Whitlam correctly described his reforms as a “recognition of what has already happened” rather than as a revolution arising out of nothing. In fact, Australia’s British identity had been gradually decreasing. The fall of Singapore in 1942 had been a first big shock, the 1951 ANZUS Security Treaty an early recognition, communist threats in Eastern Europe and Vietnam warning signs. But Australia still looked to and sided with Britain long after the fall of Singapore. Australian troops fought alongside British troops in Malaya against communist insurgents in the late 1940’s, and in Malaysian Borneo against Indonesian infiltrators in the early 1960’s. Australia allowed Britain to test British atomic bombs in remote Australian deserts in the late 1950’s, in an effort to maintain Britain as a world military power independent of the U.S. Australia was among the few nations to support Britain’s widely denounced attack on Egypt in the 1956 Suez Crisis. In 1954 the first visit to Australia by a reigning British monarch, Queen Elizabeth, was greeted by an enormous outpouring of pro-British sentiment: over 75% of all Australians turned out on the streets to cheer her (Plate 7.9). But—by the time that Queen Elizabeth visited Australia again in 1963, two years after Britain’s first EEC application, Australians were much less interested in her and in Britain.
The dismantling of Australia’s White Australia policy had similarly proceeded in stages before Whitlam made it official, with the admission of Japanese war-brides in 1949 being a first stage. Under the Colombo Plan for Asian development, Australia accepted 10,000 Asian student visitors in the 1950’s. The despised dictation test for prospective immigrants was dropped in 1958. The Migration Act of that same year allowed “distinguished and highly qualified Asians” to immigrate. Hence when Whitlam announced the end of the White Australia policy in 1972 and repudiated all official forms of racial discrimination, his actions aroused much less protest than one might have expected for the end of a policy that had been espoused so tenaciously for over a century. Between 1978 and 1982 Australia admitted more Indochinese refugees, as a percentage of its population, than any other country in the world. By the late 1980’s, nearly half of Australians were either born overseas or had at least one overseas-born parent. By 1991, Asians represented over 50% of immigrants to Australia. By 2010, the percentage of Australians actually born overseas (more than 25%) was second in the world, trailing only Israel’s percentage. The influence of those Asian immigrants has been far out of proportion to their numbers: Asian students have come to occupy over 70% of the places in Sydney’s top schools, Asian university students appeared to account for a sizeable fraction of the students whom I saw strolling across the University of Queensland campus in 2008, and Asians and other non-Europeans now make up more than half of Australian medical students.
Other changes in Australia have been political and cultural. In 1986 Australia ended the right of final appeal to Britain’s Privy Council, thereby abolishing the last real trace of British sovereignty and making Australia fully independent at last. In 1999 Australia’s High Court declared Britain to be a “foreign country.” On the cultural front, the 1960’s dominance of British cooking in Australia, symbolized by meat pies and beer, was greatly broadened by many styles of international cuisine—and not just by the Italian, Greek, and occasional Chinese restaurants of the 1960’s. Australian wines now include some of the greatest wines in the world. (Hint: I especially recommend De Bortoli’s Noble One as a great but affordable dessert wine, Penfolds Grange as a great and less affordable red wine, and Morris of Rutherglen’s Muscat as a great affordable fortified wine.) The Sydney Opera House (Plate 7.10), opened in 1973, and now viewed as a symbol of Australia as well as one of the world’s great achievements of modern architecture, was designed by the Danish architect Jørn Utzon.
The debates about Who are we? have concerned not just the reality of Australian identity, but seemingly every possible symbol of identity. Should Australia’s currency still be called the non-decimal pound sterling as in Britain, or should it have a distinctively Australian name, such as the roo (short for “kangaroo”)? (The eventual decision was to discard the pound in favor of a decimal currency with an American or international name, the dollar.) Should Australia’s national anthem still be “God Save the Queen”? (In 1984 that British anthem was finally replaced by “Advance Australia Fair.”) Should Australia’s national flag still be based on Britain’s Union Jack? (It still is.) Should the heroic Australian defeat defending British interests against the Turks at Gallipoli in 1915 still provide Australia’s biggest national celebration, or should it instead be provided by the heroic Australian victory defending Australian interests against the Japanese on New Guinea’s Kokoda Trail in 1942? (It’s still ANZAC Day commemorating Gallipoli.) And—should Australia still acknowledge Britain’s Queen at all, or should it become a republic? (It still acknowledges the Queen.)
How does Australia fit into our framework of crisis and selective change?
For Australia, more than for any other country that we are discussing, the central issue has been an ongoing debate about questions of national identity and core values (factors #6 and 11, Table 1.2): Who are we? Is Australia a white British outpost that happens to be near Asia but takes little notice of its Asian neighbors? Are Australians loyal British subjects who depend for their self-confidence on approval by Britain, who look to Britain for protection, who feel no need for their nation to have its own ambassadors abroad, and who, to demonstrate their loyalty to the British motherland, volunteer to die in large numbers in remote parts of the world strategically important to Britain but not to Australia? Or, is Australia instead an independent nation on the immediate periphery of Asia, with its own national interests and foreign policy and ambassadors, more involved with Asia than with Europe, and with its British cultural heritage declining with time? That debate did not begin seriously until after World War Two, and it is continuing today. Even as Australia was debating its identity as a proud outpost of the British Empire, Britain was debating its own identity as the proud center of that empire (in decline), and struggling to assume a new identity as a non-imperial power heavily involved with continental Europe.
