7_ 77_ _ 7
NQ DATE
M/ ' 9Jauay 97
EMBARON: o to b usedin an for
Tueday 29 January 1974
PRIME MINISTER'S ADDRESS AT STATE DINNER,
KUJALA LUMVPUR
The following is the text of an address by the
Prime Minister, Mr Whitlam, at a State Dinner given in' his honour
by the Prime Minister of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur tonight.
" It is thoroughly appropriate that I should have begun my
visit to six countries in the South East Asian region here, in
Malaysia. I am no stranger to your country. I come as an old
friend as the guest of old friends. I come as Prime Minister of a
nation with a long and proven friendship towards the people of
Malaysia. I come to re-affirm that friendship and to seek new ways
to strengthen the co-operation which has existed between our two
countries for more than two decades0 There is no country in the
region which better exemplifies the spirit of national independence
and regional co-operation than your own.
I believe further there is no country in the region where
the policies of my own government are better understood and where
the responses and attitudes of our two governments to the changes,
challenges and opportunities in the region are more-in harmony.
In this climate of change, in seeking new solutions to
new problems, Malaysia has responded with vigour and imagination.
We Australians have in our own way tried to do the same0 Our views
at so many points coincide, and so do the interests of our two
nations0 In particular, we march in step on three fundamental
matters. We both believe that the detente between the great powers
2.
can work, that it must be made to work and that the smaller powers
like Malaysia and Australia can help make it work. We both believe
deeply that this region should not become the area for confrontation
and competition between the great powers. We both believe that
regional co-operation and regional associations have a vital
contribution to make to the stability and prosperity of this region.
It is against this background of shared interests, sharedattitudes
and shared aspirations that I wish the policies and actions
of the Australian Government to be seen.
In Australia, we have broadened the range of our international
contacts. We have sought t~ o break down ideological
constraints which had for so long obstructed meaningful relationships
with countries such as China, East Germany and North Viet-Nam. We
have placed our relationships with the United States and the United
Kingdom on the basis of a more mature partnership. We have widened
our horizons and sought greater co-operation with the medium and
smaller powers of Africa, Latin America and the Pacific. We have
given our full support to all questions of human rights and declared
our opposition to any forms of lingering colonialism. We have sought
to remove any taint of racism from our national and international
policies. I would like to turn now to my own and my government's
approach to our continuing involvement in South East Asia.
I wish to make it quite clear that our interest in South.
East Asia continues undiminished. Our genuine concern about the
well-being of Malaysia and our other neighbo-urs-in this region is
a central pre-occupation and an enduring feature of Australian
f oreign policy. My government is a government of constructive change.
' What has changed in our attitude to South East Asia is not the
degree of our interest or of our involvement, but the nature of that
interest and that involvement, We seek to turn away from the
destructive confrontations of the past to constructive co-operation
in the future. After coming to office, we ended our military role in
Viet-Nam a role which Malaysia never had; we ended our military
assistance to Cambodtia assistance of a type which Malaysia did
d
not give to that country; we reduced our interest in ASPAC from
which Malaysia has already withdrawn; we sought to change the main. Ly
military emphasis of SEATO an organisation, of which Malaysia was
never a member; we decided to withdraw our ground forces garriscned
in Singapore which were removed from Malaysia in 1969.
Some of our critics have suggested that these and other
changes-indicate that the present Australian government is less
interested in South East Asia than its predecessors or that
Australia is embarked on an isolationist course.
I wish to rebut that thesis totally and I would hope to
put this idea to rest now, in Kuala Lumpur, at the outset of my
visit to South East Asia.
My government is, in fact, setting a new course for
Australia in this region. We have shifted the emphasis of our
continuing involvement in South East Asia from one primarily based
on ideological considerations and military alliances ' to one based
increasingly on developing trade with the countries of the region,
on promoting stability through constructive aid programs, on
encouraging security through regional co-operation, on a posLtive
response to the recent proposals that we should consider economic
assistance to agreed ASEAN projects, and on the development of
cultural contacts through the negotiation of cultural agreements wil. h
the countries of South East Asia.
