From modest beginnings in 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has become the premier regional institution in Southeast Asia. The 10 members are pursuing cooperation to develop the ‘ASEAN Community’ and also sponsor wider dialogues that involve the major powers. Australia has been interested in ASEAN since its inauguration and was the first country to establish a multilateral link with the Association, in 1974. Australia and ASEAN have subsequently engaged and cooperated on many issues of mutual concern, including efforts to secure an agreement to resolve the Cambodia conflict (signed in 1991), the initiation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation grouping (1989) and the ASEAN Regional Forum (1994), the conclusion of the ASEAN–Australia–New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (signed in 2008) and the development of the East Asia Summit (from 2005). This book provides the first available detailed history of the evolution of Australia’s interactions with ASEAN. It assesses the origins and phases of development of Australia’s relations with ASEAN; the role ASEAN has played in Australian foreign policy since the 1970s; the ways in which the two sides have collaborated, and at times disagreed, in the pursuit of regional stability and security; and the key factors that will influence the relationship as it moves into its fifth decade.

Winning the Peace seeks to explore and explain how Australian governments, during the modern period of Australia's engagement with Asia (from 1983 till today), have attempted to use their defence and foreign policies to shape the region. While there were certainly times of tension during this period, such as the spikes around the end of the Cold War and during the early years of the War on Terror, the region has been largely defined by peace. Because of this peace and thanks to Australia's relative size as a 'middle power', the government's attempt to change how other states act and think was not sought through the deployment or use of force but through military and diplomatic engagement and persuasion. Australia's smaller size also meant it had to be strategic in its efforts. It had to determine which changes were priorities, it had to re-organise and develop its resources, it had to deploy them effectively and efficiently, and it had to be able to sustain the effort in the face of competition and rejection. This book focuses on the three main 'campaigns' the Australian government has undertaken since the early 1980s to reshape the Asia-Pacific in pursuit of its national interests.

Australia's engagement with Asia from 1944 until the late 1960s was based on a sense of responsibility to the United Kingdom and its Southeast Asian colonies as they navigated a turbulent independence into the British Commonwealth. The circumstances of the early Cold War decades also provided for a mutual sense of solidarity with the non-communist states of East Asia, with which Australia mostly enjoyed close relationships. From 1967 into the early 1970s, however, Commonwealth Responsibility and Cold War Solidarity demonstrates that the framework for this deep Australian engagement with its region was progressively eroded by a series of compounding, external factors: the 1967 formation of ASEAN and its consolidation by the mid-1970s as the premier regional organisation surpassing the Asian and Pacific Council (ASPAC); Britain's withdrawal from East of Suez; Washington's de-escalation and gradual withdrawal from Vietnam after March 1968; the 1969 Nixon doctrine that America's Asia-Pacific allies must take up more of the burden of providing for their own security; and US rapprochement with China in 1972. The book shows that these profound changes marked the start of Australia's political distancing from the region during the 1970s despite the intentions, efforts and policies of governments from Whitlam onwards to foster deeper engagement. By 1974, Australia had been pushed to the margins of the region, with its engagement premised on a broadening but shallower transactional basis.

Aviation extended the horizon of international touring across Asia and the Pacific in the 1950s and 1960s. Nightclubs in Hong Kong, Manila, Melbourne, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, and Taipei presented an international array of touring acts. This book investigates how this happened. It explores the post-war formation of the Asia Pacific region through international touring and the transformation of entertainment during the ‘jet age’ of aviation. Drawing on archival research across the region, Bollen investigates how touring variety forged new relations between artists, audiences, and nations. Mapping tours and tracing networks by connecting fragments, he reveals how versatile artists translated repertoire in circulation as they toured, and how entrepreneurial endeavours harnessed the production of national distinction to government agendas. He argues that touring variety on commercial circuits diversified the repertoire in regional circulation, anticipating the diversity emerging in state-sanctioned multiculturalisms, and driving the government-construction of national theatres for cultural diplomacy.

