Abstract
This essay considers the Australian approach to Asian regionalism during the tenure of the government led by John Howard. Its main focus is the official Australian policy towards ASEAN, the ASEAN Regional Forum and the East Asian Summit. The Howard-Downer administration exhibited a degree of scepticism of the various institutional and norm-oriented embodiments of ‘Asia’ and evinced a preference for bilateralism (first economic but later strategic bilateralism) but was prepared to make some contribution to the improvement of wider regional governance practices. In the context of the continuing economic and strategic rise of China, and despite taking great trouble to facilitate mutually beneficial trading relations, the Howard government nevertheless pursued the institutionalisation of defence cooperation with Japan. Given the relentless impact of globalisation, it is unclear how far these policy priorities can be maintained.
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