I'm glad my short post on Prime Minister Gillard's foreign policy has sparked a few responses. This is exactly why I wrote it. Thanks Graeme for your thoughtful post, but alas, it was not me asking the incorrect question but the Xinhua journalist. Journalists ask and we answer.
Alison Broinowski's response led me to scratch my head. In her desire to, again, criticise Australia's alliance relationship with the US, Alison seems to reduce Australia's bipartisan policy of engagement with Asia to engagement with the People's Republic of China.
Many East Asian states are strengthening their security relations with the US and with each other as their economies become more intertwined with that of the PRC. Apart from the DPRK and Myanmar, it is hard to see who is not doing this. Australia in this sense is very much in step with Asia. Our deeper security engagement with the US actually strengthens Australia's Asian engagement policy. Thankfully, like her Coalition and (most) Labor predecessors, Prime Minister Gillard has 'stood up' and accepted this synergy.
Photo by Flickr user US Embassy Canberra.
