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The Bonds of Culture and Commonwealth in Southeast Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

P. J. Boyce
P. J. Boyce
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania
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Extract

To what extent can it still be argued that Australia enjoys a ‘special relationship’ with Malaysia and Singapore, and, if such a relationship exists, is its maintenance conditional upon purely strategic advantage? ‘Special relationship’ are elusive concepts in the vocabulary of international diplomacy. Presumably they require both objective and subjective proof of their existence. In other words, it would take more than an affirmation by the Malaysian and Australian governments to show that a special relationship existed between them. Demonstrations of unusual solidarity or harmony of interest would presumably be sought to test the affirmations.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 2 , Special Issue 1: Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia , March 1971 , pp. 71 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1971

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References

1 ‘Twenty-one Years of Australian Diplomacy in Malaya’, Journal of Southeast Asian History, IV, 2 (1963), 65–100Google Scholar.

2 ‘Malaysia and the Commonwealth’, in Wang Gungwu, Malaysia, Melbourne: Cheshire, 1964, pp. 379–380. Winks further asserts that emotional attachment to the Commonwealth has not permeated the rank and file of Malaysian citizens. He is probably right.

3 Frankel, J., ‘Malaysia and Singapore: Two Foreign Policies in Interaction’, The Year Book of World Affairs 1970, London: Stevens, 1970, p. 122Google Scholar. For a tidy collection of speeches and press articles on Singapore's place in the Commonwealth see Josey, Alex, Lee Kuan Yew and the Commonwealth, Singapore: Donald Moore Press, 1969Google Scholar.

4 See especially, Allan Barnes in Melbourne Age, 24 June 1968.

5 M. Ghazali bin Shafie, ‘Power Politics and Problems of Nation-Building in Southeast Asia’, unpublished paper delivered at University of Malaya on 22 February 1966. Ghazali is now Minister with Special Functions in Razak's Cabinet.

6 Malaysian Digest, 14 January 1970, p. 3.

7 Hodgkin, Mary C., Australian Training and Asian Living. Perth: University of Western Australia Press, 1966, p. 189Google Scholar. The most thorough survey of post-graduation experiences and attitudes of Australian-educated Asians is Keats, Daphne M., Back in Asia, Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1969Google Scholar.

8 See Basham, A. L., ‘Oriental Studies in Australia’, ASPAC Quarterly, II (Summer 1970), 18–26Google Scholar.

9 See Hughes, Helen, ‘Australian Investment’, in Hughes, Helen and Seng, You Poh, Foreign Investment and Industrialization in Singapore, Canberra: A.N.U. Press, 1969, pp. 62–85Google Scholar.

10 Ibid., p. 64.

11 Ibid., p. 70.

12 Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, No. 55, 1969, Canberra: Government Printer, 1969, pp. 431–433Google Scholar. The Year Book provides no statistics of Australian arrivals in Singapore or Malaysia as percentages of the total arrivals in those two countries, but such statistics are available in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.

13 ‘Twenty-one Years of Australian Diplomacy in Malaya’, 92.

14 Malayan Research Services, Report on Radio Audience Survey: Singapore Island and Johore Bahru, Singapore, 1959Google Scholar, restricted circulation.

15 For a useful analysis of the Anglo-American ‘special relationship’, see Dawson, Raymond and Rosecrance, Richard, ‘Theory and Reality in the Anglo-American Alliance’, World Politics, XIX. 1 (1966–67), 21–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.