Penny Wong: Rebuilding world orders with Australian multiculturalism
Penny Wong: Rebuilding world orders with Australian multiculturalism
WRITTEN BY XUYANG DONG
2 May 2023
The moment that Penny Wong and Anthony Albanese stepped onto the stage to announce the Australian Labor government in May 2022 was destined to be historical. The appointment of Penny Wong as foreign minister embodied the achievements of multiculturalism in Australia. As the first female foreign minister of Chinese-Malaysian heritage, Wong understands how Australian multiculturalism can influence and shape a highly diverse new world order.
In her address at the National Press Club on 17 April 2023, Wong said that “we are a land that is home to the oldest continuous culture on the planet, and to people from more than 300 ancestries. A nation whose people share common ground with so many of the world’s peoples”. Wong also pointed out that “one in two Australians are either born overseas or have parents who were born overseas, so this is a very Australian experience”. While Australia has failed to represent its diversity in its elite politics for decades, such representation matters to the multicultural communities in Australia as a step towards banishing the White Australia Policy and embracing the powerful positives of immigration within Australian society.
Still, Wong’s appointment is not a token one, and to regard it as such undermines her merits and the exceptional nature of her foreign policy achievements. She has already diversified Australia’s foreign relations strategy and extended its focus beyond China. During the same address, she called for a “greater self-reliance and a more active” foreign policy, while advocating for “making more things here, responding to climate change and making Australia a renewable energy superpower”. Wong is practising ‘shoe-leather’ diplomacy, restoring relations with the Southeast Asia and Pacific regions and advocating for First Nation foreign policy, while acknowledging British colonial history in the Indo-Pacific region. Her diplomacy works with nuances. She has diversified Australia away from the central US orbit and back to the region where Australia is rooted geographically, culturally, and economically, toward balancing power relations in the Indo-Pacific with an Australia-based lens.
Reuniting the neighbours with respect and critical assistance
Before Wong, relations between Australia and Indo-Pacific countries declined and, in some cases, soured. The Liberal-National Coalition government was dedicated to following the steps of the United States blindly, claiming the Pacific region as Australia’s “backyard” and thereby angering its Pacific neighbours. Negative reactions from countries in the region showed that this course of action was a non-strategic move that hindered Australia’s national interests.
Australia is being remade into an active and helpful middle power in its region with its own agency, constructively and strategically navigating its presence in the geopolitics of growing China-US rivalry.
The security pact between China and the Solomon Islands — signed in April 2022 — was a wake-up call for Australia. The pact was perceived as a significant security threat, even though it was partially a consequence of Australia’s lack of diplomatic interaction with the Solomon Islands and the region overall. It was also a clear reflection of Australia’s dramatically curtailed foreign aid, which demonstrated its unwillingness to support its neighbours. Australia now needs to modify its budget for May 2023 to start reversing this failure to invest generously in the region.
During her visit to the Pacific region, Wong did not condemn the Beijing-Honiara security agreement as the Morrison government had done but instead respectfully recognised that each country can make its own decisions. She later added, “what we would urge, as Australia, is consideration of where a nation might wish to be in three or five or 10 years”, followed by a localised proposition for “putting more energy and resources” into the Pacific region to counter climate change and help transition and development.
Wong showed the region that she came with respect as a neighbouring nation, acknowledged others’ national discretion, subtly placed policy recommendations as a friend, and provided support based on what the Pacific countries really needed. Wong defined Australia as part of the Pacific family and suggested that the Pacific family is responsible for Pacific security. With a deep and comprehensive understanding of the region’s struggles, she advocated that Australia should be “a partner of choice for the countries of our region” and “not patriarchs”.
First Nation foreign policy
In Canberra, she has also embedded First Nations’ history in domestic policymaking. To present Australia as a truly multicultural nation with respect for its own history, she went beyond migration to include the First Nations perspective in Australia’s foreign policy. She believes that “elevating First Nations perspectives will strengthen our connections across the world and in our region, especially across the Blue Pacific”.
During her first visit to the United Kingdom, she confronted Britain’s colonial history at King’s College. By sharing her personal experiences of the impact of historical British colonialism, she revealed the stories that were once not told enough to the world. She observed that these stories are hard to listen to, “but understanding the past enables us to better share the present and the future”. Wong did not represent the perspectives of the First Nations People in the speech, a group whose life experiences are largely unknown to her. A month later, Wong announced the appointment of Justin Mohamed as Australia’s inaugural Ambassador for First Nations People.
This is another ‘first time’ for Australia — the first time Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have a stake in the policymaking process. Hamish Fejo from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) highlighted that “the Indo-Pacific is home to the largest number of Indigenous people with 70 per cent of the 370 million original inhabitants worldwide”. Indigenous people can finally share their connection and their knowledge of the land with the Australian government, which could not only lead to a more sustainable future, as Fejo suggested but also enhance the relations and connections between Australia and the Indo-Pacific region.
Building a new world order
Hugh White from the Australia National University regards Wong as the “most capable member of the Albanese government’s foreign policy team”. She “has an aura”, as White noted in his latest work. Indeed, Wong has a rare aura for a leader from the West. Australia’s national interests are her prime motivations, but her outlook and concerns are regional and global. Such knowledge and empathy come from her cross-cultural experiences, as has been illustrated in her courageous, nuanced pursuit of policies.
Wong is building a new world order, where colonial history is no longer buried and a multicultural society can take a leading role in globalisation. Australia is being remade into an active and helpful middle power in its region with its own agency, constructively and strategically navigating its presence in the geopolitics of growing China-US rivalry.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Xuyang Dong is a China Energy Policy Analyst at Sydney-based think tank Climate Energy Finance. Her research focuses on China's energy transition, geopolitics, and energy cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region. Image credit: Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade.