Unified Currency Chance with Asian Union, Says Expert
Jane Metlikovec, Herald-Sun (Melbourne), June 5, 2008
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A UNIFIED currency and open borders could follow any union between Australia and Asia, an expert says.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd today announced his plan to create a broad Asia-Pacific Community by 2020.
Professor Tim Lindsey from Melbourne University said an Asian Union was a fantastic idea.
“We are living in the “Asia century,” he said.
“Australia is uniquely positioned as the only Western society in Asia and we have never capitalised on that, despite most of our commodities going to Asia.”
He said Australia was still suffering from a “colonial hangover” by setting ourselves apart from Asia.
“This perception of ourselves as a European nation has to change,” he said.
“Our government-to-government relations have improved with Asia so much that we do need to capitalise on it now.”
Opposition MPs are divided about Mr Rudd’s plan, which he put forward during a speech to the Asia Society Australasia Centre last night, just days before he heads off on a week-long visit to Japan and Indonesia.
Mr Rudd has appointed former foreign affairs secretary and one-time ambassador to Indonesia Richard Woolcott as Australia’s envoy to sell the idea.
Opposition’s foreign affairs spokesman Andrew Robb says the plan is presumptuous.
“His (Kevin Rudd) first job is not to be making pronouncements about grand architecture for the region, telling China, Indonesia and Japan and India how they will be organised as a region by Australia in the next 20 years,” Mr Robb told ABC Radio.
“It is a little bit presumptuous.
“Once he has demonstrated a capacity to build and maintain and grow strong bilateral relationships with all these countries (and) repair the damage he has already done with some of these countries, then we can… maybe influence the broader architecture that shapes the region.”
But opposition trade spokesman Ian Macfarlane is less critical of the plan, saying he wants to see the detail before making a judgment.
“At face value, it’s a step in the right direction,”he told reporters.
“But, as we know, from Kevin Rudd he’s all about spin and not good on detail so when I see the detail I’ll have more to say.”
(Posted on June 5, 2008)
Comments
We are living in the “traitor century” and Red China would still be exporting little more than firecrackers if it weren’t for the treasonous Western corporations moving their production there to take advantage of their captive slave labor market…
Posted by at 5:54 PM on June 5
Instead of Australia joining Asia or the US merging with Mexico, why doesn’t the entire Northern Hemisphere, Europe, Canada, US and Russia along with Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and Uruguay form into one large trading partner?
Posted by at 6:11 PM on June 5
Probably smart of them because European nations are not so European anymore. At least e. asia is a homogeneous area and less pukey to deal with than many PC European goverment and US. Asians don’t demand that we give preferential treatment to blacks, muslims, and other minorities since they don’t care. ‘White’ nations have gladly fallen in line about following asians in the new world. Well, better asians than africans, I suppose. I just hope we learn some smart ideas about race from the asians.
:shake head in puzzlement:
Posted by realist at 6:41 PM on June 5
“Asian” of course means black muslim.
Posted by at 7:07 PM on June 5
Rudd is a neocon globalist. Get rid of this man Australia or you’re through.
Posted by Quinn at 8:10 PM on June 5
Idiots. Let’s hope Kevin Rudd is all spin and no details so that the plan never gets implemented. Oh…Note to Australians…..You are a European Nation and you better keep it that way, unless you want all europeans to go extinct.
Posted by Catfish at 8:24 PM on June 5
Not one word about how maybe some people might want to live in a European country. Tyranny. No allegiance is owed to such a government. None of its officials have a legitimate claim to the protection of Anglo-Saxon law.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 8:37 PM on June 5
hmm sounds like the Alexander the Great plan, maybe Prime Minister Rudd can “lead the way” by marrying a chinese woman and what the hell, an Indonesian also. The globalist rats who have drilled holes in the hull of the ship of the west are now looking for ways to escape the disaster they have brought down on us. One can only hope that one day the race traitors will get the justice they deserve. So Australia plans to kiss up to the Asians and beg for crumbs, pathetic.
