of security, encourage foreign investments and boosting of economic growth through economic diplomacy (Peetz, 1999).
Australia’s National Interest and Global Concern
Australia is very active in both regional as well as in global institutions. For instance, the nation, was among the founding members of the UN. In addition, the nation is a leading contributor to the UN’s budgets especially those meant to tackle global problems such as poverty or to fund peacekeeping missions (Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2014). The enormous contribution of Australia to the UN was perhaps recognized most recently when the nation was awarded a two-year tenure as a UN Security Council non-permanent member in the year 2013 (Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2014).
Australia has greatly been committed towards the building of an international order that is rules-based, and that protects and at the same time advances the interests of all people and all nations. The nation a humongous active role in regional and global groups that include, the United Nations, (UN), The World Trade Organization (WTO), East Asia Summit (EAS), the G20, the Commonwealth, Pacific Islands forum (PIF), Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation, (APEC), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) among many others (Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2014).
Australia’s Regional Interest (Asia and Asia-Pacific Region)
In the last few years, Australia has been increasingly strengthening its relationship and engagement with nations in the Indo-Pacific region. As mentioned earlier, Australia is an active member of some of the strongest groups in the region such as APEC and EAS. By playing an active role in these associations, Australia hopes to contribute towards fostering security, stability and prosperity across the entire region. The other regional group which Australia is an active member of and in which its influence in fostering stability, prosperity and security in the Asia-Pacific region is ASEAN (Meaney, 2013). Australia does not however simply rely on its membership to these organizations to promote peace, stability and security in Asia- Pacific region. On the contrary, Australia also attempts to foster food relations with individual nations especially those whose voice is largely audible in the region. These countries include India, China, Korean Republic and Japan (Connors, 2004). These nations particular from a large component of the Australia foreign market and if this is to be maintained, the nation has to foster good relations with the country. The countries must be stable and secure, and the relationships in form of trade will inadvertently lead to mutual prosperity (Evans, 1989).
However, most of Australia’ interest are realized through its membership to ASEAN through which the economic and security interest of Australia to the region have been realized. Australia has been an active member in which it has managed to maintain multilateral relationship with it since 1974 (Australian Policy Online, 2014). From this time, the co-operation between the nation and ASEAN has involve efforts meant to enhance regional security. One effort, for instance, is the Cambodia peace process between the years 1991 and 1993 (Meaney, 2013).
In addition, has been behind ASEAN’s push for the formation and establishment of a regional security front (Connors, 2004).
The interest of Australia in developing a regional security community is attributable to one primary factor. Australia is one of the most prosperous nations in the world and at the moment, no Asia- Pacific nation perceives the nation to be a security threat (Blair & Hanley, 2001). The only potential security threat to the nation can occur from nations in the north and therefore, it is only logical for Australia to be ate the forefront of pushing for a regional security community that is meant to develop a co-operative security front (Runley, 1999).
The strategic view towards achieving a cooperative security for the region is based in several defense objectives (Secretariat, 2012). One of these is to enhance the region’s capacity to exclude hostile tendencies. The other objective is to reduce instances or even the potential for misunderstandings. Another objective in which Australia has particularly been very involved in is the mutual assistance in the development of nation’s self-defense capabilities. The strategic view also has the objective enact interoperability in several key areas (Secretariat, 2012).
According to the government’s white paper released in 2013, Australia will continue playing its part in managing some of the most potential sources of conflict. These include the Koreas peninsula as well the tensions between India and Pakistan (Acharya, 2014).
Australia’s interest in enhancing regional security is derived from the realization that peace and stability in the Asia-pacific region will essentially accrue to benefits in the region. As mentioned, a large fraction of the Australian global market is within the Asia Pacific region and when peace and stability are absent, the market might be disrupted and the nation’s economy might consequently be affected (Blair & Hanley, 2001). It is, therefore, in the nation’s best interest that peace and stability prevails in the entire region. Therefore, the interest of Australia in maintaining a stable and secure region can be tied to its national and regional economic interests. However, it is crucial to emphasize that Australia does simply rely on the security aspect to advance its regional economic interests (Australian Policy Online, 2014).
