Coming to Terms: The Politics of Australia's Trade with Japan 1945-57.

Abstract

IntroductionThe trade relationship between Australia and Japan in the mid-1980s is rich andnhttps://espace.library.uq.edu.au/js/fckeditor/editor/images/spacer.gifcomplex, representing 40 years of close, largely cooperative and generallynbeneficial postwar economic exchange. Japan is Australia's most importantntrading partner, several Australian States depend on trade with Japan to supportntheir major industries, and Japan's rapid economic growth in the 1960s led to anboom in Australia-Japan trade, principally in mineral ores. This trade isnmutually important; Australia has been, since before World War II, a vitalnsupplier of resources to Japan -- initially wool, later coal and iron ore, and othernmetals and ores. The growth and prosperity of many Japanese industries havenrelied heavily on the reliable and stable supply of low-cost and high-quality rawnmaterials from Australia.The bilateral trade relationship was founded on strong and clear comparativenadvantage, Australia primarily the supplier of food and resources, and Japan thenprocessor and manufacturer. Steadily growing goodwill between business andngovernments was also important: for a decade after the war official attitudes innAustralia still reflected wartime enmities, but thereafter an infrastructure ofnpolitical cooperation and ideological compatibility developed that still stands innthe 1980s.This book will examine how trade with Japan re-emerged from the disruptionnand hatred of the war years to become a burgeoning force in cementing bilateralnrelations. How were the barriers bridged and ties re-established after then1941-45 war intervened in Australia-Japan trade? What mechanisms werenresponsible for re-establishing trade links? Why did Australia take until 1957 tonagree to formal trade arrangements with Japan, when from the very beginningnof the peace Japan was wanting Australian wool and Australia was wantingnJapanese silk and other goods? How did a trade policy towards Japan developnindependently of Great Britain, when Australia was all along linked to Britainnfinancially through sterling and to sterling area approaches to internationalntrade?How did Australia adjust to the needs of the American-controlled Occupationnof Japan? How was Australia influenced by the difficult mixture in the earlynpostwar world of pressures for liberalisation and reform in the internationalneconomy, contrasted with restrictions and controls placed by many countries (such as Australia) on trade relations with Japan? What brought the AustraliannGovernment to the point of agreeing to deal constructively with Japan, and tondismantle trade barriers? Why did Japan have a vital interest in trying to makenAustralia change its policies? n