Independence is a powerful, unifying idea that has coursed through Western history from Thermopylae to Catalonia, inspiring nations to greatness and sometimes war. But Australia’s march to independence was relatively uneventful and prosaic. Statues of iconic liberators are notably absent in our cities and towns because there was no war of independence or bloody struggle to throw off the colonial yoke.
Whether through the absence of heroic sacrifice or our sometimes obsessive need for great and powerful friends, it is remarkable how perceptions that Australia lacks foreign policy independence persist more than a century after our formal separation from England.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is reported to have dismissed Australia “as not a real country”. Many of our Asian neighbours still regard Australian foreign policy as subservient to Washington’s, a position echoed by domestic critics such as Paul Keating, who castigates the government for ceding foreign policy to the US.
However, the looming challenge to Australia’s independence is not the US but China. Continue reading …