When it comes to economic interests the underlying logic that furnishes Australia’s engagement and involvement with the region is the notion or aspect of complementarity. Complementarity is in fact, one of the fundamental economic principles (Ravenhill, 2008). This notion is applied in accordance with the economic theory of comparative advantage that dictates that nations should solely concentrate on that they are best at. Therefore, in this case, the resources produced by Australia compliments the regional economies’ hunger for energy and raw materials. In the same manner, the huge amount of labor in other regional nations enables them to transform the raw materials into final viable products (Ravenhill, 2008). These products can then be exported to Australia. In this regard, Australia and other nations in the region specializes in aspects that they are best equipped at and in the long run, economic efficiency in the region is achieved.
This is why Australia is very active in pushing for regional partnerships and maintaining close relations with other nations in the region because as shown, their cooperation not only helps to drive its national economic agenda but in the long run leads to economic efficiency which in itself translates to mutual prosperity (Ravenhill, 2008). Nations that prosper mutually are even more likely to engage in trade another joint ventures in the future. Australia clearly realizes that the world is no longer made of highly differentiated and discrete economies. If nations are to succeed, they need to join hands and enhance mutual co-operation that will lead to mutual prosperity and this is the long term interest of Australia in the Asia –Pacific region (Australian Policy Online, 2014).
Close engagement with nations in the Asia-Pacific region is of great benefit. In fact, the government white paper acknowledges that such close engagement is a binding priority to the nation’s foreign and trade policy (Keating, 2000). The engagement translates to emphasis on key strands that include important trade and economic links, valuable security and diplomatic relationships between Australia and other nations in the region and finally the growing of people to people links.
The Australian government is essentially committed to collaborating and cooperating with local Asian partners hugely on the basis of shared interests and mutual respect. Cooperation with members of the ASEAN association is crucial to the active engagement policy and ties with member nations will also help to alleviate shared security issues and problems such as people smuggling and terrorism.
Australia’s Global Interest
The interests of Australia are also visible at the global scale. Beyond the Asia-Pacific region, Australia has managed to enjoy strong security, political, economic, cultural and social ties with other nations across the globe with the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada being among these (Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2014). The nations continue to initiate efforts that are meant to lead to the building of even stronger ties with these nations. In regard to an influential association such as the European Union, Australia has increasingly shown great commitment to establishing creative and broad-based partnership that addresses some of the contemporary challenges of international trade, economic management, security, international governance and development (Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2014).
Good relations with the EU are very important because statistics indicates that about half of all the one million Australians who live abroad reside in EU countries. In addition, more than 1.2 million visitors and tourists from the EU arrive in Australia on a yearly basis (Delegation of the European Union to Australia, 2014).
One again, just like the regional cooperation, Australia interest in the EU and indeed other nation in the world is aimed at strengthening co-operation in and promoting dialogue in shared security and foreign policy interests (Delegation of the European Union to Australia, 2014). The co-operation also has economic interests with the primary one being to promote investment and trade between the EU countries and Australia. In addition, Australia seeks to co-operate with EU on other issues of common interest that range from the environment, fisheries, energy security, technology, education, culture and science.
Just like the EU, Australia has also managed to have close relations with the United States and the two nations have formed a formidable relationship in the last few decades. The two nations have progressively built their relationship since the year 1942, particularly after the waning of the British interest in the Asian and the Asian Pacific region (Tow, 2004). The ANZUS Treaty is particularly often quoted as a signatory of the good relations between Australia and the United States (Reynolds, 2005). This treaty binds the United States and Australia to make consultations on mutual threats and ensure that these consultations are based on both nation’s constitutionals processes. Therefore, it appears that once again, security once against at the core of the Australia interest with foreign nations as in this case the United Sates. The two nations also work in conjunction with the EU to once again oversee global and regional security cooperation. In fact, recent years have seen increased emphasis on the matters of security especially in the Asia Pacific region (Reynolds, 2005). There have been intensified efforts to promote security in this region because it is understood that security in the region will lead to the accrual of benefits for the three nations especially in regard to product market. Consequently Australia, the United States., the EU as well as powerful Asian nations such as Japan and China have collaborated and joined hands especially in the Asia-Pacific region in matter of counter terrorism, prevention of organized crime, matters of asylum humanitarian aid and general development (Reynolds, 2005).
