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This paper examines the changing geo-political situation in the Asia-Pacific Region from an Australian defense policy perspective. The article focuses on China, the US, and Indonesia and examines Australia's strategic defense needs for the coming decade. The paper concludes by laying out four strategic defense options for Australia, 1. maintaining the US alliance, 2. going back to "fortress Australia," 3. towards Asian integrations, and 4. the "New Zealand" option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genetic and biochemical resources have the ability to provide considerable economic, social and environmental benefits to a nation. Traditional knowledge of these natural resources is extensive. Biopiracy occurs when commercial actors appropriate traditional knowledge without recognition or benefit‐sharing. It has faced international condemnation. The importance of acknowledging traditional knowledge and ensuring benefit‐sharing from inventions based on this knowledge is recognized. This paper explores strategies for protection of traditional knowledge and considers the adequacy of Australia's approach. It discusses the global problem of biopiracy and Australia's international obligations. It explores Australia's current protection, including part 8A of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Regulations ( ) (Cth). This paper then compares Australia's strategy to the protections afforded in the United States, New Zealand and Brazil. It is argued that an additional disclosure of origin and source requirement within the Australian Patents Act (Cth) would assist in better protection of traditional knowledge and the promotion of benefit‐sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional tendencies in higher education are increasingly important, for example the common rise of North-East Asian universities in China, Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan and South Korea, and Singapore in South-East Asia, to a major global role, following the prior trajectory of Japan. Though the rapidly modernizing Post-Confucian countries do not constitute a formal region, they share a common political and cultural dynamism, entailing rapid improvement of quantity and quality in education and research. This poses challenges and opportunities for Australia, a British/European heritage nation located at the edge of Asia, with extensive trade into East Asia, and an Asian-influenced demography, providing that it can (1) further develop its research capacity, given that research provides the main medium of deep collaboration in higher education, and (2) lift its cultural capacity to interface with systems in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's profile as one of Washington's leading allies in the Asia Pacific has grown due to the Obama Administration's rebalancing strategy. While New Zealand is both unable and unwilling to match the intensity of its neighbour's relationship with the world's leading power, its own strategic ties with Washington have strengthened considerably in recent times. While Australia's alliance with the United States may raise future challenges vis-à-vis its increasingly important relationship with a rising China, New Zealand also has a balancing act to maintain, not least because of its close economic ties with the People's Republic. In different ways both Australia and New Zealand may currently be reducing their room for maneouver if and when the contest between the United States and China becomes more severe. The risks may be higher for Australia because the same strategic geography that gives it renewed prominence may also increase its exposure to competition and conflict in Asia, and because its own military rebalancing towards the north and west of the continent is occurring just as its defence budget has been significantly cut. For New Zealand, while those direct risks may be smaller, staying on Canberra's radar screen will become harder. Indeed as they each look towards their own relationships with the major powers, Australia and New Zealand may need to work even harder to sustain their own bilateral alliance relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's climate change relationship with developing countries is framed by the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Under those agreements, Australia has committed to take a lead in cutting greenhouse gas emissions and to provide technological and financial support to developing countries. In practice, Australian governments of both political hues have adopted a somewhat ambiguous and ambivalent attitude to developing countries within climate change politics and their fulfilment of those commitments has been uneven. This is particularly so if the concept of the 'Global South' is expanded from developing countries to include those people who are vulnerable to the environmental, social and economic impacts of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Australia's extraterritorial non-entrée policies, which are designed to prevent the irregular arrival of refugees and keep refugees in countries of origin and first asylum. In an age of securitisation, many States have attempted to restrict access to asylum through a range of extraterritorial measures that seek to prevent refugees from reaching territorial borders in order to claim protection. The first part of this article outlines Australia's unilateral non-entrée policies, including visa requirements, carrier sanctions, airline liaison officers, surveillance technologies, interception at sea, and the excising of Australian territory. The second half of this article explores the emergence of co-operative non-entrée policies, which have seen Australia enter into agreements with its regional neighbours to deter, detain, and deport would-be asylumseekers. Together, these extraterritorial non-entrée policies see Australia's regional neighbours take on the responsibility of border control on behalf of Australia, making it increasingly difficult for refugees to reach Australian territory in order to seek protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's new-found post-colonial ‘independence’ in 1901 initially required it to continue to hold on to the apron strings of its colonial master. After World War II, these needs changed, as did the geopolitical power of the leading nations. For Australia, there would be the need to secure its borders, build its labour power, find security arrangements, and adhere to a cold war framework in its geographical region. The USA and the Asian region fell into Australia's sphere of interest. Italy, on the other hand, was a nation of contrasting interests and perspectives. Besides being located in Europe, the post-war period defined Italy by its participation in the concept of a European community and an entirely different set of allies, concerns and trajectories, which made it position itself in a different orbit than that of Australia. Australia's changing economic and social needs required a new and vast migration program in 1947, which would change the dynamics of its relationships. Enter Italy. The two countries now had common destinies in relation to migration—Australia needed people to help build its country, whilst Italy encouraged its impoverished rural population to emigrate to this distant and foreign land. A relationship was born. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The activities of a little known Japanese photographer working in Sydney, Australia during the early to mid twentieth century sheds new light on the photographic connections between Australia and Japan. The life and work of Ichirō Kagiyama are important catalysts for rethinking dualistic relationships between the ‘West’ and the ‘East’, and for developing an approach that allows for more nuance and complexity. Working directly with Australian photographers and tastemakers at a time when the so-called White Australia policy defined Australia as a racially exclusive country, Kagiyama challenges expectations about the historical relationships between Australia and Japan. Kagiyama’s work also illustrates the interrelationships between diverse forms of photography practice, from art and commercial photography to espionage, as well as close connections between the worlds of art, design, international trade and photography in 1920s and 1930s Sydney. As Kagiyama’s photographs resist essentialist readings yet were framed when published by stereotypes of Japanese culture as traditional, feminine and decorative, they help to tease out a certain tension within Australian–Japanese relations in the lead up to the Second World War. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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Australia's international education serves as public diplomacy, essentially engaging and influencing public audiences in ways that progress Australian foreign policy priorities and national interests. The multidimensional and increasingly globalised nature of international education presents enormous opportunity for vital exchange and interactions between and with students, academics and communities via onshore and offshore modes of delivery. Positive experiences of student mobility and the development of intellectual, commercial and social relationships can build upon a nation's reputation, and enhance the ability of that nation to participate in and influence regional or global outcomes. This is ultimately the essence of soft power. While Australia has made significant commercial gains through international education, it has fallen short of realising the soft power potential inherent in the volume and depth of interactions, relationships and achievements resulting from it, particularly in the Asian region, where Australia's international education sector continues to be most active. This article argues that there is a soft power benefit in recognising international education as public diplomacy, though acknowledges that challenges exist in connecting the soft power aspirations to reality. Findings suggest that there is room for more coherent public diplomacy leadership and inter-agency coordination, improved evaluation and expanded dialogue both within the sector and the broader community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reinterprets Australia's motives for its 2003 intervention in the Solomon Islands. The central argument is that considerations of Australia's international reputation have not been afforded sufficient importance in explaining the Howard government's decision to intervene. A primary concern for the Howard government was to bolster Australia's reputation in the ‘War on Terror’ vis-à-vis the USA and the international community more broadly by being seen to maintain order in its regional sphere of responsibility. The article establishes the historical basis for Canberra's claims to a special responsibility for the South-West Pacific region. It then demonstrates the close connection between Australia's responsibility for order in its region and the reputational norms that evolved during the early years of the War on Terror. These claims are substantiated through an analysis of the Solomon Islands crisis from June 2000 until the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands was deployed in July 2003. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article considers the regional order-building challenges that Australia presently confronts in the Indian Ocean region (IOR). The author argues that while regional stability within the IOR constitutes an increasingly important Australian security interest, policy makers will struggle to translate the order-building strategies they have previously pursued in East Asia into an Indian Ocean context. In East Asia, Australia has historically pursued a ‘dual track’ order-building strategy centred on its participation in a US-dominated ‘hub and spokes’ alliance system alongside multilateral regional engagement. The absence of an equivalent alliance system or an established tradition of multilateral security diplomacy conversely precludes an extension of this strategy into the IOR. Growing tensions between the USA and China and between China and India, meanwhile, further complicate IOR security dynamics, while underscoring the urgent need for a more coherent approach to regional order-building. With these challenges in mind, the author concludes by proposing a range of bilateral, minilateral and multilateral initiatives that Australia should pursue to stimulate the emergence of a more cooperative IOR security environment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Australia and China have evolved a synergistic relationship driven largely by the rapidly expanding Chinese demand for Australian resources. China's growing political and economic influence, regionally and globally, has prompted for different reasons the leadership of both countries to develop new channels and forms of communication. It has left Australian society with the unfamiliar task of engaging with a major center of power whose cultural and political traditions are radically different from its own. This article explores the scope and limitations of Australia's emerging dialogue with China. It makes the case for a sustained and multidimensional dialogue that harnesses more effectively the energies of civil society as well as business and government, thereby facilitating the task of redefining the relationship in a period of far-reaching transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior to the Second World War, news-flow between the US and Australia was constrained by the lack of a direct submarine cable or wireless telegraphy link between the two countries and by the fact that Australian coverage of international news largely emerged out of an ‘imperial press system’ centred in London. ‘Imperial preference’ in news was facilitated by global cartel arrangements amongst international news agencies whereby the London-based agency, Reuters, was given priority access to the Australian news market. This article examines these constraints on the development of US-Australian news links prior to the Second World War. It also looks at the way the Second World War transformed the situation as the strategic interests of the two countries became aligned. The article demonstrates the importance of news agencies and news-flow in the history of international relations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The study of transnational links between sub-national governments is a lacuna in the field of international relations yet the issue on inter-sub-national government cooperation has recently gained greater importance at the international level. Since the 1992 Earth Summit recognition of sub-national authorities as key players in global sustainable development strategies, the importance of decentralised cooperation between sub-national governments has been strengthened by a series of international standardisation and domestic incorporation of this principle. Yet our research raises serious questions about the degree to which Australia-Japan twinning of sub-national governments has made progress towards taking responsibility in facing global challenges. Our case study of Western Australia-Hyogo sister-state relationships shows that their 25 year-old cooperation has been suffering from a lack of awareness of the emerging role of sub-national governments. Not surprisingly, national government policy and position has greatly influenced the nature and patterns of their relationships. Australia and Japan twinning, as leading inter-sub-national partnerships in the region, can do more to promote the value of the local dimension in international development cooperation. In light of these challenges, the future of their twinning must lie in a structured long-term commitment for global strategies as well as mutual benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Balint examines the current case of Karoly Zentai, an Australian wanted for war crimes in Hungary, his country of origin. She explores the evidence for his extradition, the broader historical context of the Zentai case, from 1944 until the present day, and its implications for historical understanding in Hungary and Australia. In the former, the complicity of the state in the Holocaust remains subject to historical denial, drowned out by the dominant narrative of Hungarian victimhood in the war. In the latter, the migration of war criminals to the country via the mass immigration programme conducted in the Displaced Persons (DP) camps of post-war occupied Europe has been hidden by the more widely known story of rescue. Balint also explores the wider history of connection between these two countries, forged during the post-war voyages of immigrants from the DP camps in occupied Europe. She questions to what extent Zentai's extradition and possible trial would help to promote collective understanding of the 'lessons of history' in contemporary Australian or Hungarian society, and argues that, even in this 'twilight time' of Holocaust memory, such efforts are necessary, though risky, for the future as well as to do justice to the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia occupies a uniquely strong position in Japan's evolving security partnerships. The two countries' bilateral alliances with the United States, their common desire for U.S. commitment to and presence in the Asia-Pacific region, their common desire to foster regional multilateral security institutions for the purpose of disciplining China through inclusion, and their limited but significant capabilities to respond to security problems beyond the region have caused the two countries to nurture enhanced ties. Although this bilateral partnership has been more closely associated with trilateral cooperation including the United States between 2005 and 2008 (rather than with regional multilateralism), the expanding scope of Australia-Japan cooperation mostly encompasses nontraditional security areas, such as law enforcement, counterterrorism, and humanitarian relief operations. This approach seeks a middle ground between exclusive U.S.-Japan-Australia trilateralism and all-inclusive regional multilateralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]