Australia Essay -- essays research papers

Australia- Trade and Immigration Background As Joycelynhas mentioned Australias having greater and greaterinteraction with its Asian neighbours, through the areas oftrade and its participating contribution in the regional trade organization -APEC. Despite its location, Australia can hardly be thoughtof being an Asian country. Not so broad ago, Asian werelooked down upon, with a mixture of fear because of thecommunist aggression, pity because of their poverty, andcontempt, as they dumped cheap and poorly made productsto do Australian workers out of job. For decades, gameyprohibitive tariffs blocked the imports of Asian goods, and aWhite Australia policy fenced off Asian migrants. However,the situation is reversed in the past 2 decades. With einsteiniumAsia being the fast-paced growing thriftiness, and thedevelopment of regional trade blocs in their traditionaltrading partners such as the EC and NAFTA that tend toemphasize internal trade, Asia becomes Australias single intimatel y promising opportunity. And now, Australia is eager tobe Asian. Trade (See overhead - Exports) In 1994, some60% of Australias total exports equivalent to more than 60B A$ went to Asia. plot of land Japan remains to be their largesttrading partner, S Korea replaced US to take the secondplace. But at the same time, Australias share of Asias totalimports is declining, down from 3% in 1985 to 2% in 95.The main reason is that Asian countries are trading moreamong themselves, and importing more hi-er value-addedproducts, rather than the common Australian exportedcommodities. However, direct towards value-addingindustries is not easy. Besides infrastructure and laborreform, Australian manufacturers will become head on withsome of Asias most efficient operations. Anyway, Australiahas shown its committment to free trading. The former grokgovernment has committed to cutting the average tariff formost imports to 5% by 2000, compared to 20% in 1983.And the trend towards a more open economy will becontinued by the new Liberal-National govt. Most domesticbusiness will not survive under such open competition, just nowAustralia sees this as an opportunity to reshape itsmanufacturing base to become narrower and deeper, andmore competitive. They see an ideal picture of Australiaimporting cheap manufactured goods from Asia instead ofmaking pricy ones at home behind tariff, and Asiabuying mineral... ...or a tv program Embassy which he claimed wasmocking Malaysia. Australia also got into diplomaticproblems with certain authoritarian regimes for critizing theirbehaviors. Its relationship with Indonesia is endlessly tense forits criticisms of Indonesia over human rights, corruption, andthe status of East Timor. Even Singapore didnt likeAustralias comment on its harrassment of the Asian Wall StJournal and other newspaper. As other Asian countries allshare similar culture and values, Australia with its westernnature would easily be labelled as intruder. And they allunderstand that Australias regard towards Asia iseconomically driven, it comes out of the mind, not the heart.Moreover, some of them even suspect it of acting as astalking horse for western interests. Malaysia proposed aregional East Asia Econ Caucus which will exclude the USand Australia, and this is clashing over with APEC in whichAustralia and US are active participant. So, how canAustralia manage its odd man role in the Asian region?Should it go for Multiculturalism or a melting pot policy likethe US? How can it balance its relationship with itsneighbours bandage preserving its western values?