Australia's focus on Asia<\/p>\n
MELBOURNE (JP): Jamie Mackie, retired professor of politics at
\nAustralia National University, believes that Australia's turn
\ntowards Asia did not start with former prime minister Paul
\nKeating and his foreign affairs minister Gareth Evans.<\/p>\n
An attempt to prove the point was made at a conference here
\ntitled New Directions in Australian Foreign Policy, Australia and
\nIndonesia 1945-1950.<\/p>\n
The conference, held at Monash University from May 31 to June
\n1, was dominated by what Mackie terms as the Golden Oldies: J.E.
\nIsaac, retired professor of economics of Monash University, T.K.
\nCritchley, former Australian ambassador to Indonesia, and J.W.
\nBurton, former secretary of the Department of External Affairs,
\nwho was not able to attend in person and communicated via video.<\/p>\n
While there were also younger speakers, still up and coming in
\ntheir academic professions, the \"Golden Oldies\" stood out because
\nthey had been active players and participants in the role played
\nby Australia in Indonesia's struggle for independence.<\/p>\n
Isaac accompanied the then professor William Macmahon Ball on
\nhis goodwill mission to Indonesia in 1945, Critchley was
\nAustralian representative for the Good Offices Committee (Komite
\nTiga Negara) in 1948, and Burton was Departmental Private
\nSecretary to Minister for External Affairs H.V. Evatt, before
\nbecoming Secretary of the Department in 1947.<\/p>\n
These speakers not only set the scene, they told their stories
\nin the first person, in \"history as it happens\" style, which
\nlater made the papers of the younger speakers a little dry by
\ncomparison.<\/p>\n
The 1940s was an era of Australia looking toward Britain and
\nthe United States, where the concept of Europe as the center of
\nculture and civilization was prevalent throughout the nation.<\/p>\n
It therefore must have been an indication of significant
\nforesight for the then prime minister Ben Chifley and his
\nexternal affairs minister to show support for, and their
\nsubsequent involvement in, the nationalist movement in Indonesia.
\nThe name Asia was not even used at the time. Various places in
\nthe region were referred to as the \"Orient\" or the \"Islands\".<\/p>\n
Two aspects stood out as the stories flowed from the Golden
\nOldies: the unusual awareness of Australia's policy makers in
\nseeing that the nationalist movement in Indonesia had to be taken
\nseriously and Australia's reluctance to share a national border
\nwith this nation. The legacy of this personality split survives,
\nto a degree, until this day.<\/p>\n
When he accompanied Macmahon Ball to Indonesia in 1945, J.E.
\nIsaac recalled, they were on a fact-finding mission to see what
\nrole Australia could play. Australia was keen to raise its
\nprofile, while the sole concern of the British was to win the
\nwar. Isaac revealed that External Minister Evatt was increasingly
\ndisillusioned with Britain and the U.S. then. Isaac and Macmahon
\nBall made friends with nationalist leaders such as Sukarno and
\nHatta.<\/p>\n
This friendship would later distinguish them from the British,
\nwho kept referring to these leaders as \"natives\".<\/p>\n
According to Jamie Mackie, there was then an element of
\nparallelism between Indonesian and Australian nationalist
\nsentiments. The Australian officials, mostly younger than their
\nBritish counterparts, often found themselves being lectured and
\npatronized by Dutch officials for being \"too idealistic and
\neasily influenced\".<\/p>\n
No doubt this was aided by Prime Minister Chifley's sense of
\nfair play. Though he denied the allegations that the Waterside
\nWorkers Federation dictated the policy -- when they banned Dutch
\nships from sending arms to Indonesia -- Chifley quietly went
\nalong with the ban.<\/p>\n
Burton recalls that Chifley was initially quoted as pro-Dutch.
\nHowever, he said, he was also a person of sharp intuition. \"At
\nthat time there was not much information about Southeast Asia in
\ngeneral. Chifley and Evatt realized that Australia was dealing
\nwith a new nation,\" said Burton. \"Chifley quickly became annoyed
\nwhen he discovered that the Dutch were sending arms to
\nIndonesia.\"<\/p>\n
Burton did not see a turnaround in Australia's foreign policy.
\nThere were, rather, attempts at new directions. \"Australia at the
\ntime hadn't come to terms with the fact that it was in Asia, and
\nit was still very much under the UN and U.S. umbrella,\" he said.<\/p>\n
This refusal to accept the geographical reality, it appears,
\ntranslated into the discomfort of being too close to an Asian
\nnation. Australia did not support Indonesia's claim on West
\nIrian, preferring to have the Dutch colonial presence as a
\nbuffer.<\/p>\n
Critchley, on the other hand, working in the Good Offices
\nCommittee, recalls that while they were dealing with invisible
\nboundaries, it was clear that the nationalists would not be
\nsatisfied without West New Guinea.<\/p>\n
According to Critchley, while the Netherlands tried to prevent
\nIndonesia from forming the republic and obtaining the UN's
\nsupport, if failed because it did not anticipate the strength of
\ninternational reaction to its second Police Action, and it
\nunderestimated the strength of Indonesian nationalism and
\ndetermination to form the republic.<\/p>\n
\"While they went ahead with the December military action, they
\nwere continually harassed by guerrilla movements, which they
\nthought would have died down quickly.<\/p>\n
\"The Sultan of Yogya refused to cooperate, and the Federalists
\nincreasingly resented the Dutch's pressure and appreciated the
\nsupport of the nationalists,\" said Critchley, whose fervor for
\nIndonesia has not died down.<\/p>\n
Australia has grown into a more mature nation, a far cry from
\nthe heady days of the 1940's idealism. It has progressed a fair
\nway in the new direction of its foreign policy. There is no doubt
\nthat Keating and Evans added a significant push, which appears to
\nfollow the same direction as that taken by the present Howard-
\nDowner team.<\/p>\n
The writer is a freelance journalist based in Melbourne.<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/australias-focus-on-asia-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }