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Thoughts on ways to improve the management of professional services firms

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Australia in the Pacific century

Interesting short piece by Robert Gottliebsen (Obama spearheads an Asian coup) in Business Spectator on the implications for Australia of the US's re-engagement with Asia. The key point is that Australia risks being sidelined. 

I'm not sure that's right, but it is a risk. Over on my personal blog I have been musing from time to time about the changes taking place globally and the implications for Australia. It's a sort of check and update thinking series. We all have to do this from time to time.

This morning (Art, pop music & a dash of fracking) I mused in part about the implications of the US's growing energy self-sufficiency. The US is a very big economy. I know that seems self-evident, but we tend to forget it in all the discussion on the rise of China. As the US changes direction, it has a lot of economic levers to attract Asian interest.

How this might affect Australia is unclear. Here Mr Gottliebsen's point is worth considering. Australia may be a member of the G20 and may have passed Spain to become the world's twelfth largest economy, but it's still a small economy. 

Focus not on Asia, but on the Pacific. Where might Australia fit in a world where the economic centre of the Pacific gravity shifts to the US?  Should Australia be talking about a Pacific rather than Asian century?   Just a thought.