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Australia's new government is committed to delivering the next defence white paper in 2015. The two previous white papers took a predominantly risk-management approach to Southeast Asia, generally ignored the strategic opportunities in the region, treated it as a stand-alone region largely unrelated to developments in East Asia and failed to link Australia's policies in Southeast Asia with the broader goal of helping to ensure greater strategic stability in Asia by putting constraints on Chinese assertiveness and encouraging its peaceful rise. After offering a summary of recent Australian defence thinking on Southeast Asia, this paper outlines why managing China is the key variable when it comes to strategic stability in the region. It then examines how China's strategy and behaviour can be shaped and influenced by events and relationships in Southeast Asia, and offers some suggestions as to the role Australia can seek to play in Southeast Asia that relates to Canberra's China-focused objectives and strategic stability in Asia more broadly If that can be achieved in the 2015 defence white paper, Australia - which is often criticized for being preoccupied primarily with managing the relationship with its superpower ally the United States - will demonstrate to itself and Asia that its heavy reliance on the ANZUS treaty is no barrier to strategic creativity in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than any previous generation, today's students need to develop a global perspective and be knowledgeable about other nations in order to play a better role on the global stage. This paper first reviews some earlier and current studies on students' knowledge of the world, mainly conducted in the United States, and then it describes the global education status and similar studies in countries like Canada, Russia, the United Kingdom, China, Japan, South Korea, and Australia. Based on a review of studies in these countries, the paper proposes that contemporary assessments of students' cross-national and global knowledge and attitudes are necessary. The new research must be multinational, assessing what paired nations' school aged populations know about one another's history, geography, politics, economics, and international relations. (Contains 1 footnote.)

The article presents an overview and analysis of the foreign policy stance taken by China since the mid-1990s. Various outside perceptions of China's power and influence are reviewed. The nation's deliberate adherence to a "middle power" strategy of fostering a global image of caution and pragmatism in security issues is introduced and explained. Further analysis is offered relating this doctrine to those of Australia and South Korea, showing where their respective approaches to the region's geopolitics are in agreement and in conflict.

This article examines the changing nature of Australian-American relations in the aftermath of the Iraq imbroglio and China's rise. While many observers see differences in Australian and US approaches toward China as a reflection of different interests, it is the contention of this paper that these different Australian-US perspectives on China are, in fact, premised more on some highly skewed assumptions and fallacious beliefs, misconceptions and myths that have lately come to underlie Australia's China policy than on divergent Australian-US interests. This article looks at the proposition that China's rise has the potential to divide Australia and America but concludes that Beijing is unlikely to succeed in driving a wedge between Washington and Canberra. The shared values and shared strategic interests ensure broad support for the Australia-US alliance in Australia which has now expanded into a global partnership encompassing the transnational security issues as well as the traditional geopolitical issues of managing the rise of new powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The material transformation of the Chinese economy is forcing a concomitant process of political adjustment-and not just in China. Other states are being forced to accommodate the 'rise of China'. In this context, this article first presents a comparative analysis of China's impact on two countries, Australia and South Africa, which have little in common other than a wealth of natural resources and a possible status as middle powers; this is a particularly useful exercise because these states are geographically distant and have very different political structures and general developmental histories. Second, the authors consider how China's bilateral ties look from a Chinese perspective in these two very different relationships. Such an analysis serves as a reminder that resource dependency is a two-way street. The article argues that underlying material realities are constraining and to some extent determining the domestic and foreign policies of three very different states that otherwise have little in common. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent changes of government in Australia and Japan, and a pending one in the United States, signifies a historical crossroads in these three allies' security politics in the Asia-Pacific region. In recent years, all three countries have tended to rationalize their strategic collaboration on the need to build innovative and competitive-oriented "strategic geometries" as a means to counter China's growing power and to meet new types of threats in the region. Yet the Australian Government under John Howard simultaneously pursued a hedging strategy, exploiting its growing economic relationship with China while strengthening its diplomatic and strategic profile with the United States. Despite Tokyo's own substantial economic relationship with Beijing, recent Japanese leaders were unable to pursue the same type of "dual track" strategy to the same extent as Howard. With Kevin Rudd's election as the new Australian Prime Minister and Yasuo Fukuda's ascent to power in Japan, prospects for Australia and Japan to cultivate more independent politico-security ties with Beijing have strengthened. If so, the evolving regional security postures of both these US allies may compel the United States to reassess its own traditional skepticism towards multilateral security groupings in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]