Posted by Enough at 8:42 PM on June 5
Absolute, mind boggling suicide. The mentality of these morons is increduously unbelievable!!! Where do these idiots come from!!! An Australia with 19 million white people offering open borders to 3 billion asians equals the end of Australia and the end of the white race in Australia. Don’t they care, or is this too hard for them to figure out??? Australians better do something very quickly to rid themselves of these crazies because in 20 years you won’t have a state. Why do you think they took all your guns away from you???
Posted by at 9:46 PM on June 5
Australia had better not call the USA when the Chinese Navy and Air Force begins landing troops in Melburn. Australia, the white flag nation.
Posted by the Soviet Republic of New Jersey at 10:22 PM on June 5
“We are living in the “Asia century.”
“This perception of ourselves as a European nation has to change.”
Boy…Don’t you just love the logic of capitalism? Geezuz.
George Fitzhugh was right: capitalism IS worse than slavery.
Even the most brutal slaveholder wouldn’t of expected his slaves to revel in the fact that they were about to be replaced by Chinese “coolies.”
*How much do you want to bet that “Professor Tim Lindsey from Melbourne University” here belongs to the “Australian” equivalent of the Council on Foreign Relations?
Posted by Mean Gene at 11:42 PM on June 5
Another traitor to Western Civilization ….
Western / European cultures are passe’
Eastern / Asian cultures are the future
Sell the whole country out for some yuan, yen, etc. etc.
Open borders??? Australia’s population is 20M, Asia is 2+ Billion … native Australians will be reduced to rounding error and become virtual slaves to the Asians when they take over.
How will any of this be good for Australians??? The point is that it will be terrible except for the powerful and wealthy classes who will sell out the nation for their own gain.
However, it will “grow the economy” and produce a multitude of ugly, crowded, “Hong Kongs” in the few green spots that Australia possess. After all, one has to house the hundreds of millions of Asians who will move to Australia someplace, and what better housing is there than densely packed, high-rise dwellings???
Steve Irwin nust be turning over in his grave.
Posted by Skipper at 12:06 AM on June 6
A thing I know about the world currency is this. I have been in the deepest parts of the South East Asian jungles and have found that the U.S. dollar is accepted anywhere. The same thing applies to anywhere in South or Central America and Mexico. This is also true here in the middle east. NO OTHER currency is as valued as the U.S. dollar, even at it’s current low value. It is still the most valued currency on this planet and the most widely accepted. Even terrorists and drug dealers only deal in the U.S. dollar.
Posted by Skip at 2:14 AM on June 6
Someone should point out to Kevin Rudd and his fellow Asianisers that Australia is a distinct continent, separate from Asia. Most European cities are closer to Asia than the Australian capital Canberra.
Oh wait, I forgot, geography isn’t an obstacle to the elites. If they can’t literally bring Australia to Asia, they’ll simply bring Asia to Australia via mass immigration.
Posted by E.B. at 2:19 AM on June 6
There simply isn’t enough water in Australia to support the human tsunami that would ensue if the water head Prof. Lindsay’s
ideas were put into practice.
Posted by underdog at 6:05 AM on June 6
”“This perception of ourselves as a European nation has to change,” he said.”
Why? Were the people ever consulted about whether they wanted their nation changed? No, I didn’t think so. Who made you the boss of such a thing?
Posted by at 6:43 AM on June 6
Actually, this postion is justified.
Britain, Australia’s former colonial power effectively abandoned Australia 40 years ago by joining the European Union and then slapping high tarriffs on Australian agricultural produce.
Australia used to rely on Britain as its main trading partner, but now Britain is stripped of poroductive industry (it ships precious few cars or other industrial products to Australia), and it buys little from Australia, the gap is filled by China and Japan on Whom Australia relies upon for its prosperity.