The theme of honest self-appraisal (factor #7) has increasingly characterized Australia since World War Two, as Australians have come to recognize Australia’s changed situation in the modern world. Australians have reluctantly recognized that Britain, their former closest trade partner, is now just a minor trade partner, that their former worst enemy of Japan is now their most important trade partner, and that it is no longer a viable strategy for Australia to operate as a white British outpost on the periphery of Asia.
The impetus for change in Australia has been partly external, partly internal. Part of the impetus has been the declining power of Britain, the end of Britain’s overseas empire, and the rising power of Japan, China, and other Asian countries. At the same time, part of the impetus has been internal, as Australia’s population has through immigration become decreasingly British and increasingly Asian plus European non-British, and that changing population has chosen different policies.
Australia strikingly illustrates selective change and building a fence (factor #3). Major things that have changed include shifts in how Australians view themselves; the development of an independent foreign policy, instead of leaving Australia’s foreign policy decisions to Britain; an increasingly multi-ethnic population and culture (much more so in cities than in rural areas); and political and economic orientation towards Asia and the U.S. At the same time, other major things have remained unchanged. The Australian government is still a parliamentary democracy. Australia still maintains important symbolic ties to Britain, such as that the Queen of Britain is still Australia’s head of state, the Queen’s portrait still appears on Australia’s five-dollar bank note and its coins, and the Australian flag still incorporates the British flag. Australia still maintains highly egalitarian social values and strong individualism. Australian society still has an unmistakably Australian flavor, such as a dedicati
on to sports: especially to the Australian sport of Australian-rules football (invented in Australia and played nowhere else), along with swimming, plus the British sports of cricket and rugby. Australia’s leaders themselves embrace the national pastimes even when they’re dangerous: Prime Minister Harold Holt died in office by drowning in 1967, while swimming in an ocean area with strong offshore currents.
In most countries that make many selective changes, different changes are made independently over many years. But one of the few examples of a unified program consisting of many changes launched simultaneously is the 19-day whirlwind of Australia’s Prime Minister Gough Whitlam from December 1 to December 19 of 1972.
The question of freedom from constraints (factor #12) has been important to Australia, and that freedom (or lack thereof) has changed with time. Until World War Two, the oceans protected Australia from any realistic risk of attack, just as they protected the mainland United States after independence until the World Trade Center attack of September 11, 2001. Since the Japanese bombing raid on Darwin on February 19, 1942, Australians have realized that their country is no longer free from external constraints.
Even before 1942, though, Australia’s European-dominated society has depended on help from supportive friends (factor #4): initially Britain, which in the years after the First Fleet even provided food, and later defense; and, from World War Two onwards, the United States. While Australia was never at risk of direct attack before the Darwin raid, Australians did feel concerns about French, German, American, and Japanese military and colonial expansion to Pacific islands, beginning in the latter half of the 19th century. Australia looked to the British fleet for protection against those concerns, so much so that Australia failed to take responsibility (factor #2) for its own defense during the 1930’s and allowed its own armed forces to atrophy.
Australia’s changes over the last 70 years have not been in response to an acute crisis, but instead have been a gradual process developing over a long time and accelerating since World War Two, as Australia’s British identity degenerated from a reality to a myth. While Australians themselves may not apply the word “crisis” to Australia, I find it useful to think of Australia as having undergone a slowly unfolding crisis, because Australia’s issues of selective change have been similar to those issues in other nations responding to sudden crises. In that respect, recent changes in Australia resemble changes during the same decades in Germany (Chapter 6), which also unfolded slowly. There were of course some notable moments in Australia’s train of slow developments: particularly the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, Singapore’s surrender, and the Darwin air raid, all within the span of 71 days. But crisis and change in Australia involved nothing approaching the transforming shock of the arrival of Commodore Perry’s warships for Meiji Japan on July 8, 1853, the Russian attack of November 30, 1939 for Finland, Pinochet’s coup and Allende’s death on September 11, 1973 for Chile, and the failed October 1, 1965 coup and subsequent genocide for Indonesia.
Australia’s reappraisal of its core values, and its train of selective changes, are surely not over. In 1999 Australia held a referendum on whether Australia should abandon the Queen of Britain as its head of state and instead become a republic. While the referendum was defeated by a vote of 55% to 45%, decades earlier it would have been utterly unthinkable even to hold such a referendum, let alone to contemplate the possibility of a 45% “no” vote. The percentage of Australians who were born in Britain is rapidly decreasing. It seems only a matter of time before there will be another referendum on whether Australia should become a republic, and the chances of a “yes” vote will be higher. Within a decade or two, it is likely that Asians will constitute over 15% of Australia’s population and its legislators, and over 50% of the students in top Australian universities. Sooner or later, Australia will elect an Asian as its prime minister. (At the moment that I write this sentence, a Vietnamese immigrant is already governor of South Australia.) As those changes unfold, won’t it appear incongruous for Australia to retain the Queen of Britain as its head of the state, to retain her portrait on its currency, and to retain an Australian flag based on the British flag?
PART 3
NATIONS AND THE WORLD: CRISES UNDERWAY
CHAPTER 8
WHAT LIES AHEAD FOR JAPAN?
Japan today—Economy—Advantages—Government debt—Women—Babies—Old and declining—Immigration—China and Korea—Natural resource management—Crisis framework
We have now discussed past crises in six nations. In our first four nations the crises exploded suddenly at times ranging between 166 years ago (Meiji Japan) and 46 years ago (Chile). In our next two nations the crises emerged more gradually but were at their peak around half-a-century ago. While one couldn’t claim that any of those crises reached a complete resolution (or a complete stalemate), enough decades have nevertheless passed in each case that we can usefully discuss the outcomes.
In the remaining four chapters we shall instead discuss crises that now appear to be unfolding, for which only the future will tell us whether they really did constitute a major crisis, and whose outcomes remain uncertain. These chapters concern contemporary Japan, the U.S., and the whole world.
Just as our discussion of past crises included Japan of the Meiji Era, let’s begin our discussion of possible current crises with Japan. (In this chapter I’ll consider only problems specific to Japan, but Japan is of course also exposed to the worldwide problems to be discussed in Chapter 11.) My Japanese friends and relatives, and Japanese people in general, acknowledge several national problems that worry them. There are additional problems that worry me about Japan, but that Japanese people themselves tend to dismiss or ignore. But too many discussions of Japan go either to the extreme of Japan-bashing or to the opposite extreme of uncritical admiration. Hence let’s preface our discussion of modern Japan’s problems with a discussion of its strengths. We’ll see that, for Japan as for other countries, some of its strengths are linked to some of its problems. The strengths that I’ll discuss involve Japan’s economy, human capital, culture, and environment.
Japan today has the world’s third-largest economy, only recently overtaken by China’s. Japan accounts for about 8% of global economic output, almost half that of the world’s largest economy (the U.S.’s), and more than double that of the United Kingdom, another famously productive country. In general, national economic outputs are the products of two numbers: the number of people in a country, multiplied by average output per person. Japan’s national output is high both because Japan has a large population (second only to that of the United States among rich democracies) and because it has high average individual productivity.
While Japan’s large domestic debt attracts much attention (more about that below), nevertheless Japan is the world’s leading creditor nation. It has the world’s second-highest foreign exchange reserves, and it rivals China as the biggest holder of U.S. debt.
One important factor behind the economy’s strength is Japan’s high spending on research and development (abbreviated R & D) to drive innovation. Japan makes the world’s third-largest absolute annual investment in R & D, behind only China and the U.S. with their far larger populations. In relative terms, Japan’s proportion of its gross domestic product (abbreviated GDP) that it devotes to R & D, 3.5%, is nearly double that of the U.S. (only 1.8%), and still considerably higher than that of two other countries known for their R & D investments, Germany (2.9%) and China (2.0%).
Every year, the World Economic Forum reports for the world’s nations a number called the Global Competitiveness Index, which integrates a dozen sets of numbers influencing a country’s economic productivity. Japan for many years has consistently ranked among the world’s top 10 countries with respect to this index; Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong are the only three economies outside Western Europe and the U.S. to rate in that top 10. The reasons for Japan’s high ranking include two obvious to lay visitors: Japan’s excellent infra
structure and transport net, such as the world’s best railroads; and its healthy, well-educated workforce especially proficient in math and science (more of that in the next section). Other reasons on the long list are less immediately obvious, but still familiar to foreigners doing business with Japan. In alphabetical order without trying to rank them in importance, the reasons include: control of inflation; cooperative labor/employee relations; highly competitive local markets; high-quality research institutions churning out lots of scientists and engineers; large domestic market; low unemployment; more patents filed per year per citizen than any other country; protection of property rights and intellectual property; rapid absorption of technology; sophisticated consumers and business people; and well-trained business staff. I promise not to give you a quiz on this long indigestible list, but the take-away message is clear: there are many reasons why Japanese businesses are competitive in world markets.
Finally, let’s not forget a feature of the Japanese economy that brings huge financial benefits today but that could cause trouble in the future. The only two countries whose economies exceed Japan’s are the U.S. and China, but they devote a large fraction of their budgets to military expenditures. Japan saves itself those costs, thanks to a clause of the U.S.-imposed 1947 constitution (now endorsed by a large fraction of Japanese people themselves) that reduced Japan’s armed forces to a bare minimum.
Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis Page 28