We see in this re-orientation of our diplomatic efforts
the opportunity, which has been too often missed or ignored in the
past, to establish enduring relationships with the countries of the
region. It is not our wish to forge ties based on transitory
concerns but to seek out ways of developing bonds based on an
identification of those interests which will continue irrespective
of the governments in power in Australia or the region. Our imair
endeavours will henceforth be directed towards expanding rej. ations
in those areas of foreign affairs which are most likely to produce
lasting social and economic advantages for both us and our neighbours,
I believe that this shift in emphasis will, as our Minister
for Overseas Trade said in Bangkok in December, mean an increase In
trade and, hopefully, an increase in aid in the years ahead-as wel
as a general development of the network of cultural and other conta: cTs
with the countries of South East Asia. It means in fact that we are
going to live more thoroughly with Asia than in the past..
Some manifestations of this change are already evident.. k'
In recent months we have joined MEDSEA, the Ministerial Conference
for the Economic Development of South East Asia. Only yesterday
in Bangkok we were proclaimed an associate member of SEA4EO, the
South East Asian Ministers of Education Organisation. Earlier this
month we met for the first time with the Secretaries-General of ASEAN
to discuss ways in which Australia might assist agreed ASEAN economic
projects. I repeat that isolationism is not a policy option for
Australia. We are going through a period of change and adjustment
which I believe will result in a different but more endurin&.
Australian involvement than ever before with the countries of
South East Asia.
In this re-orientation I would stress that we have not
sought to widen our interests and contacts at the expense, of older
friendships. And this applies with especial force to Malaysia and
the ASEAN nations. 1 .1
For too long our interests in this region were seen
excessively in terms of defence. We ' do not now look on the countries
of South East Asia as buffer states or as constituting some northern
military line where some potential future enemy of Australia should
be held. Rather, we see these countries, especially Malaysia,
Singapore, T hailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, as countries
having a common interest with Australia and New Zealand in.
consolidating the security and stability of this region as a whole.
We are of course continuing defence co-operation. Ve hold
to our pledge to the Australian -people to maintain the five power.
arrangements until a more positive and enduring settlement is reached*
in establishing peace, freedom and neutrality in this region.
Accordingly, we see the programs of defence co-operation with Malaysia
and the stationing of Australian Air Force Squadrons at Butterworth
continuing as long as they remain relevant to the needs of both our
nations and relevant to the realities of the region.
our defence association is only one aspect of the.
relations between our two nations and our two peoples. We have our
longstanding common bond through our membership of the Commonwealth.
We have increasinfly fruitful co-operation at the United Nations
and the Australian Government now, as a matter of policy, consults
closely; with the countries of South East Asia before determining
our position at the United Nations. A glance at our voting patterns
in the United Nations will show that since December 1972 we have
voted together to a much greater extent than ever before.
We have at present over 6,000 Malaysian students in
Australia, many of whom have enriched our culture and widened our
perspectives. Others who have returned occupy prominent positions.
in your government-and Public Service. This exchange can only
strengthen the understanding of and friendship for each country in
the other. Trade and Australian investment in Malaysia have developed
rapidly. Only a week ago I announced a new Australian policy on
Australian investment overseas, especially in developing countries.
We want to encourage private Australian investment on a
joint venture basis in Malaysia in a way which will benefit the
p eople of Malaysia and will be favourable to the ownership and
control of enterprises by Malaysians. We understand and accept the
wish of developing countries to regulate foreign investment in
accordance with their own national aspirations and development plans.
We seek no less for ourselves and we see Australian investment
overseas in the context of mutual benefit and of economic co-operation
without exploitation. Recently the number of Australian tourists visiting Malaysia
has increased greatly. There has also been a rapid growth in the
cultural exchanges between our two countries. This is a matter which
I believe worthy of further active encouragement. I believe that
these programs of exchange between peoples and cultures have an
increasingly greater part to play in developing a wider, enduring
understanding between neighbours with different cultural backgrounds.
Let us freely acknowledge the differences in culture, but let us
learn more about each other and from each other.
W also have many other links. I am glad that we have
been able to make our contribution in the recent past to the
development of your Central Bank, your armed forces, especially the
Navy and the Air Force, your insurance arrangements and, indeed,
your Constitution itself.
