ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how Australian protestors and governments perceived, encountered, and allied themselves with Australia's near-northern neighbors, as these nations experienced their own versions of the 1960s phenomenon. Equally, there is not one narrative of the 1960s, but many: of a global student, racial, and colonial rebellion, the development of detente, and, in Australia's case, a slow opening to Asia. The chapter argues that this opening occurred on two levels, social movements and elite policy. Australia had long relied on "great and powerful friends," first the United Kingdom and subsequently the United States of America, to defend the sparsely populated landmass from imagined Asian aggression. The mood of optimism after World War II, which saw Australia play a pivotal role in founding the United Nations and widespread popular support for Asian decolonization, gave way to a 1950s where peace and anti-nuclear groups were condemned as communist fronts. Australians began looking at Asia differently in the 1970s.
