3 April 2008

Simon Murdoch,  Chief Executive, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Good afternoon. Tena koutou. Ni hao. Namaste. Konichiwa.

I’m here this afternoon to talk about the importance of Asia – to New Zealand, to Taranaki, and globally – both now and in the future.

I can’t think of any audience this is more relevant or important for than an audience of school principals. You are preparing New Zealand’s future citizens and future leaders for the world they are going to inherit.

It’s a different world from the one many of us grew up in. A much more globally connected world, a much more diverse one, potentially a more complex one.

And one in which Asia will play an increasingly important role, economically, socially, culturally, in world affairs and even in determining the future of the global environment.

I’d like to start by talking about what we mean when we talk about Asia. The word ‘Asia’ is a catch-all, a convenient shorthand. There aren’t many people who would describe themselves as ‘Asian’, just as there aren’t many New Zealanders of English or Scottish or Irish descent who would describe themselves as ‘European’.  I make this point because one of the risks when we talk about Asia awareness is we forget exactly who we are talking about.

We are talking about a very big region. Almost four billion people live in Asia. One thousand New Zealands.

There are 40-plus countries – from China and India, the world’s most populous nations, to Bangladesh, Pakistan, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and territories such as Macao and Hong Kong.

China alone has more than 50 ethnic groups with distinct histories and customs and languages.

If you talk about a Chinese person in New Zealand, you might be talking about someone who identifies as Chinese, or as Cambodian Chinese, or Hong Kong Chinese, or Singapore Chinese, or New Zealander.

If you talk about an Indian, you might be talking about someone who identifies as Gujarati or Bengali or Tamil or Fijian. Or New Zealander.

I am reminded of the Auckland University academic Manying Ip, who once wrote about a New Zealand-born Chinese friend of hers who remarked in a rather perplexed way: All my life I have always regarded myself as Chinese. Suddenly, in these last few years, I have become Asian.

I think you get the point I’m making, which is that Asia is not one place or people. It’s extraordinarily diverse.

And that brings me directly to another important point, which is that when we think about Asia as this big region, it can seem huge and intimidating. So it’s helpful to break this big idea of Asia down into its smaller parts: its individual countries and regions and communities and people. It’s like the old saying. The only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.

Now, having made those points, I’m going to revert to the shorthand and talk about Asia – in particular its importance to us and to the world our children are inheriting.

I’ve already mentioned population. Now I’d like to talk about the economy, and by economy of course what we’re really talking about are jobs and incomes.

Twenty-five years ago, less than a quarter of the world’s economic output was in Asia. Now, about 35 percent is. In another twenty-five years it’ll have almost half.

Already, three of the world’s four biggest economies – measured by purchasing power – are in Asia. That’s China, Japan and India. China may in the next few decades overtake the United States as the world’s biggest economy.

What does this mean for New Zealand? As you know, we’re a trading nation. We sell things we’re good at making, and we buy things others are good at making.

Out of our top 20 export markets, 10 are in Asia. Australia is our biggest single export market, but Asia is our biggest export region.

As countries like China and India become more prosperous, which is happening very quickly, they’re going to take more and more of our goods, and become more and more important for our livelihoods.

If we think about this at a local level, of the Port of Taranaki’s top five export markets, I understand that four are in Asia. Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan.

Here, in Taranaki, you have 1500 or more people employed in Fonterra plants. Those are jobs that depend, in large part, on Asia. Fonterra sees a big part of its future in that region. It has invested heavily in China, which it sees as the single biggest growth opportunity in world dairy markets.

You also have a meat industry and manufacturers who depend heavily on Asian markets. In Riverlands and Itoham you have companies that are part or all Japanese-owned, and in the case of Itoham there are 80 jobs in Waitara that wouldn’t be there if not for Japanese investment.

Of course we also buy from Asia. Many of the consumer goods we take for granted are made there, and we’d probably struggle to afford them if they weren’t. The children at your schools might wear clothes made in China, read books printed in Singapore, travel in a Japanese car, and use a computer by a Taiwanese company.

Asia is also the source of our fastest-growing tourism markets. And our biggest export education markets. You have direct experience of that in Taranaki, both at a school level and through institutions of higher learning like the Pacific International Hotel Management School.

So there’s a kind of interdependence or symbiosis going on between Asia and New Zealand, and between Asia and Taranaki, and that is only going to grow. We have closer economic partnership agreements in place with Singapore and Thailand, and a four-party partnership involving Chile, Brunei and Singapore.

We are considering agreements with Malaysia and Hong Kong, and a joint agreement with Australia and Asean – the Asean of South-east Asian Nations. Some early exploratory work has been done on an agreement with Korea.

