Publication

In this paper the author argues that the factor that most strongly drives the close Japanese-Australian relationship is not, as many argue, their long, complementary trade and investment relationship, the fact that both are close allies of the US, or that their status as two of the region’s longest standing democracies forges a common outlook. Rather, Japan and Australia are drawn together most powerfully by their shared ambivalence about how they relate to the Asian region, by their shared fear of being labelled outsiders and locked out of an exclusive Asian bloc, and by their shared aspirations to forge an Asian regionalism that accommodates their interests and ambivalences.