ABSTRACT
This chapter revises the attendant political and social contest in Australia’s engagement with Asia and attitudes to migration from Asia. The character and extent of Australia’s domestic debates about racism has been well documented. It is recast here more purposefully in relation to regional identity making to underpin the link with what was to emerge subsequently: a reformulation of diversity within a rationale of individual productivity for international competitiveness. The discussion is framed in terms of Asia’s resistance to Australia’s regional overtures, and resistance to ethnocultural diversity within Australia. That resistance took the shape of a debate on what was termed ‘Asian values’ – a work ethic and productivity claim implying actual value bound up in national and supranational cultural identity.
