8 - Australia and Southeast Asia

Summary

In the decade under review, there were signs of a lessening of outside great-power interference in regional affairs. The regional-security situation and the prospects for regional stability have in this respect provided grounds for optimism, although the situation is not entirely one which traditional Australian foreign policy in the region has sought. The long-perceived threat to regional stability posed by potential communist interference has been reduced not so much because of increased Western influence but more because of initiatives by Southeast Asian countries and, more dramatically, by the implications for world and regional affairs of the moves in the Soviet Union and China towards more open societies and towards economic priorities more responsive to free market influences. Also encouraging have been the indications from 1987 that the rivalry between these two countries was ending, although the Chinese repression of the pro-democracy movement has raised doubts about China’s development along the path to reform.