How invested are we in understanding our ASEAN neighbours?

Investing in the ASEAN-Australia relationship requires more than summits, trade deals and visiting delegations. It urgently requires a long-term, substantial funding re-set in the study of Southeast Asian languages and cultures here in Australia, writes Elena Williams.

Leaders from the ten ASEAN nations, plus Timor Leste, gathered in Melbourne in early March to reflect on a 50-year history of collaboration with Australia and to discuss pressing regional challenges and economic opportunities.

Trade and investment were the centrepiece themes, with Australia keen to deliver on the recommendations made in last year’s “Invested: Australia’s Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040”report from Special Envoy for Southeast Asia, Nicholas Moore AO. By the end of the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit, the Federal Government had announced a $2 billion Southeast Asia Investment Financing Facility (SEAIFF); 10 “business champions” charged with fostering greater commercial links between Australia and ASEAN; and regional technology “Landing Pads” in Jakarta and Ho Chi Minh City, among other initiatives to boost trade and investment between Australia and its ASEAN neighbours.

These initiatives are welcome when we reflect that, currently, Australia invests less in the entire Southeast Asian region than it does in New Zealand, or that by 2040, the Southeast Asian economies combined are projected to rank fourth largest globally (after the United States, China and India). As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reminded delegates throughout the week, this represents a significant opportunity for our shared economic prosperity: “When our region prospers, Australia prospers.”

Certainly, the economic argument is both compelling and important. But building ties with our ASEAN neighbours requires broader investment than these packages alone can offer. It also requires the sustained, long-term, whole-of-government investment in Southeast Asia literacy and competency at home among young Australians to equip them with the requisite skills to work in and with ASEAN nations as part of their future careers.

In Australia today, only 11 tertiary institutions offer Indonesian language, and only five offer Vietnamese, despite Vietnamese now being the fourth most widely spoken language in Australia after English. Other Southeast Asian languages, such as Cambodian, Javanese and Filipino have “entirely disappeared” from Australian tertiary degrees. How are Australian graduates to build better ties with our ASEAN neighbours if they hold no understanding of its languages or cultures?

The Moore report acknowledges this gap through the “Education and Skills” priority, noting that, “increasing cultural literacy and capability is key to realising the breadth of opportunities in Southeast Asia".

Yet, aside from the announcement of further Aus4ASEAN scholarships and fellowships for Southeast Asians to study in Australia, education was otherwise barely discussed in the  Summit, with little mention of the ways Australians might develop the language and cultural skillsets to help Australia “prosper” in the region.

This is alarming in many ways, not least because it sends a message that the work of building deeper people-to-people ties can, essentially, be done in English. It does not address the fact that enrolment numbers in Southeast Asian languages across all levels, in all Australian jurisdictions, have been dwindling for more than two decades.

In 2022, only 560 Australian students studied a Southeast Asian language as part of their university degree. This is despite more than 32,000 Australian undergraduates travelling to Southeast Asia in the past decade as part of the New Colombo Plan (NCP) scholarship program, marking the highest-ever rates of outbound student mobility to the region.

The NCP has undoubtedly been a game changer in driving learning in our region since 2014. Yet, in my research on the impact of the NCP on Australia-Indonesia relationship building, the gap between an NCP study abroad experience and the opportunities for continued language study or employment, are markedly clear.

Speaking with 83 NCP alumni who studied in Indonesia through the Australian Consortium for ‘In-Country’ Indonesian Studies (ACICIS) programs between 2014 and 2019, I repeatedly heard stories of alumni who returned to Australia and were unable to continue their language studies due to Indonesian no longer being offered at their institution or were unable to find employment leveraging their newfound ‘Asia-literate’ skillsets. According to one University of NSW NCP alumnus:

“I had gotten to the level of basic Indonesian [in-country] and wanted to continue it. So, I looked into continuing Indonesian…but at UNSW, despite being in the most Indonesian suburb of Sydney, there’s no Indonesian offered anymore… and so I just stopped learning.”

Another student, a Murdoch University alumnus who studied business in Jakarta, questioned assumptions of a correlation between NCP experience, language learning and guaranteed employment:

“We're telling students, ‘You’ve got to study the language, you’ve got to do business up there.’ But if there's no light at the end of the tunnel with respect to jobs, well why are they going to do it?”

The comments highlight an eagerness among NCP returnees to contribute to Australia’s relationship-building with ASEAN, yet a lack of opportunity within their institutions and among industry.

The failure of government to build on the Southeast Asian literacy the NCP begins to foster in-country with additional investment in the study of the region’s languages and cultures, or of business to provide pathways to employment for these highly skilled graduates, will mean the NCP will be missed opportunity for Australia.

In its first ten years, the NCP has undoubtedly been a step in the right direction from the Australian Government. But there is more to do.

The Government needs to wholeheartedly take up the recommendation made in the Moore report to develop a “whole-of-nation plan to strengthen Southeast Asia literacy in Australian business, government, the education and training system, and the community” to ensure we can truly foster greater Australia-ASEAN ties and secure our mutual prosperity.

It needs to ensure our students can build on the substantial skills they gain while in-country on an NCP award and ensure they can continue honing their skills and expertise for the future. And it needs to be addressing this issue much earlier, working with the Department of Education and individual state and territory jurisdictions to reintroduce the study of Southeast Asian languages and cultures into curriculum at all levels, to ensure there is a consistent pipeline of young Australians constantly growing their fluency—and curiosity—in our region.

Investing in a new national language and culture strategy for Southeast Asia would not only signal to our ASEAN neighbours that we are serious about long-term, mutual prosperity, but also that we are committed to building mutually respectful partnerships, which start from a foundation of deep cultural and linguistic understanding. Laying these foundations now will ensure Australia and ASEAN continue to prosper as partners for another 50 years.

Elena Williams is a PhD researcher in the Department of Anthropology, School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific. She was a delegate in the ASEAN-Australia ‘Emerging Leaders’ Dialogue’ at the 2024 ASEAN-Australia Special Summit.

An earlier version of this article first appeared in ANU Reporter.

This article is part of a series of op-eds published in conjunction with the Emerging Leaders' Dialogue of the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit convened in Melbourne between 4 and 6 March in a partnership between the Australian Government and Asialink. The full collection of op-eds can be found here.