In addition, Australia and the United States of America have been working closely with the WTO in the pushing for multilateral trade liberalization between the nations of the world so as to ease the processes of trade between these nations.
Australia also has important people to people links as well as investment interests and growing trade with third world countries such as those in Africa especially those that are members of the Commonwealth. This is also the case with Latin American nations where Australia connections with these nations have been expanding in the last few decades (Reynolds, 2005).
Conclusion
It is fair to state that Australia has great foreign interests not only in the regional countries but in countries throughout the world. Australia has consistently maintained good relations with the majority of the nations of the world and has been actively involved in both regional and worldly co-operation that seek to enhance security and security. The government white paper, which is essentially a guide of the nation’s trade and foreign policy has articulated that foreign engagement remains core to the nation’s future goals and objectives. In a nutshell, the main aim of Australia’s engagement regionally and internationally is to build greater prosperity not only for Australia but also for the rest world.
References
The Commonwealth of Australia (2014). Advancing the National Interest: Australia’s Foreign and Trade Policy White Paper.
Meaney, N. K. (2013). Australia and the Wider World: Selected Essays of Neville Meaney. Sydney University Press.
Peetz, D. (1998). Unions in a contrary world: The future of the Australian trade union movement. Cambridge University Press.
Evans, G. (1989). Australian foreign policy: Priorities in a changing world. Australian Journal of International Affairs, 43(2), 1-15.
Tow, W. (2004). Deputy sheriff or independent ally? Evolving Australian–American ties in an ambiguous world order. The Pacific Review, 17(2), 271-290.
Harris, S. (1989). Regional economic cooperation, trading blocs and Australian interests. Australian Journal of International Affairs, 43(2), 16-24.
Ravenhill, J. (2008). Preferential trade agreements and the future of Australian trade policy. Australian Journal of International Affairs, 62(2), 121-128.
Reynolds, D. (2005). Empire, region, world: The international context of Australian Foreign Policy since 1939. Australian Journal of Politics & History,51(3), 346-358.
Ravenhill, J. (2003). The new bilateralism in the Asia Pacific. Third World Quarterly, 24(2), 299-317.
Keating, P. (2000). Engagement: Australia Faces the Asia-Pacific (pp. 58-59). Sydney: Macmillan.
Connors, M. K. (2004). Australia in the Asia-Pacific. The New Global Politics of the Asia Pacific, 60.
Blair, D. C., & Hanley Jr, J. T. (2001). From wheels to webs: Reconstructing Asia‐pacific security arrangements. Washington Quarterly, 24(1), 5-17.
Tow, W. T. (2001). Asia-Pacific strategic relations: Seeking convergent security. Cambridge University Press.
Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. (2014, January 1). Australia and the world - Australia in brief - Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Retrieved November 3, 2014, from http://www.dfat.gov.au/aib/australia-and-the-world.html;
Secretariat, A. S. E. A. N. (2012). ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint.
Acharya, A. (2014). Constructing a security community in Southeast Asia: ASEAN and the problem of regional order. Rout ledge.
Australian Policy Online. (2014). ASEAN and regional cooperation: Recent developments and Australia's interests. Retrieved November 3, 2014.
Rumley, D. (1999). The geopolitics of Australia's regional relations. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.
Delegation of the European Union to Australia. (2014). European Union. Retrieved November 3, 2014, from http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/australia/eu_australia/key_facts/index_en.htm
