American uncertainty on trade settings has created opportunities for Australia to strengthen and diversify our relationships in the Asia-Pacific. Bolstering our Asia-Pacific literacy is a key strategic step to achieve these aims.

The trade and market tumult caused by Donald Trump’s “Day of Liberation” has given Australia a real kick in the economic backside. The “reciprocal” American tariffs, and then Trump’s on-again off-again trade policy, has seen severe share market losses locally and globally. Markets continue to fluctuate with his policy flip-flops.

What remains from this rollercoaster ride is a policy truism—tariffs are not simply a regulatory act. They are a political and commercial statement, indicating a change in the United States’ global position. Arguably, it is stepping away from its role as a global leader. This is a major geopolitical change.

Trump’s moves should make us think of geopolitical three-dimensional chess, and consequently, our strategic place in the world. But are we really thinking about our next moves?

We need a nuanced, and diversified, global outlook. Our regional neighbours are the key here to strategic diversification that could arbitrage our geopolitical risk, particularly as a trade war commences between the United States and China.

This geopolitical change isn’t superficial. The Europeans are reconfiguring their alliances with the United States after Trump’s turnaround on Ukraine and tumultuous trade policies. Consequently, we’re seeing Europe start to re-centre its military procurement processes as a response to the flagging US-Europe alliance.

Meanwhile Japan, Korea, and China have entered into serious economic dialogue. One-time adversarial relationships are being thawed by Trump’s global backsliding and tariff policy, which has profoundly affected these three states.

Isolationism won’t work for Australia

What do these political machinations in American foreign policy mean for Australia? We can’t replicate the United States’ move towards isolationism. We must engage with the world. The reality is that our commercial success and security requires global interconnection. With the US looking to close its door on allies, or at least radically alter its interactions with them, maybe it’s time for Australia to double down on its regional bets.

With Indonesia, for example, we have Australia’s largest diplomatic mission abroad in Jakarta, with exceptional staff led by incoming Ambassador Rod Brazier (relieving outgoing Ambassador Penny Williams). This diplomatic weight is supported by significant government-to-government partnerships, such as the Australian and Indonesian government supported business development program, Katalis, and a similar joint government partnership on justice and security reform, AIPJ2 (soon to be AIPJ3). The Australian government is pushing the right buttons at many levels. But at the same time Australian businesses still struggle to engage in investment and commercial relationships in Indonesia.

So, how do we change our regional people-to-people partnerships and commercial activities, while also bolstering government-to-government relationships? The simple answer is experiential education, language training, and internships. Essentially, the answer is our students.

We need to bolster our Asia-Pacific literacy. Yet, four university-level Asian language subjects ended during COVID-19 cost-cutting, continuing a long period of decline. This comes at the exact time we need more engagement with the Asia-Pacific.

We need culturally literate, linguistically competent entrepreneurs, professionals, corporate executives, and public servants. They shouldn’t just be our leaders, they should come from across all sectors of society. Otherwise, how can we expect a real deepening of commercial or political relationships with our northern neighbours?

What it takes to re-engage

I am an Indonesia legal specialist. It is a lonely place in Australian universities. Often we just shout into the wilderness, trying to draw Australia’s gaze to the Asia-Pacific without much success. But this equation is changing. The international architecture is transforming before Australia’s eyes. At present our skills are inadequate to deal with our regional neighbours. But our current educational settings and funding cannot meet our strategic needs.

Rather than retract in on ourselves, what if we leap out into the world? For me as a legal educator, this means heading towards Indonesia. At the end of 2024 I took almost thirty students from Western Sydney University and Deakin Law Schools (together as the Transnational Lawyering Consortium) on our Indonesia Law, Governance and Culture Study Tour visiting Jakarta, Yogyakarta, and Surabaya. Five of those students are currently on exchange at Universitas Airlangga Law Faculty (Surabaya), and more are set to go in semester two.

These exceptional students are leading the way. Through the Transnational Lawyering Consortium students are completing the study tour, semester exchange, and language training. But we need more. I want to see not just five students annually going on long-term programs. I want to see five hundred take up the opportunity.

Regional educational experiences (short- and long-term) should be the educational norm, not the exception. This isn’t just about giving students a “taste” of Indonesia. It’s not a Contiki tour. This needs to be a series of learning experiences which directly connect to our student’s education and future professional activities.

How can Australia kick-start this educational transformation? One simple first step would be to expand the New Colombo Plan (NCP) from a AUD$50m program to a $100m annual program. This would seismically expand short- and long-term student mobility programs into Asia and the Pacific.

This increase in NCP funding could be coordinated in a manner to ensure academic-led, immersive, and experiential options emerging from individual faculties or consortium. We need strategic educational programs taking students to Indonesia, India, Korea, Japan, and the Pacific. We must be more conscious with our university curricula. One pragmatic way to make these changes is through university partnerships like the Transnational Lawyering Consortium (and fellow travelers, such as ACICIS).

What if we took our top experts from law, medicine, and engineering and gave them stewardship of calibrated immersive learning experiences regionally? There are area-studies experts in these faculties scattered across Australian universities, ready to deliver such programs—if supported and if these programs were bedded into their curriculum.

The question is, do Commonwealth and State Governments understand the depth of transformation required to manage the new global realities? And is anyone willing to take leadership and act upon it?

Election opportunity

In this upcoming election, rather than our leaders arguing about who would negotiate better with Trump, imagine if they played geopolitical three-dimensional chess. What if they leaned into educating the next generation of Australians through an enhanced NCP program? And what if our political leaders took the further steps doubling and tripling down on Asia-Pacific literacy in primary and secondary schools and then enhanced our Asia-Pacific research capacity at our universities? It doesn’t take much imagination to recognise how much more secure we would find our geopolitical position.

This is how we arbitrage our risk and diversify our alliances in turbulent times. Invest in our future generations. It isn’t a big ask, we can scale-up these educational activities quickly and it is eminently practical.

Jeremy Kingsley is Associate Professor in the School of Law, Western Sydney University, and is Co-convenor (with Dr Sven Gallasch, Deakin Law School), Transnational Lawyering Consortium.

This article is published under a Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution.