World War 2 did not change Australian attitudes so much as it reinforced them. For a long time there was a fear among the Australian people of Asian invasion, firstly from the Chinese when they flocked to Australia during the gold rush, and then from the Japanese after World War 1, nicknamed the “Yellow Peril”. This attitude was in place because the Japanese had shown themselves to have a much stronger military than had been previously thought when they defeated the Russian forces in a territory dispute. The Russians had a quite mighty army at the time. The reason this attitude was enforced during World War 2 was because the Japanese one by one took over a huge number of countries in the region, right up to Australia’s doorstep, and even ended up bombing a lot of towns and cities in

The importance of trade relations was a major stepping-stone in changing the Australian policies and attitudes to Asia. Australia realized it needed it needed trade relations as the only way to pay for what they imported was to export. Another reason was that if Australia wanted to be a strong country in the region it would have to be richer and have a higher quality of life. This change in trade policies was another reason that good relations finally grew between Australia and the rest of Asia. This was a huge change as before the war the major trading partner, by default, was Britain as they were Australia’s mother country. When Curtin became allies with the USA this trading partnership broke off and Australia had to look elsewhere. The most obvious place was to Asia and since then our major trading partner became Japan and to this day still is. This was probably another reason that the White Australia Policy ended, that is because Australia could not afford to keep shutting out Japanese and Chinese (the other major trading partner) if they wanted to keep good relations and therefore keep the money flowing into the country. Even though the trade relations with Japan and China were a change in policies it had actually happened before, during the depression of the 1930’s. Australia was in such desperate need of money that it could not rely on only its trade partnership with Britain, it had to export scrap metal and wool to Japan. Another change was that in 1945 Australia was 6th in the world for exporting value added (manufactured) goods but in 2002 it was 25th. This shows that Australia had changed from exporting value added goods to raw materials, which aren’t worth as much. In relation to China, Australia realized that they must be a lot more diplomatic to them if they were to set up a trading partnership, so they supported the recognisation of China as a country and their entrance into the United Nations. Trade could also be seen as one of the reasons Australia supported de-colonization after the war. This is because as more countries became independent this meant potential new trade partnerships for Australia such as Indonesia and Malaysia. Another important occurrence was the formation of APEC (Australia Pacific Economic Co-operation) in 1989. The intention of this was to be able to have free trade between all members by 2020. The members wanted to counter trade blocs such as the European Union and USA where tariffs protect local industries.

Foreign affairs, immigration and trade are all areas in which policies and attitudes of the Australian people have changed since the beginning of World War 2 in the region in 1941. Australians were able to gain a better view into the Asian nations which surrounded them and be a lot more diplomatic than before the war.

Immigration policies and attitudes have also changed since 1941. One of the main policies at the time concerning immigration was the ‘White Australia

Some topics in this essay:
World War, Vietnam War, Baltics Yugoslavia, Japan China, Colombo Plan, Arthur Calwell, Asia Australia, Asian Pacific, Britain Australia’s, Defence Policy’, world war, policies attitudes, world war 2, war 2, australian people, australian government, attitudes australian people, white australia, attitudes australian, threat communism, australia policy, white australia policy, major trading partner, boat people, stop perceived threat,