THE CLUMSY NATION CAN’T GET TRADE TRACTION
We claim to be traders but less than four per cent of our goods head to Southeast Asia - a market of more than 688 million. Trade suffers because we won’t relate to our neighbours, don’t know how and don’t care.
Australian federal elections wrap with a ritual: After the niceties, the winner darts into a phone booth, rips off the soiled rags of domestic politics and dons the statesman’s cape of foreign affairs. First stop Jakarta.
All leaders since Gough Whitlam have trumpeted hows vital it is to know the locals. Worthy aim, but a policy fail. Now comes yet another bash at the barriers.
It’s doomed through a double fault: The only road we know into the market is through a dodgy Cold War potholed track, and we’re too smug to learn some trade literacy.
In 1992, twenty-two Australian universities were teaching Indonesian language and culture. Now it’s down to a dozen. Indonesia dominates the region on every measure from economy to people - the fourth most populous in the world, obviously important, yet we yawn.
It’s 46 times larger than Singapore but our two-way trade with the tiny island is double that of Indonesia. Despite all the urgings we invested only $3.1 billion in the archipelago.
China has put in four times more; this year it has pledged $104 billion. (All figures AUD). If investment is married to influence the offspring of this union should thrive.
Canberra’s response to these irksome realities has been to ask investment banker Nicholas Moore to come up with fixes.
His 205-page attempted U-turn - Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040 won’t get traction because it follows the old road of seeing the people next door as buyers rather than partners, foreigners instead of mates. Those folk are in the Anglosphere.
Positions perish and change is hurtling our way. A new Indonesian president with a fresh ministry and new alliances will be elected next year. They’ll be revisiting policies on accepting foreign business ventures, maybe promoting, possibly rejecting, and most likely squeezing and confusing.
So far the coarsest attempt to try and get pally with the neighbours is to nuzzle up to ASEAN, a policy inherited by Foreign Minister Penny Wong from her predecessor, Marise Payne. This is not through ideology but because there’s no alternative.
Some background: In 1967 during the Vietnam War Indonesia set up ASEAN with Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore to block the advance of Communism.
Ironically two latecomers are Red – Vietnam and Laos, with feudal Cambodia sticking close to China. Tiny Brunei joined in 1984, despotic Myanmar in 1997. Talk of Australia joining the Cold War relic are academic because decisions must be unanimous.
Apart from Singapore, ASEAN’s members are afflicted by what Indonesians openly call KKN Korupsi, Kolusi, Nepotisme. The Moore report ignores these critical impediments to investors.
Only Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines follow forms of ‘flawed democracy’ as assessed by the Economist Intelligence Unit. That doesn’t mean they’re pure, just not so bad as the rest.
The US found AUD$ 142 million this year to support ‘the robust implementation of the ASEAN Outlook.’ FM Wong’s backing is curious because it’s long been a Coalition favourite pushed by the right-wing Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
The title sounds benign , but former Foreign Minister Bob Carr reckons ASPI has a ‘one-sided, pro-American view of the world’. Much of its money comes from the weapons industry.
While we’re fumbling to get trade right, we know how to get close to Indonesia’s military, a force with a fearful record in human rights abuses.
No unpleasantness obvious in the Australian Defence Department’s jolly account of September’s joint exercises. ’Big smiles and hugs’ followed a ‘rich series of training’. Now Canberra is exploring a defence cooperation treaty as Michael West Media has reported.
The only twine stringing the ten disparate nations together isn’t language, culture, history, ideologies or economies. It’s geography.
Darwin is only 830 kilometres from Kupang, the capital of Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province, but physical proximity means next to nowt in zonal geopolitics. We have little in common with them and vice-versa. We claim we’re in the region. They think we are worlds apart.
That shouldn’t stop us from being friends, doing business and having good relationships, best achieved through the intermix of citizens.
ASEAN citizens can wander visa-free through Southeast Asia, Australia disallows easy access, particularly for Indonesians. Many obstacles mean no trust.
Last year we got just 91,000 Indonesian visitors - but sent them 610,000, mainly to Bali
Labor governments appear to take the issue of relationships with SE Asia more seriously. That doesn’t mean more successfully.
Eleven years ago then PM Julia Gillard released the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper ’nurturing deeper and broader relationships … by taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the Asian century.’
It was an advance on the earlier Keating doctrine that Asia is where our future substantially lies, but it ‘famously disappeared from official websites following the election of Tony Abbott. It became the White Paper that dared not speak its name.’
However, you can read a copy here.
The proposals in Moore’s September report are floundering for attention against the Voice Referendum and its wash ups, and now the Gaza War
But the question is too important to filed under ‘NOTED”: Why are we so far behind many other countries in doing deals with the neighbours?
The awkward truth is that we put our dollars and goodies into the US, the UK and Europe because we reckon they’re transparent and safe harbours while ASEAN is not.
Moore’s report notes: ‘Some Australian investors continue to view the region’s risk–return trade-off as unattractive.’ Better be blunt: We’re ignorant and fearful.
His report wants us to ‘lift investment in Southeast Asia literacy at all levels, from stimulating demand and teaching languages and cultural awareness to school and university students to training government officials and senior executives and board directors on Southeast Asian commerce and business practices.’
Our Jakarta Embassy brags about the 63,000 Indonesians who’ve studied in Australia since 2002. This balloon has been pricked by Newcastle University Professor Richard Heller’s noting that we have twice as many students from Singapore than from Indonesia.
Embarrassingly Canada is poaching in our paddock, ‘developing trusted relationships for investment, including having spent more time on the ground understanding markets, taking minority stakes in businesses, joining boards, and building experience in the region.’
Ottawa is 15,600 km from Jakarta; Canberra a third of that distance.
Southeast Asian states don’t see us as our PR people would have you believe - the land of cuddly-koalas and barbie hosts. We’re a Western nation aligned with Northern Hemisphere powers, superior and racist - an image already hardened by the Voice result.
The locals want our wheat, meat, and investment dollars, but they don’t want us.
Time to cremate the absurd notion of joining ASEAN, this feudal gang, toss the ashes in the Arafura Sea and focus on following Moore’s advice on learning and understanding - then deal with individual nations.
Indonesia’s presidential election will be on 14 February. Here’s a guarantee: The winner will not say his priority destination is Canberra. His first stop will be Mecca.
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First published in Michael West Media 5 November 2023: https://michaelwest.com.au/the-moore-report-on-south-east-asian-trade-unlikely-to-lead-to-more-trade/
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