It’s a powerhouse region, with more than 600 million people spread across 11 countries, which as a bloc, is one of the largest economies in the world.
But is Australia getting South-East Asia all wrong?
“We really mattered [there] a few decades ago. And we matter less now,” Professor Tony Milner, the director of Asialink at the University of Melbourne and a veteran observer of the region, tells ABC RN’s Saturday Extra.
He warns that as Australia keeps turning its gaze away from South-East Asia, we’re missing out on big economic, political and cultural benefits.
An ‘extraordinary range of countries’
South-East Asia is made up of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam (which together form the Association of South-East Asian Nations, or ASEAN) and Timor-Leste.
It’s an incredibly diverse region.
There are hundreds of ethnic groups with distinct cultures. Thousands of languages are spoken.
And there’s an array of religious beliefs – with the world’s most populous Muslim country (Indonesia), along with one of the most populous Catholic countries (the Philippines) and most populous Buddhist countries (Thailand).
Politically, there are several different systems, but with much stability across countries. The big exception is the one country wracked by ongoing unrest and armed conflict: Myanmar.
Together, South-East Asia has a GDP of around US$3.6 trillion ($5.4 trillion) – for comparison, Australia’s GDP is around US$1.7 trillion ($2.5 trillion) – and includes one of the world’s most important financial centres, Singapore.
Just don’t refer to it as Australia’s backyard.
“I saw a phrase the other day in an article … still referring to South-East Asia as our ‘backyard’. That’s not a way of capturing the Australian public, [showing] the extraordinary range of countries around us now,” Milner says.
Australia’s declining influence
Milner says Australia’s relationship with South-East Asia has changed dramatically over recent decades, in a big part, because “the relativities have changed”.
“Our GDP was, not all that long ago, larger than the whole of the ASEAN GDP put together. And now, they’re more than double ours,” he says.
“ASEAN is our second biggest trading partner, but we’re only their eighth or ninth biggest trading partner, with 2-3 per cent of their trade.“
“We also have a lot more competition in the region. Korea meant nothing a couple of decades ago in terms of the economy of South-East Asia. Now they do well over twice as much trade there as we do.”
One piece of information that several experts have cited: Australia’s stock of investment in Vietnam, for example, is less than that of the Danish toy and games company Lego.
Then there are diminishing attitudes in South-East Asia towards Australia – something the State of South-East Asia Survey sheds light on.
The survey asks South-East Asian opinion leaders from fields like academia, business, NGOs and government about the region.
“When it comes to education – provision of ‘Western’ education in the region – we do OK,” Milner says.
“But we’re not seen as significant players in a whole lot of other areas; there’s really quite low percentages given to Australia.”
He says in areas around “influencing, promoting free trade and a rules-based order … we don’t come through very strongly”.
Milner says this is in contrast to a few decades ago when Australia played a role in the Cambodian peace process, was central in the creation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Cairns Group of Fair Trading Nations, and was a leader in the Chemical Weapons Convention.
There are far fewer examples from the last couple of years.
“It’s bothering. We do have work to do,” he says.
Moving forward
According to Milner, the most “obvious” issue with South-East Asia we need to address is “we’re very weak in terms of our investment in the region”.
Meanwhile, the region is getting an “enormous amount of investment” from other parts of the world, including the US and Europe.
“Do we not trust the region? Why can’t we be in there? Why can’t we be leaders?” Milner says.
There are signs that the Albanese government is hoping to address this. Late last year, it appointed former CEO of Macquarie Group Nicholas Moore as Special Envoy for South-East Asia.
Part of Moore’s job is to explore how Australia can capitalise on the potential of new classes of South-East Asian citizens emerging into much more wealth.
Moore is one of several who has pointed out that by 2040, across most South-East Asian economies, there could be almost 26 million households with disposable incomes of over US$35,000 ($52,000).
“We talk a lot about India, but … the ASEAN GDP is larger than the Indian one, and certainly bigger in trade terms in the world than India. So we’re missing something,” Milner says.
Hard work locally
Milner says the connection goes further than business ties and foreign outreach.
“Gosh, we’ve got to work hard here in Australia,” he says.
For example, there’s the limited uptake of South-East Asian languages and studies at Australian schools and universities.
Year 12 enrolments in Indonesian language (Bahasa Indonesia) have declined by 50 per cent in one school generation, according to the Asia Education Foundation.
A 2020 study found people undertaking Indonesian language at university level went down by 63 per cent from 1992 to 2019.
And universities have cut back on Asian studies programs and staff, prompting an outcry from South-East Asia observers.
“We don’t have a historian of South-East Asia at the moment at ANU [the Australian National University]. That is extraordinary – a place that once led the world in Asian studies,” Milner says.
He also points to broader sentiments around Australia’s place in the world.
“We’ve got to get South-East Asia into our imagination,” he says.
“Looking at Lowy Institute polls, the one line in our thinking about the world is that we’re a US ally. That is just not good enough … We’re much more than that,” he says, adding we should be “a country identifying itself as deeply involved in South-East Asia”.
Summing up, Milner says we may need a reset with the region, but one that’s based on a positive past.
“Here’s an area we’ve spent decades in … We’ve got a record of involvement. We’ve got officials. We used to have academics with strong knowledge of that region. [There’s the] business community with some involvement in a trading way,” he says.
“But we’re not using those assets – and that is really worrying.”
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