All these links have contributed to a high level of
awareness and understanding of each other.
We, in Australia, have been impressed by the economic
success of Malaysia. I note that in your recent mid-term review
of the second Malaysia plan you have not only achieved, but have
exceeded your growth target. The importance of economic success is
absolute because only with economic progress will there be social
advancement and regional stability.
I do not, however, wish to comment only on Malaysia's
contribution to the economic development of the region. If
anything, in the past few years we have watched with even greater
, admiration the way Malaysia has evolved her foreign policies to
match the changed realities of the area.
Malaysia has, along with Indonesia, the Philippines,
Singapore and Thailand, established a workable, relevant and
important regional grouping ASEAN. ASEAN is an example to all of
us of the co-operation and understanding which can be achieved if
countries with a common interest in progress come together to promote
that common interest.
Malaysia has also used that forum to advance its concept
of a zone of peace, freedom and neutrality. Australia applaudls this
initiative and welcomes the objectives which the ASEAN countries have
set for themselves for a zone of peace, freedom and neutrality in
South East Asia.
It is a creative concept which, if fulfilled, will not only
benefit the nations included in the zone, it will itself be a further
step towards detente, if the great powers are able to agree not to
us e this region as the field for destructive rivalry. You have
acknowledged that the zone of peace, freedom and neutrality will
not be achieved overnight. It is evident that the great powers will
need to show more trust towards each other before they will come to
a point when they can agree mutually to accept the zone.
The search for detente has begun and I believe the
realisation will grow that it is only the imaginative farsightedness
of such new initiatives which will enable our world to attain the
peace and justice we all desire0
In the same spirit of hope but with the same awareness of
the difficulties in the way, my Government has suggested that some
wider regional arrangement for informal consultation between the
nations of the whole region should be established in the future.
7.
We consider that it is important that the countries of the Asian
and Pacific region should be able to come together to discuss common
interests in an atmosphere free of crisis, free of pomp, free of
drama, and free of excessive expectations of any spectacular results.
I recognise that such a forum cannot be achieved quicly.(
it
has to evolve from within the region, out of the wishes of the*
countries of the region. Like the zone of peace, freedom and
neutrality, it will only come about when the countries concern~ ed.
agree that it is-in their mutual interests to have such a forum.
Lest there be any misunderstanding, I want to emphas'ase that
we do not see such an association competing with ASEAN in any way.
On the contrary, we would see it as being complementary to ASEAN
which has proved itself to be a close, viable and natural grouping
of South East Asian states0
Malaysia and Australia are both moving in the same genera1
direction and, with the benefit of our long-standing friendship and
understanding9 we should, by working together, make our goals that
much more capable of achievement0 We share the same great goa:.--s
We are marching together towards them. In some matters, such as
normalisation of relations with China9 Australia has been able to
move more quickly than Malaysia0 In others, such as the es-tab. shnrt
of relations with North Korea, Malaysia has moved more quicky trian
Australia0 This has been because of differences in our circumstances
rather than differences in our ultimate goals.
We are each involved in our own way in an important
humanitarian experiment0
You9 within Malaysia, are trying to forge a free, prosperous
and harmonious multi-racia" l society.
We9 in Australia, notwithstanding our European origins, are
trying to build strong bridges and develop lasting links with
Malaysia and the countries of South East Asia0
But we both seek9 I believe, the same end, namely to
co-operate closely,, as good neighbours should, in a wider effort tc,
promote a stable9 more prosperous and peaceful multi-racial1 South
East Asian region.
When one sees the severity of the test which the detente
must undergo, as shown so suddenly and dangerously in the Middle East
when one sees the continuing frustration of our high hopes just one
year ago for real peace in Indo-China, it would be an exceptic'na'LiY
8.
bold or excessively naive man who declares his unqualified optimism
about the course of events and their outcome.
Yet, fundamentally, I am an optimist, certainly about the
future of our region. Diplomacy must be based on realistic hopes
rather than on resignation and despair. And from no country in the
region, from the effectivensss of its government, the growing
prosperity of its people, and the imaginative policies of its
leaders, do I draw more encouragement to sustain that optimism and
that hope than I do from Malaysia."