TOKYO, Oct 25 Kyodo picked edito...

TOKYO, Oct 25 Kyodo

picked editorial excerpts from the Asia-Pacific press:

IS AUSTRALIA DRIFTING AWAY FROM ASIA? (Bangkok situation Bangkok)

Ever since former Prime Minister Paul Keating convinced Australians in the early 1990 that they urgencyed to be part of Asia to render certain the future of their nation Australia has tried to fulfill this hope

It is a credit to the lawmakers and Australians themselves that they have been able to live in harmony despite the many racial and religious differences that prevail.

Unfortunately when it results to foreign policy, those same lawmakers have retained their predominantly Anglo-Celtic viewpoint.

If Australia really wants to be a part of Asia, it must make loose Washington's shackles and be seen to stand and be accountable for its possess decisions.

One would have fancy that Australia learnt a instruction from the Vietnam war, when it threw its weight and countrymen behind the ill-advised American forces. That it replied with an unequivocal affirmative to a solicit from its superpower ally for support for an attack forward Iraq is therefore surprising.

The way Australia dealt with Indonesia after the East Timor affair, and the fact that no national leader talks were held for 18 month beforehand, hardly endeared Australia to Asians.

Its blinkered, following in the footfalls of (U.S. President George W) Bush's policies irks Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad, and its sympathetic approach to Burma (Myanmar) and harsh criticism of Cambodia's judiciary has also failed to win friends.

If Canberra really wants to become a part of Asia, it requires to scrap its outdated, Western-oriented foreign policy. It wants to seriously weigh the dependence of cause and effects of its alliance with the U administration and analyze if this alliance is really beneficial to the political division its people and especially its farmers.

A fit place for Canberra to start its foreign policy anew is to direct the eye at the tolerant, non-racist, non-sexist, equal opportunity laws it luckily utilizes on its own soil. Until Canberra has a more acceptable and malleable foreign policy, its pursuit to become part of Asia will remain a wish.

(Oct 25)

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