Journal of International Studies

Every year, 1,000,000 tons of coal dust blows or washes onto Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. This has gone on for the past decade and is set to almost quadruple in the coming years as Australia accelerates its great coal rip off. Australia’s coal industry admits that it loads 50 million tons of coal every year onto its trains at the mine faces and unloads 49 million tons onto the coal ships at its main port in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef. The wind and rains take the million tons of coal dust lost in transit out into the waters of the world’s largest surviving coral reef complex, a World Heritage Site, already under threat from rapidly warming ocean waters. Of course, you wouldn’t know this if you watch CNN’s environmental series featuring Phillipe Cousteau. No, he blamed the typhoons hitting the Great Barrier Reef and failed to mention how in a few years it’s expected to see up to 5 million tons a year of coal dust polluting the great reef. Coal dust is particula...

Australia’s new foreign minister referred to Japan as Canberra’s “best friend” in Asia and announced Australia’s support for Japan’s military modernization during her first trip to Tokyo in her current position. According to  Kyodo , Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told a press conference in Tokyo on Tuesday that Australia and Japan “share values and strategic interests” and “having so much in common, it’s not surprising that we should describe Japan as our best friend in Asia — not only to say it, but mean it.” Later during the visit,  Bishop announced  that Australia supports Shinzo Abe’s effort to adopt a normal defense posture. “The Australian government welcomes the direction that the Abe government has taken in terms of having a more normal defense posture and being able to take a constructive role in regional and global security.” She continued on this theme in a speech at the Japan National Press Club. “We look forward to Japan making a greater contr...

After declaring the nation “open for business,” Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has set a target of achieving free trade deals with China, Japan and South Korea within just 12 months. Can the recently elected leader succeed where his predecessors failed? Having stated at the APEC summit in Bali that he wished to swiftly conclude eight years of negotiations with China, Abbott told reporters at last week’s East Asian Summit in Brunei that he was adding the nation’s second and third-biggest trading partners to the target list. “If you don’t set some kind of target, you don’t have the incentive to get things done,” he  said . “In the case of the China agreement, that has been meandering along since 2005, so it is very important that we…bring it to a conclusion. “The Japan and Korea free trade agreements (FTAs) have been similarly in train but unresolved…let’s give ourselves 12 months to bring these agreements to a satisfactory conclusion.” Talks on an FTA with China co...

To travel in the Asia-Pacific is to reacquaint yourself with geography. Case in point: Australia. For Americans, Australia is Foster's, throwing meat on the barbie (a term I haven't heard once this week) at Outback Steakhouse, and Crocodile Dundee. None of those are bad things. But there's more to the country than that. A quick survey of the environs: First, Australia is an island, a continent and a nation all at once. It bears some resemblance to the United States in that sense, albeit without even the friendly, and far from geopolitically troublesome, neighbors to its north and south. Isolated from external threats by water, Australia, like the United States, has the option — and at times displays a propensity — to turn inward, neglecting the sea and the navy. I'd be a rich Naval Diplomat if I had a dollar for every time I've heard this lament from Australian officers at this week's Sea Power Conference. Seafaring culture demands care and feeding to thr...