ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that significant differences between the way in which Liberal-National Party coalition and Labor governments have seen Australia’s relationship with its regional neighbours and the amount and kinds of international aid and diplomatic overtures they have been prepared to provide. Successive governments have blown hot and cold on the inclusion of culture-related activities in their deployment of soft power in Asia. An initiative began in 1994 to expand the kind of activity undertaken in Hanoi through the establishment of AusHeritage, an incorporated group of private sector consultants and experts from universities and national collecting institutions wanting to work on Asian cultural heritage. A small Australian cultural diplomacy initiative was connected with the celebration of Hanoi’s 1,000th birthday in October 2010. The country’s heritage management system is probably insufficiently robust to achieve a satisfactory balance in Yangon between urban development and heritage conservation.
