Three days after the release of her government's much-anticipated "Australia in the Asian Century" white paper, Australian ambassador to China Frances Adamson sought to reaffirm that Canberra is committed to deeper ties with China and the Asia-Pacific region.

Frances Adamson, Australian ambassador to China, answered reporters' questions Wednesday regarding the "Australia in the Asian Century" white paper released earlier this week. [Corey Cooper/China.org.cn]

At an Oct. 31 news conference at the Australian Embassy in Beijing, Adamson reinforced that Australia welcomes China's rise as a global power, saying that China's participation in the Asia-Pacific region's strategic, economic and political development "deepens and strengthens the entire international system."

Adamson denied that a potential slowdown in the Chinese economy would severely curtail demand for Australian iron ore in the next few years, as some media reports have suggested. Australia exported an estimated US$44 billion in iron ore to China last year, which made up 36 percent of total bilateral trade between the two countries and 60 percent of its exports to China.

"We're confident that the ongoing process of urbanization in China will continue to drive a strong demand for Australian iron ore," Adamson said. "We see ourselves as well-positioned to continue to benefit over the long term."

In addition, Adamson defended Australia's record of non-discrimination in choosing sources of foreign investment, saying that certain decisions, such as Chinese telecom provider Huawei's exclusion from the Australia's National Broadband Network, were "not investment decisions" but rather were made on national security grounds to protect infrastructure.

She added that in the last four years, 380 investment proposals from Chinese companies (mostly state-owned enterprises) totaling roughly $80 billion had been approved by Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board. Seven projects were approved with conditions, but no projects have been turned down, she said.

In response to public concern over the motives behind foreign investments, particularly in the agriculture and mining sectors, Adamson said that the government will be implementing a national register of foreign land ownership in Australia in the near future. The Australian state of Queensland currently registers foreign-owned land, but such a register does not yet exist in other areas. "The government has clearly picked up from the community a sense of the need to have greater transparency and visibility on this [issue]," she said.

On security, the white paper reaffirms Canberra's formal alliance with Washington and the need for a "strong and consistent" American presence in the region, but calls for "cooperative agreements among major powers —China, Japan, Indonesia, India and the United States — as the economic and strategic landscape shifts."

China's military growth, Adamson said, is "a natural outcome of its growing economy" and should be tolerated, provided that China's military maintains an open dialogue with its counterparts in the region.

"This is not a world where a containment policy can work, or be in our national interest," she said.

Of particular importance to the Australian government is maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea, which carries a large percentage of Australia's seaborne trade. Adamson emphasized that in regard to ongoing territorial disputes in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and elsewhere, the Australian government "takes no position on individual claims" but encourages claimants to settle disputes "in accordance with international law and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea."

Setting the blueprint for how Australia plans to capitalize on Asia's rising influence in the world, the white paper outlines 25 national objectives for 2025 along with policy pathways to achieve those goals. Key areas include investment in education (particularly in Asian cultures and languages), tax and regulatory reforms, new efforts to promote trade and investment, bolstering regional security and stability, and strengthening the country's relationships across the region.

Providing Australians with Asia-specific knowledge and expertise is an integral part of Canberra's plan. By 2025, Australia aims for a third of the board members of its top 200 publicly-traded companies, and one third of the senior leadership of the Australian Public Service to have "deep experience in and knowledge of Asia." Australian students will be encouraged to study Asian languages, especially Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian and Japanese, which have been deemed "priority languages."

"Thriving in the Asian century…requires our nation to have a clear plan to seize the economic opportunities that will flow and manage the strategic challenges that will arise," Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard wrote in the paper's introduction. "The transformation of the Asian region into the economic powerhouse of the world is not only unstoppable, it is gathering pace."

Gillard, who unveiled the plan at the Lowy Institute in Sydney on Oct. 28, said she will create a new ministry of Asian Century Policy to implement education, infrastructure, tax, and regulatory reform, according to a CNN report.

Despite the white paper's aspirational tone and broad scope, critics in the international press and academia have alleged that it is "big on rhetoric and small on ideas" and will do little to actually facilitate Australia's integration with Asia.

"Despite all its exhortations to be 'Asia capable', the white paper appears to have a simplistic view of Asia as a manufacturing platform," wrote Kanishka Jayasuriya, director of the Indo-Pacific Governance Research Centre at University of Adelaide, on his blog. "Speaking Mandarin or Hindi is not going to make us an innovative nation, or even understand the region better. And here is the rub: public goods are needed to create, facilitate, and develop collaboration with Asia."

"'Australia in the Asian Century' will not produce successful businesses, or business leaders; it will not produce research and it will not grow the economy. What it will do is provide a compelling story that convinces voters the government knows what it is doing," said Steven Schwartz, Centre for Independent Studies senior fellow and former vice-chancellor of Macquarie University, in an op-ed for the Australian Financial Review.

With the next Australian general election a year away or less, Adamson shunned claims that publishing the white paper had such an overt political motive.

"I think the broad objectives [of the paper] are bipartisan objectives," Adamson said. "Some of the pathways [to achieving objectives] may differ, but I think some of those pathways may develop and some may change over time. I think the broad construct is one that the Australian community as a whole embraces."

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