Perspectives on Australian foreign policy, 2005

Twenty years of Australia's engagement with Asia

“…The second was a terrible tragedy -the tsunami in December 2004 that took the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the Indian Ocean region, including upwards of 170,000 deaths in Indonesia. The generous response by Australians who donated over AUS$200 million to support tsunami victims and the Howard government's commitment of over AUS$1 billion of assistance for recovery Downloaded by [141.214.17.222] at 11:03 04 November 2014 and reconstruction were also tremendously important in the rebuilding of the relationship with Indonesia (Kelton 2006).…”

New Zealand & Australia: Divergence in International Relations: with Particular Reference to the Howard & Clark governments (1996/1999 - 2007) & the Iraq Crisis of 2003

“…Indeed, in addition to continuing to receive US ships in Australian waters as an on-going member of the ANZUS alliance, Australia retains nuclear installations at numerous US-Australian bases across the continent and has remained open to nuclear options , both in the realms of global security and that of energy production . For instance, Australia continues to mine uranium for export worldwide, even recently indicating an intention to export uranium to both China and India in future years (though under strict provisos in their case that Australian uranium is not to be used for military purposes) (Kelton, 2006). In fact as of September this year, the Howard Government has approved uranium sales to Russia and made plans to join an American programme designed to develop new nuclear technology (Ansley, 2007).…”

“…Indeed , Australian independence has given rise to several areas of disagreement and frustration between the Australia and the US in their foreign affairs in past years. For instance, Australia disagrees with the US over America's reluctance to implement the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention , its economic protectionism especially in terms of agricultural trade, and the United States China-Taiwan policy (George, 2003;Advancing the National Interest, 2003 , p. 86 ;Kelton , 2006). Equally, the US is not particularly happy about Australia's commitment to intensify ties with Beijing in parallel with the US -called Australia's 'US plus' approach , nor with Australia's refusal to support American opposition to the European 's Union's relaxed arms embargo to China , or indeed Australian non-participation in the Halibut talks where US allies discussed the rise (and threat) of China (Kelton , 2006, p. 231 ).…”

“…Moreover, through its involvement in overthrowing one of the world 's worst dictators and its subsequent assistance in helping to give Iraqis their first chance of establishing a fair democratic system of government, an event which without the Coalition of the Willing would not have been possible after all 75 , Australia considers itself to not only have acted to preserve "the way of life that Australians .. . hold dear '' (Calvert, 2003) , but also ended the "myth of little Australia" (Kelton , 2005) showing how democracies can "find renewed power and purpose abroad from institutions and instincts at home" (Howard , 2005). As Howard explains:…”

“…In point of fact, the ANZUS alliance is considered to be not only fundamental to Australia's national security, in both securing its own defence and ensuring stability within the Asia-Pacific region (Advancing the National Interest, 2003, p. 88) , but is also considered the bedrock of Australian foreign and defence policy (Kelton , 2006) . As Australia 's Defence 2000 document spells out, Australia's alliance with the US is "one of our great national assets" (cited in McElhattan , 2006) , a long-held view made apparent in the way that Australia has had such a long history of solidarity with the US, fighting alongside the US in every one of its major conflicts since World War I (Devine, 2006).…”