A million Australians went to Bali last year, following the millions of others who have made their way across Asia over the past century. Many travellers returned thinking they knew Asia and their personal experiences helped shape popular attitudes. This absorbing book unpacks their experiences, showing how their encounters changed the way Australians thought about themselves in the world.Visiting the Neighbours tells the story of Australian relations with Asia from the bottom up, examining the experiences of some of the millions of travellers and tourists who headed to the region over more than a hundred years. Merchants, missionaries, pilgrims, soldiers, hippies, diplomats, backpackers all had an impact on diplomacy and international relations. Agnieszka Sobocinska’s book is a bold and important step in understanding the intersection between popular opinion, prejudice and international relations as Australia stands at the precipice of the Asian Century.‘Sets out a range of fascinating and different roles played by Australians in Asia.’ – Michael Wesley, author of There Goes the Neighbourhood: Australia and the rise of Asia.‘ … Puts travel to Asia firmly on the 'Asia-literacy' map. This is not only a richly detailed, subtly argued and historically informed study of the Australian traveller in Asia. It is also smart, sharp and a very good read.’ – David Walker, BHP Billiton Chair of Australian Studies, Peking University.

Australia's Empire is the first collaborative evaluation of Australia's imperial experience in more than a generation. Bringing together poltical, cultural, and aboriginal understandings of the past, it argues that the legacies of empire continue to influence the fabric of modern Australian society.

The Encyclopedia of Diplomacy is a complete and authoritative 4-volume compendium of the most important events, people and terms associated with diplomacy and international relations from ancient times to the present, from a global perspective. An invaluable resource for anyone interested in diplomacy, its history and the relations between states Includes newer areas of scholarship such as the role of non-state organizations, including the UN and Médecins Sans Frontières, and the exercise of soft power, as well as issues of globalization and climate change Provides clear, concise information on the most important events, people, and terms associated with diplomacy and international relations in an A-Z format All entries are rigorously peer reviewed to ensure the highest quality of scholarship Provides a platform to introduce unfamiliar terms and concepts to students engaging with the literature of the field for the first time

This book examines the Australia-ASEAN Dialogue Partnership since its inception in 1974 and looks at the networks of engagement that have shaped relations across three areas: regionalism, non-traditional security, and economic engagement.

Australia and the World celebrates the pioneering role of Neville Meaney in the formation and development of foreign relations history in Australia and his profound influence on its study, teaching and application. The contributors to the volume, historians, practitioners of foreign relations and political commentators, many of whom were taught by Meaney at the University of Sydney over the years, focus especially on the interaction between geopolitics, culture and ideology in shaping Australian and American approaches to the world. Individual chapters examine a number of major themes informing Neville Meaney's work, including the sources and nature of Australia's British identity; the hapless, if dedicated, efforts of Australian politicians, public servants and intellectuals to reconcile this intense cultural identity with Australia's strategic anxieties in the Asia-Pacific region; and the sense of trauma created when the myth of 'Britishness' collapsed under the weight of new historical circumstances in the 1960s. They survey relations between Australia and the United States in the years after World War Two. Finally, they assess the US perceptions of itself as an 'exceptional' nation with a mission to spread democracy and liberty to the wider world and the way in which this self-perception has influenced its behaviour in international affairs.

In the three decades from the beginning of World War II Australia emerged on the world stage as an independent actor in foreign affairs. The key institution overseeing the development of Australia's international status and foreign policy during that period was the Department of External Affairs. This stimulating collection of essays explores the history of this government department as it grew from being a small amateur bureaucratic player to become a professional global network. This book sheds new light on the major figures in Australian international history, H. V. 'Doc' Evatt, Percy Spender, Richard Casey, Garfield Barwick and Paul Hasluckandmdash;and their relationships with their senior bureaucratic advisers. The experiences of Australian diplomats, as they joined the Department of External Affairs as junior recruits and worked overseas, are also examined. Ministers, Mandarins and Diplomats tells the story of the people, the events and the ideas that shaped Australian foreign policy and gave Australia its identity in the eyes of the rest of the world.