Author: Kent Anderson & Joseph Lo Bianco

Languages are back in the news. As part of the national curriculum debate, English is one of the first cabs off the rank and Languages Other Than English are following in the second group.

The National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program also adds limited funding for the next three years to promoting four targeted languages.

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Author: Kent Anderson

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has made ‘Asia Literacy’ a key goal for his government. I am one of the strongest supporters of this agenda. Nevertheless, let me identify two significant issues that hamper our current approach.

First, Asia Literacy is a term that has to be interpreted broadly. It is commonly given too restricted a meaning. Doubtless the prime minister sees Asia literacy in its broadest meaning but it is important that language alone, however critical, will not make us an Asia literate nation.

On the language front, Asia Literacy in practice is represented by the National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program (NALSSP),essentially is a cheaper version of the Rudd-designed National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools Program, or NALSAS, that ran from 1994-2002. NALSSP will put $62.4 million over three years into developing secondary teaching of Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, and Korean.

Targeting these four languages as priorities is a pretty good bet. China is our largest trading partner; Japan is our largest export market; Indonesia is our closest neighbour; and if you were going to pick one country on which to take a punt Korea as our fourth largest trading partner provides pretty good odds. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Kent Anderson

Most driving accidents are caused by not appreciating the dangers in our blind spot – the overtaking truck, the momentary lapse of concentration. The same is true in international relations: consider how Schapelle Corby irrationally derailed Australia’s relations with Indonesia, or how the abduction issue in Japan derailed the historic engagement with North Korea. These are evidence of how events fired by domestic populism and fanned by tabloid media can undermine the most rational, calculated gains in international relations.

The Australia-Japan relationship has two blind spots that could undermine the obvious, rationally calculated collaboration on economic, political, security, and other affairs that make Australia and Japan the potential ‘bookends of peace’ in the Western Pacific. For Australia, the blind spot is underestimating the significance for Japan of China. For Japan, the blind spot is underestimating the significance for Australia of whales. These issues play in to domestic politics in both countries in unpredictable ways.

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Author: Kent Anderson

A report submitted to Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda this week from 80 members of his Liberal Democratic Party proposing a drastic increase in the number of immigrants allowed into Japan. The report recommends immigration to a level of 10 per cent of the population. As the population is now roughly 128 million people, this would be roughly 13 million people or about 11 million more foreigners than there are in Japan today (yes, a population around half that of Australia’s moving to Japan)

The first issue I ask about (see ABC Radio) is Japan’s homogeneity, multiculturalism, and xenophobia. As Tessa Morris-Suzuki has most convincingly taught us, Japan is not purely homogeneous. Yet, by any standards it is probably the most homogeneous country in the world by ethnicity, religion, social-economic class, media and educational socialisation, history (and had a long period as a closed-country — the sakoku period). The introduction of a large number of people not within that mainstream will without a doubt result in friction. I assert this without commenting normatively on whether that is a good thing or bad thing. The virtue or otherwise of homogeneity is a matter for another day.

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