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  • Title: Population policies in Southeast Asia and Australia: the international relevance of domestic affairs.
    Author: Jones GW.
    Journal: J Aust Popul Assoc; 1984; 1():109-20. PubMed ID: 12267174.
    Abstract:
    There are 2 underlying themes to this paper: national perceptions of population circumstances at home and abroad are the crucial determinants of population policies adopted, and the differences in perceptions help explain why national reactions differ to circumtances which appear similar; and population policy, though an internal matter, has international repercussions and thus can become a sensitive issue in international relations. Until recently, ASEAN countries were united with Vietnam on at least 1 issue: attitudes toward the growth and changing distribution of their populations. The objectives were slower growth through lowered fertility, resistance to immigration from abroad except in very special circumstances, resettlement of population to undeveloped areas with potential for agriculture, and slowing the growth of big cities. The Australian situation differed. As a high income nation populated primarily through immigration and set in a region of far more populous and densely settled nations, Australia's policy favored population growth and used an immigration program as a way to realize this end. Yet, even so, population growth in most postwar years was slower than that of all Southeast Asian nations. And, although immigration was encouraged, the resistance to immigration that characterized Southeast Asian countries was shared by Australia with respect to all but North Western Europeans, an "acceptable" category progressively widened by dint of curcumstances to include Eastern Europeans, then Southern Europeans, then certain Middle Eastern peoples, and finally Asians and Latin Americans. Australia shared with Southeast Asian nations the concern with big-city growth and like the Southeast Asian nations searched for appropriate policies to contain this growth and promote that of smaller cities and towns. This search stopped in the 1970s when the report of the National Population showed that accepted projections of the populations of Sydney and Melbourne had been unrealisticably high. Until 1983 Southeast Asia presented a fairly united front on population policy matters. The momentous break occurred when the Malaysian Prime Minister announced to his current 15 million people a target of 70 million for Malaysia's population and followed this up with pronatalist policies in support of this goal. The key point in the context of this paper, is to emphasize that perceptions of national self-interest have led to the adoption of widely divergent policies in neighboring Malaysia and Singapore. Singapore is offering strong financial incentives for its socioeconomically disadvantaged groups to have fewer children. Malaysia's incentives to have more people will have most impact on the disadvantaged groups. There is little difference between Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam on fertility goals, and their perceptions of the problem appear similar. Malaysian population and ethnic policies have had a number of direct effects on Australia. It was ethnic politics that determined Malaysia's hard line attitude toward Vietnamese refugees. Australia's acceptance of large numbers of Vietnamese refugees probably resulted as much from the strong pressure applied by ASEAN nations to do so as from humanitarian grounds. Another aspect of Malaysian ethnic politics which has had direct repercussions on Australia is the discrimination against non-Malay students for places in Malaysian universities.
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