Afa5 Are We Asian Yet

“One of Australia’s defining characteristics is the belief that the nation is headed for an Asian future. Destiny allows little room for choice.” DAVID WALKER The fifth issue of Australian Foreign Affairs examines Australia’s struggle to define its place in Asia as it balances its historic ties to the West with its geography. Are We Asian Yet? explores Australia’s changing population, outlook and identity as it adjusts to the Asian Century. David Walker examines Australia’s fears, hopes and anxieties about its place and future in Asia. Linda Jaivin analyses art, politics and propaganda in the cultural dance between Australia and China. George Megalogenis discusses how Australia’s ousting of PMs affects the nation’s reputation in Asia. Sarah Teo explores Asian perceptions of Australia and asks whether it can truly be part of the region. Sam Roggeveen proposes that Australia should foster a larger Indonesian diaspora. Christos Tsiolkas reflects on the complexities of identity politics. Aarti Betigeri examines the rise of India’s ambitious middle class. Peter Fray contemplates the imperilled future of truth in politics. PLUS Correspondence from Alison Broinowski, Jim Molan, Michael Shoebridge and Paul Bracken.

We live in an age of constant distraction. Is there a price to pay for this? In this superb essay, renowned critic Sebastian Smee explores the fate of the inner life in the age of the internet. Throughout history, artists and thinkers have cultivated the deep self, and seen value in solitude and reflection. But today, with social media, wall-to-wall marketing and the agitation of modern life, everything feels illuminated, made transparent. We feel bereft without our phones and their cameras and the feeling of instant connectivity. It gets hard to pick up a book, harder still to stay with it. Without nostalgia or pessimism, Sebastian Smee evokes what is valuable and worth cultivating: he guides us from the apparent fullness of the app-filled world towards a more complex sense of self, and the inner life. If we lose this, Smee asks, what do we lose of ourselves? “Every day I spend hours and hours on my phone ... We are all doing it, aren’t we? It has come to feel completely normal. Even when I put my device aside and attach it to a charger, it pulses away in my mind, like the throat of a toad, full of blind, amphibian appetite.”––Sebastian Smee, Net Loss

“The uncomfortable reality is that preserving an exclusive sphere of influence in the South Pacific is not going to be possible against a regional power that is far stronger than any we have ever confronted, or even contemplated.” HUGH WHITE The sixth issue of Australian Foreign Affairs examines Australia’s struggle to retain influence among its Pacific island neighbours as foreign powers play a greater role and as small nations brace for the impacts of climate change. Our Sphere of Influence explores the security challenges facing nations in the southern Pacific and whether Australia will need new approaches to secure its relations and interests. Hugh White argues that Australia will be unable to keep China out of the Pacific and must urgently renew its defences. Jenny Hayward-Jones examines whether Scott Morrison’s Pacific “step-up” can reverse Canberra’s declining diplomatic influence. Katerina Teaiwa explores how Australia’s climate change policy undermines ties with its island neighbours. Sean Dorney reports from inside the forgotten Australian colony of Papua New Guinea. Euan Graham proposes how to address Australia’s knowledge gaps about the Chinese leadership and military. Elizabeth Becker reflects on the unique challenges for female foreign correspondents. PLUS Correspondence on AFA5: Are We Asian Yet? from Clive Hamilton, Barry Li and Linda Jaivin.

The latest issue of Australian Foreign Affairs examines the rising tensions over the future of Taiwan as China’s pursuit of ‘unification’ pits it against the United States and US allies such as Australia. The Taiwan Choice looks at the growing risk of a catastrophic war and the outlook for Australia as it faces a strategic choice that could reshape its future in Asia. Hugh White on why war over Taiwan is the gravest danger Australia might be facing Lead essays exploring Australia’s military capacity to enter a war over Taiwan; the significance of the strategic choice that lies ahead for Australia; and the view from Taiwan Award-winning writer Richard Cooke on foreign policy jargon PLUS correspondence on AFA13: India Rising? Australian Foreign Affairs is published three times a year and seeks to explore – and encourage – debate on Australia’s place in the world and global outlook.

