Language barrier hurts Australia's relationship with Asia
Updated
For two decades, Australia has sought to deepen its relationship to Asia, in part because of the logic of location, in part for trade reasons, but also pulled by a global shift of power to the Asia-Pacific region.
But culturally it appears Australia is still not making the progress it should in Asia, and a lack of language capability is key. And though China, Japan and the ASEAN block are powerful economic partners for Australia, its more about trade and less about investment. They're some of the findings from a new index on Australia's engagement with the region.
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speakers: Simon Crean, Australia's Trade Minister; Professor Tony Milner, University of Melbourne
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MOTTRAM: The index combines seven measures of engagement, including not only trade and investment, but also education, tourism and research and development as well as humanitarian assistance and migration.
It gives a snapshot across the nature of Australia's relationship to Asia. Compiled by Pricewaterhouse Coopers, the Melbourne Institute and Asialink at the University of Melbourne, it confirms that Asia as a whole, and particularly Japan, China and the ASEAN bloc have become a virtual backbone for the Australian economy. South Korean and India and emerging on the Australian radar too. Japan though remains a very important partner in trade terms. But the real boom, unsurprisingly has been with China.
Trade minister Simon Crean.
CREAN: Certainly the engagement with China and the growth of our engagement with China has by far been the largest. Our engagement with the rest of the world 3-times over the period, with China 16 times, with ASEAN five times.
MOTTRAM: The index finds, though, that the noise about China has eclipsed the fact that the ASEAN block remains Australia's most important engagement partner in the region, with two-way trade at 80 Billion dollars and a new free trade agreement lifting hopes for even more.
As well as trade, its a story of growing education ties .. with half a million people travelling between Australia and Asia in 2007 for education .. and Australia's discovery of Asia in the past 20 years as a holiday destination.
But the engagement isn't without its shortcomings.
Simon Crean again.
CREAN: Interestingly its investment that we haven't done well at and in my view this is the pointer as to where we've got to go in the future.
MOTTRAM: A future that is now seen through the lens of the global financial crisis and spreading recession. Its hoped the index can help shape some responses to that. But on the investment front, part of the problem Mr Crean says is barriers to foreign investment in Asian countries.
CREAN: These are the sorts of things that we've got to tackle through regional trade agreements and through our bilateral arrangements.
MOTTRAM: But trade agreements won't fix the other big problem, in the texture of the relationships, in lanugage capabilities, in a deep understanding of Asian cultures.
History Professor Tony Milner from Melbourne University has written a reflective essay for the index.
MILNER: We've got as I say in an essay in this a remarkably low number of people in Australia with a real Asia knowledge Asian language and so forth. I think we obviously need an elite if you can call it that of Asia specialists in Australia to negotiate our way through this region, to provide our foreign service and security service and analysis and so forth but we also need a broadly educated community on Asian problems. So I think one of the major, I hope, policy implications is that we need a real attention to Asia education in Australia.
MOTTRAM: Professor Milner says that despite its diplomatic vigor in the region, the Howard government neglected the education of the Australian public on Asia and he says that needs to be corrected. Simon Crean calls it the lost generation of engagement on the Asian language front and says the Rudd government's already made committments to begin to address it.
