Too many New Zealanders are still too smug
Ramesh Thakur IHT
Thursday, May 17, 2001
TOKYO New Zealand has sometimes had an international
influence quite out of proportion to its size. The first country to
give the vote to women, at present it has the distinction of having
all three top public posts occupied by women - the governor
general, the prime minister and the chief justice. Prime Minister
Helen Clark, in Japan recently on an official visit, remarked that
New Zealand was affordable, hospitable, safe and sophisticated -
a good place for Japanese to visit or send their children for
education. New Zealand is also beautiful, environmentally
conscious and socially progressive.
Its governments have been cultivating Asia-literacy. The impetus
for this is economic. The Asian tigers grew three times as fast as
the mature industrial economies of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development in the 1980s and the first half of
the 1990s. The 1997 financial crisis is likely to be no more than a
temporary setback. Rising living standards in Asia will lift New
Zealand's growth prospects in their wake. The Asian economies,
led by China and India, continue to have the greatest future growth
prospects. Through the combination of expanding populations and
rising disposable incomes, the region is likely to be the world's
fastest growing consumer market. As in the West, an expanding
middle class will demand better services in health and education
and will travel overseas more frequently.
All societies are burdened with historical baggage. In New
Zealand the old stereotypes about Asia's political backwardness
and economic poverty have yet to be replaced by a general
appreciation of the region's adaptability, dynamism and diversity.
Countries that were formerly aid recipients are now major trading
partners and sources of investment, technology and tourists.
Too many New Zealanders are still too smug about their relative
superiority. There is no objective basis for their smugness. In terms
of purchasing power parity, New Zealand's gross domestic
product per capita is now less than half that of Singapore's.
Asians can feel the sting of exclusion, of not belonging, in New
Zealand. The official policy of engagement with Asia still needs to
be translated more effectively in the attitudes of New Zealanders.
The writer, vice rector of the United Nations University in
Tokyo and a former director of Asian studies at the University
of Otago in New Zealand, contributed this comment to the
International Herald Tribune. |