Posted by Kenelm Digby at 8:30 AM on June 6
Given the rising cost of fuel, globalization will have to be more regional. Cheap imports/exports are a thing of the past.
Australia is simply acknowledging reality.
Posted by at 11:17 AM on June 6
There are only two ideologies (one secular and one sectarian) that want to control the whole world and force everyone to live by their dictates: Communism and Islam. Communism has partnered with capitalism to create globalism and has pulled out all the stops in their quest to create a global totalitarian police state. They intend to merge all nations into conquered blocks and them merge the conquered blocks into one global block void of borders, sovereignty, liberty and prosperity. They intend to create a living hell without a middle-class nor any pathway for the slaves to migrate from the peasant class to the ruling class. Power drives men mad and technology places heretofore unheard of power in the hands of these clinically insane tyrants. I don’t believe I need to remind most of the people who frequent this site that communists are our enemies and as such our work is cut out for us…
Posted by at 12:01 PM on June 6
Underdog’s comment about there not being enough water in Austraia is exactly correct. Australia is the size of the US lower 48 states, but is really just a desert with a ring around it. Australia will never be able to develop an equivalent of the US midwest, because they have nothing like the Mississippi River or the Great Lakes. The US region that inland Australia most closely resembles is the Great Basin, between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas. In addition, the wildlife habitat destruction resulting from development of the coastal forests is already a hot topic there. This won’t happen; rest assured.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 12:12 PM on June 6
Now that Australia’s government has both oppressed the people’s liberty and declared that Australia is underpopulated due to low birth rates claiming that negative population growth will have adverse long-term effects on the economy as the population ages and the labour market becomes less competitive, it looks inevitible they will step up their already extremely liberal immigration policies.
I suppose it was a great country. Should we start speaking of Australia in the past tense?
Posted by Unemployed WASP at 2:11 PM on June 6
Australia has no choice. She is shut out of European markets, the Americans are incredibly protectionist. So Asia, by dint of geographical proximity, and its massive economic growth is the way to go. Australia’s economy these past few years has almost entirely been driven by exports of raw materials to China. Australia then buys back Chinese manufactures by the truckload. Don’t blame Rudd - it all started under Howard.
Kevin Rudd’s very attractive daughter is married to a Queensland banker - a Hong Kong immigrant. And he is a fluent Mandarin speaker who routinely professes his love for the Chinese people and Chinese culture.
Posted by John Liu at 6:58 PM on June 6
Kevin rudd’s son in law is chinese. He is making sure his grandchildren will have a comfortable future.
Posted by MIke at 7:32 PM on June 6
Your comments make it sound like the average Aussie has a say in what our leaders say and do.
Like you once they’re voted in, as the slightly lesser of two evils we’re stuck with them (for you four years, us three years).
100,000 people protested Aussie troops in Iraq here in the streets of Melbourne (alone) a couple of years ago, what good did that do?
Workers rights being removed, high fuel and food prices got the Howard government voted out.
Contray tp our politicans the average white (working)Aussie is still pretty zenophobic.
Posted by Gen X White Man in Oz at 8:53 PM on June 6
Kenelm Digby is right so far as the past is concerned, but it does not necessarily follow that Australia must be lost to the west. A more natural future for Australia, one in keeping with her origins, culture and institutions, could lie in the Anglosphere - a modernised revival of the old idea of Greater Britain. The same applies to Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the USA.
K.Rudd is a notorious sinophile, so nothing will improve while he is in power, but that won’t be for ever - perhaps Australia will emerge from her flirtation with China at the same time that the UK escapes from the European Union (tne immediate cause of this dislocation in the proper relationship between English speaking countries) and then we can go forward into the Anglosphere together. We may not have too long to wait.
Posted by jrb at 9:13 PM on June 6
Ex-Labor Party leaders have just shot this down thankfully.
Posted by A. White at 11:44 PM on June 6
“A more natural future for Australia, one in keeping with her origins, culture and institutions, could lie in the Anglosphere - a modernised revival of the old idea of Greater Britain. The same applies to Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the USA.”
