Mr. Shaman
02-13-2005, 05:30 AM
"George Bush is not an easy export."
That judgment, expressed over lunch at a beautiful harborside restaurant by Allan Gyngell, executive director of the Lowy Institute, a year-old foreign policy research center, describes the only blemish on America's relations with this traditional ally in the South Pacific.
All of which makes the cautious reaction to Bush here something of a puzzle. Gyngell and his colleagues suggest that it has to do with what they see as Bush's intense belief in the uniqueness of America. "All Americans feel that," Gyngell said, "but with Bush, it is so strong that it hardly allows room for others."
This is a happy country, with a booming economy, budget surpluses, quite generous social services and stable, consensus-minded government. "Because we are so isolated from the rest of the world," Henderson said, "we have no choice but to get along with each other. We are very pragmatic, not very ideological."
Being pragmatists, Australians are carefully watching the emergence of China as a potential superpower. Gyngell said there is no serious neoconservative faction arguing, as in the United States, that China could become a strategic or military threat. "We see nothing but opportunity in China, a major market for goods and services and an economy that complements rather than competes with ours. It is now our number two trading partner, after the United States, and the fastest-growing."
Of greater concern is the uncertainty about the future of U.S.-China relations. Australia does not want to have to choose between its basic political-military alliance with the United States and its growing economic ties with China. A flare-up of tension between the United States and China, over the future of Taiwan or some other issue, would be bad news for Australia. And an armed conflict between those two countries would test the U.S.-Australian ties like nothing else in modern history."
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Gee.........with such a great economy, you'd think the Aussies would want to buy some kind of weaponry from Bushco!!
That judgment, expressed over lunch at a beautiful harborside restaurant by Allan Gyngell, executive director of the Lowy Institute, a year-old foreign policy research center, describes the only blemish on America's relations with this traditional ally in the South Pacific.
All of which makes the cautious reaction to Bush here something of a puzzle. Gyngell and his colleagues suggest that it has to do with what they see as Bush's intense belief in the uniqueness of America. "All Americans feel that," Gyngell said, "but with Bush, it is so strong that it hardly allows room for others."
This is a happy country, with a booming economy, budget surpluses, quite generous social services and stable, consensus-minded government. "Because we are so isolated from the rest of the world," Henderson said, "we have no choice but to get along with each other. We are very pragmatic, not very ideological."
Being pragmatists, Australians are carefully watching the emergence of China as a potential superpower. Gyngell said there is no serious neoconservative faction arguing, as in the United States, that China could become a strategic or military threat. "We see nothing but opportunity in China, a major market for goods and services and an economy that complements rather than competes with ours. It is now our number two trading partner, after the United States, and the fastest-growing."
Of greater concern is the uncertainty about the future of U.S.-China relations. Australia does not want to have to choose between its basic political-military alliance with the United States and its growing economic ties with China. A flare-up of tension between the United States and China, over the future of Taiwan or some other issue, would be bad news for Australia. And an armed conflict between those two countries would test the U.S.-Australian ties like nothing else in modern history."
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Gee.........with such a great economy, you'd think the Aussies would want to buy some kind of weaponry from Bushco!!