And of course we are about to sign an agreement with China. Let me make it clear: this is a big deal for New Zealand’s future.

Trade, of course, is really just people getting together to buy and sell and get things done. And there are plenty of other ways that people get together to achieve mutually beneficial goals.

People to people links are increasing all the time, through migration, through travel, and as people take up study and work opportunities in both directions – Asia to New Zealand and New Zealand to Asia.

New Zealand is now 9 percent Asian, which as I said before includes Chinese, Korean, Sri Lankan, Filipino and a host of other communities. We’ll be 15 percent Asian by 2021. Add in Maori and Pacific people and we’re becoming more and more of a cultural melting pot every day.

Our culture is evolving. We have more traditions to celebrate. Diwali and the Lantern Festival to celebrate Chinese New Year have become huge events in New Zealand’s biggest cities. In Taranaki, you have the hugely successful Multi-ethnic Festival every year at Yarrow Stadium.

You also have some very successful sister city relationships in Asia, and some very successful cultural links through institutions such as PukeAriki and the Govett Brewster and the Pukeiti Rhododendron Trust which I understand has links with China’s Yunnan province for more than 20 years and is playing an important role in helping to conserve rare plants from that province.

There’s one other area where I think it’s important to acknowledge Asia’s influence, and that’s on global affairs. The emerging Asian powers aren’t just crucial for the world economy, they’re also crucial for the future of global peace and security, and for the future of the global environment. At a diplomatic level, engagement with Asia is crucial.

The 20^th Century was America’s century, and it’s been said the 21^st Century will be Asia’s.

This year’s Olympics in some ways symbolise China’s growing profile and global influence, and, as we are already seeing, also place China clearly in the spotlight of western media.

So, how does New Zealand respond to Asia’s growing influence?

Last year the government released a white paper called Our Future with Asia, which is really a government strategy for New Zealand’s engagement with the region and its people.

That paper outlined four key steps that New Zealand needs to take in order to strengthen our ties with Asia. I need to emphasise, it’s not a strategy specifically for foreign affairs and trade – it’s a strategy for the whole country and the whole of the public sector, including the education sector.

The first step in this strategy is to better integrate ourselves in an integrating region. What we mean by that is that the countries in Asia are increasingly getting together in regional groups – both political and trading groups. And as they do that we’d rather be inside the tent with them than outside the tent looking in.

The second step is being a good neighbour, which means working with countries in Asia to do things like maintain security and stability, enhance environmental protection, and promote and protect human rights. And it also means providing assistance for poorer nations – after the Pacific, Asia is our top priority for development aid.

The third is boosting New Zealand’s growth by linking to the growth of Asian economies.

And the fourth – and this is really where you come in – is becoming more ‘Asia literate’.

By this we mean having enough knowledge and enough understanding to engage with Asia – in trade, at government level, and at an individual level when we travel, and at work and in our classrooms and our communities and neighbourhoods.

Being more Asia literate partly means having a media that gives us more information about Asia.

It means knowing something about Asia, or some of the countries or provinces or cities or religions or ethnic groups within Asia.

It means knowing something about Asian people and communities here in New Zealand.

It means understanding that other cultures are different from ours, and how they are different. Are they more individualistic or more group-oriented, for example. Are they likely to think long-term or short-term? Are they more or less egalitarian?

Of course understanding how different cultures work isn’t important only in the context of dealing with Asia. New Zealand has two founding cultures, Maori and British, and migrant cultures from throughout Europe and the Pacific as well as Asia.

Becoming more Asia literate might also mean learning languages – and I think there are some outstanding examples here of schools that have been very forward-thinking in offering students the opportunity to learn Japanese and, in at least one case, Mandarin.

I want to congratulate those schools. But in doing so I don’t want to suggest that every young person will need to speak an Asian language. Languages aren’t for everyone. For most young people a level of general knowledge about Asia and an understanding that other cultures work differently from mainstream New Zealand.

When I talk about Asia I’m talking about individual communities and individual people.

Can I just conclude by saying: we can all agree that Asia is important to New Zealand’s future and to the young people in your care. The challenge is how to respond. In your case, that means how – with limited time and resources – do you bring that knowledge and understanding into the classroom, and how to bring your communities along with you as you do?

I’m hoping that’s what this afternoon and evening will be about. It’ll be about sharing information and ideas and resources, so that you can then go away and make your own decisions – as school leaders – about how to prepare your children for this new world.

I’m hoping, in other words, that you’ll have figured out how to start eating the elephant. Or at least where to take the first bite.

Simon Murdoch,  Chief Executive, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade

 

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