As the Brits say, not bloody likely. First of all Australia’s largest bilateral trading partner is China:
http://www.austrade.gov.au/default.aspx?FolderID=2045
Japan is a close second.
Also air travel from Canada or the UK to Australia would take forever. At least from California I think we’re talking 20+ hours.
On the other hand Australia is a six hour plane ride from Hong Kong.
One pecular trait of Australia is that its foreign direct investment is dominated by UK/USA.
http://www.business.nsw.gov.au/aboutnsw/Trade+and+Investment/B9_foreign_invest_by_nation.htm
But then again Australia was a British protectorate and in effect became an American one after WW II, hosting a US base at Pine Gap.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap
But most of Australia’s trade is China and Japan. I would imagine that the Asean nations are probably a close third.
Australia did try to establish try remain closer to the UK, Europe and the US but I think it was an issue of distance. Asia’s economies were growing quickly and its much easier to ship cargo or catch a plane to anywhere in Asia than flying to Europe,UK or Canada.
Under Rudd Australia seems to be moving closer to the Chinese sphere of influence.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/02/05/1202090421830.html
Ironically the only people who are more concerned than white nationalists with Australia’s deepening ties to China are other Asian countries.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0607/p05s01-woap.html
“India and Japan, in particular, feel that the Australians are paying far too much attention to China. “
Posted by Yellow Man at 7:04 AM on June 7
Ironically the only people who are more concerned than white nationalists with Australia’s deepening ties to China are other Asian countries.
I’m not surprised. Japan/India’s relationship with China might be good at the moment (or might not, I don’t know), but their sheer size alone makes them a de-facto threat, especially when their right on your border and are not shy about the concept of expansion. Anything that might give them seriously increased control of influence over another large piece of land, particularly one positioned between them and the US, should be watched closely.
Thanks for the CSM link. It was eye-opening, if a little disturbing.
Posted by BW Sam at 4:18 PM on June 7
“Ironically the only people who are more concerned than white nationalists with Australia’s deepening ties to China are other Asian countries.”
Ah, of course, those Australians who express concern over the loss of their European-derived culture and way of life and the dispossession and biological displacement of the existing European-Australian population through mass Asian immigration must all be ‘white nationalists’.
Posted by BI at 11:51 PM on June 7
Part of the problem with any Australian membership in an Asian currency union would be the corruption endemic to big business in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Phillipines. This would place the Australian wageearner and taxpayer strictly at the mercy of corrupt non-Australian businessmen, and expose the Australian economy to the next 1998-style Asian economic crisis.
Australians would do well to remember Malaysian President Mahattir’s wildly irresponsible remarks during the crisis ten years ago. With the Malaysian ringgit in free-fall, he threatened to take it off the world currency market. This of course only intensified the drive by investors to sell off their ringgits, further depressing the currency.
Malaysia and Indonesia have a combined population of 250 million; a dozen times that of Australia. A currency union would simply make Australia an economic satellite of her two corrupt neighbors, subject to being dragged down whatever path they take.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 11:58 AM on June 8
“Ah, of course, those Australians who express concern over the loss of their European-derived culture and way of life and the dispossession and biological displacement of the existing European-Australian population through mass Asian immigration must all be ‘white nationalists’.”
I hate to say this but I think you are wrong.
Australia’s econonmy is booming and its currency is at a 24 year high:
“May 19 (Bloomberg) — The Australian dollar rose to a 24- year high against the U.S. currency as raw material prices rallied, boosting the outlook for earnings from exports.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&refer=australia&sid=aGriLyMua7IA
Australia’s unemployment is at a 33 year low.
“SYDNEY — Unemployment in Australia fell to a 33-year low of 4 percent in February, figures released Thursday showed. The creation of 37,000 jobs in the month follows 13,000 new openings in January. “
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/asia/australia/2008/03/14/147130/Australia’s-unemployment.htm
Australia’s trade balance is improving and the country is one course to see its first trade surplus since 2002:
“There is a very real prospect that Australia will record its first trade surplus since March 2002 in the next three to six months,” an ANZ economist, Alex Joiner, said. “[And] this time we expect that the surplus may persist for years rather than months.”
http://business.smh.com.au/boom-starts-to-chip-at-deficit-20080605-2ma4.html
Compare this to the situation we see in the United States and Europe of increasing unemployment.
Its hard to see how trade with Asia in general and China in particular has caused any form “dispossesion” and “displacement” or has caused Australians to lose their “culture” or “way of life”. In fact I would go so far to say the opposite Asian trade has been a constructive force that supports Australia’s European derived culture and way of life.
Posted by Yellow Man at 5:50 PM on June 8
Asian countries aren’t forcing Australia into Asia. In fact Australia has been rebuffed in the past - especially by Mahatir of Singapore.
It is the Australians who keep putting their hands up “me asian too!”
Maybe not the ordinary folk, but those in power, Liberal or Labor, know that Australia’s economic future is in Asia. There is just no other alternative.
New Zealand similarly has just signed a Free Trade Deal with China. Australia is negotiating for one now.
Britain has gone with Europe, Americans are protectionist (especially against agricultural produce) and those places are just farther away than Japan, Singapore and China.
So Australia has the choice of remaining pauperized but white or rich but Asian.
That’s is a tough choice for some whites.
Posted by John Liu at 6:07 PM on June 8
“But then again Australia was a British protectorate and in effect became an American one after WW II, hosting a US base at Pine Gap.”
Yellow Man gives an interesting point here. Winston Churchill considered England’s safety to be overiding all other concerns, including the future of Australia, in World War 2. I believe that Australia’s leader at the time came to the USA and addressed the US Congress about how important Australia needed US help in the face of the expanding Japanese Empire.
Posted by at 9:05 PM on June 8
Kevin Rudd is a Christian socialist, generally they believe in good policies. However an Anglo-Saxon bloc must be created to stop the New World Order!
Posted by AF at 12:03 PM on June 9
John Liu,
Actually Matahir is president of Malaysia.
Lee Kuen Yew (?) runs or used to run Singapore.
Posted by Kenelm Digby at 8:10 AM on June 10
John Liu,
Actually Matahir is president of Malaysia
You are right. He was former PM of Malaysia. Mahathirs relations with Australia were notoriously rocky, from the hanging of two Australian drug traffickers in 1987 to other issues about human rights, Australia’s wish to get closer to Asia and handling of terrorism related issues.
Posted by John Liu at 10:36 AM on June 10
I am tired of hearing about how it is Asia’s century. It sure isn’t their century yet. This is still just a prediction for the future. So my question is why are so many white people sitting around with smiles on their faces waiting for such a thing to happen as if it “must happen”? We are the dumbest race in the world sometimes.
Posted by Courtney at 11:11 PM on June 10
Courtney, I agree with you. If Asia is the future, why are so many of their people trying to get to the West?
Posted by at 12:48 AM on June 11
I am tired of hearing about how it is Asia’s century. It sure isn’t their century yet. This is still just a prediction for the future…..We are the dumbest race in the world sometimes
The ‘dumbest’ race are those who become overcomplacent - like the Chinese were before defeat by Britain in the Opium Wars.
Anyone who has visited China on-and-off over the past 10 years will realize that there is an underlying truth to the notion of the ‘Asian century.’ I know that some people here find that just too hard to accept.
Posted by John Liu at 4:34 AM on June 11
“Anyone who has visited China on-and-off over the past 10 years will realize that there is an underlying truth to the notion of the ‘Asian century.’ I know that some people here find that just too hard to accept.”
All Western technology was given to China, more Asian copying. The wankers, er bankers want this to happen.
Posted by the central wank at 3:38 PM on June 11