"The uncomfortable reality is that preserving an exclusive sphere of influence in the South Pacific is not going to be possible against a regional power that is far stronger than any we have ever confronted, or even contemplated." HUGH WHITE The sixth issue of Australian Foreign Affairs examines Australia's struggle to retain influence among its Pacific island neighbours as foreign powers play a greater role and as small nations brace for the impacts of climate change. Our Sphere of Influence explores the security challenges facing nations in the southern Pacific and whether Australia will need new approaches to secure its relations and interests. Hugh Whiteargues that Australia will be unable to keep China out of the Pacific and must urgently renew its defences. Jenny Hayward-Jonesexamines whether Scott Morrison's Pacific "step-up" can reverse Canberra's declining diplomatic influence. Katerina Teaiwaexplores how Australia's climate change policy undermines ties with its island neighbours. Sean Dorneyreports from inside the forgotten Australian colony of Papua New Guinea. Euan Grahamproposes how to address Australia's knowledge gaps about the Chinese leadership and military. Elizabeth Beckerreflects on the unique challenges for female foreign correspondents. PLUSCorrespondence on AFA5- Are We Asian Yet? from Clive Hamilton, Barry Li and Linda Jaivin.

Currently in Bill Gates's bookbag and FT Books of 2018Increasingly, the demands of identity direct the world's politics. Nation, religion, sect, race, ethnicity, gender: these categories have overtaken broader, inclusive ideas of who we are. We have built walls rather than bridges. The result: increasing in anti-immigrant sentiment, rioting on college campuses, and the return of open white supremacy to our politics. In 2014, Francis Fukuyama wrote that American and global institutions were in a state of decay, as the state was captured by powerful interest groups. Two years later, his predictions were borne out by the rise to power of a series of political outsiders whose economic nationalism and authoritarian tendencies threatens to destabilise the entire international order. These populist nationalists seek direct charismatic connection to 'the people', who are usually defined in narrow identity terms that offer an irresistible call to an in-group and exclude large parts of the population as a whole.Identity is an urgent and necessary book: a sharp warning that unless we forge a universal understanding of human dignity, we will doom ourselves to continual conflict.

A visually stunning narrative--told through journals, stories, images, and graphic novels--"I Live Here" bears witness to the lives of refugees and displaced people throughout crisis zones in four corners of the globe.

A witty, playful, intriguing and ultimately very moving novel of identity and loss. 'Stories are the only thing that defy death. Stories are truth. I hereby give you mine...' Peking, 1944: Sir Edmund Backhouse is a man of many parts. A polyglot scholar. An effete homosexual. A genius of perversity, a forger, arms salesman, occasional spy and fantasist. Also, if he is to be believed, the onetime lover of the redoubtable Empress Dowager of China, a woman many decades his senior. In his declining years, tended by his friend, Dr Hoeppli, he writes his memoir - 'a wild tale', as he calls it, 'far-fetched and fantastical'- of his affair with the Dowager Empress. Beijing, 2014: Linnie is an Australian woman of uncertain provenance struggling to make a living in Beijing. A Sinophile, a translator of film subtitles, the author of an unpublished novel about Backhouse called the Empress Lover. One day, she receives an intriguingly old-fashioned and formal invitation from a Professor H, an invitation that promises to reveal long hidden secrets of her family... And so two worlds collide. An enchantingly slippery, sinuous, playful - and ultimately very moving - novel of love, loss, identity and history from one of Australia's finest novelists. 'Jaivin's writing shines and burns.' Sunday Age 'the Empress Lover is a fascinating work, infused as it is with China's history, Jaivin's experience of it, and her own capacious imagination. Surely this is the novel to gain her a reputation as one of Australia's best and most versatile writers.' Sydney Morning Herald 'A supple and intricate piece of storytelling ... a touching,inventive and gratifyingly unpredictable novel.' the Australian