What if Singapore , Hong Kong became part of Australia in the 1960's
- Thread starter Ward
- Start date
I think thats a bit unfair. By the 1960's most of White Australia had been dismantled and Australian government policy wasn't anymore racist than half a dozen other Western Countries and far less racist then many of the newly independent states.
That said its still an ASB idea.
Sorry Ward, but the chance of this coming to pass is between nil and none and definitely less than zero.
Flocculencio
Donor
Singapore, at the time, wanted union with Malaysia not transferring of colonial rule to another master.
I really, really doubt that Australia would countenance taking a major city full of Asians into their country.
And I doubt that Britian could legally transfer control of Hong Kong to Australia- the treaty was between China and Britain specifically
I really, really doubt that Australia would countenance taking a major city full of Asians into their country.
And I doubt that Britian could legally transfer control of Hong Kong to Australia- the treaty was between China and Britain specifically
Hong Kong and Singapore are both rather a long way from Australia - it's not quite as far in the case of Singapore, but you still have to cross a fair bit of ocean to get to them. I think this would make it difficult to create any single state which contains all of them.
It is sometimes said that in order to avoid becoming a failed state, a country needs three things - the organs of government have to be functional and reasonably secure, there has to be a clear acceptance of the idea of the state among the people who will make it up, and it also needs a secure geographical base. This hypothetical Hong-Sing-tralia may have the first two, given their shared British colonial experience, but it falls well short of the third simply by virtue of the distance between the bits that will make it up. I can't see how this problem would be solved.
It's also worth remembering that in the 1960's, Singapore was part of Malaysia. Political problems forced them apart, but it's not clear why they would then suddenly turn around and enter another confederation with a country over 200km away and with a somewhat-restive Indonesia lying between them.
This idea may not require ASB intervention - no physical laws are being broken or reality changed - but it's hard to see what this would offer the prospective members, so I don't think it's practical.
It is sometimes said that in order to avoid becoming a failed state, a country needs three things - the organs of government have to be functional and reasonably secure, there has to be a clear acceptance of the idea of the state among the people who will make it up, and it also needs a secure geographical base. This hypothetical Hong-Sing-tralia may have the first two, given their shared British colonial experience, but it falls well short of the third simply by virtue of the distance between the bits that will make it up. I can't see how this problem would be solved.
It's also worth remembering that in the 1960's, Singapore was part of Malaysia. Political problems forced them apart, but it's not clear why they would then suddenly turn around and enter another confederation with a country over 200km away and with a somewhat-restive Indonesia lying between them.
This idea may not require ASB intervention - no physical laws are being broken or reality changed - but it's hard to see what this would offer the prospective members, so I don't think it's practical.
HeavyWeaponsGuy
Banned
Too bad it isn't an option for Canada.
Why take it? Especially Hong Kong when you have a certain someone to your north breathing down your neck about it.
If Britain doesn't recognize the PRC, it would help. But I think in that case it's more likely to see either Britain keeping it or maybe transferring it to Taiwan, which would be whacky...and possibly nukey if the PRC hates it enough.
The idea that White Australia was dismantled by the 1960s is humorous, the borders of Whiteness had expanded with "Wogs" playing a role that the despised "Catholic" (proxy for "Irish") had in the previous structure of racism amongst the racially "acceptable." At the same time this isn't the 1970s. And the citizenship referendum was passed very late in the period. Reading Helen Palmer's Outlook magazine would be useful here, Outlook concentrated very heavily on racial issues from a revolutionary left perspective. In fact, if someone wants to claim that White Australia was dismantled, instead of transmogrifying, the period to claim that the dismantling occurred was during the 1960s and 1970s.
While the state apparatus of Whitlam, Fraser and Hawke paid a great deal of attention to integrating the leadership of non-Anglo communities into Australian politics, and to removing legal restrictions that were transparently racial in character, these bold acts by parliamentarians do not change the popular nature of Australian racism. (Though we must congratulate parliamentarians for avoiding excessively exacerbating the conditions that allow for popular racism).
As late as the 1980s an MP who later became PM was willing to dogwhistle racism towards Asian Australians. As late as the 1990s a populist politician could nail her electoral chances specifically to anti-Asian Australian politics as her central plank.
* * *
I don't see how a comparative evaluation of Australian racism in historical and geographic context changes my absolute normative characterisation of Australia as possessing a deep racism. The racism of New Zealand, Indonesia and Malaysia are just as aptly described deep, and deeply seated. This doesn't excuse, or modify, the depth of Australian racism.
yours,
Sam R.
The actual British policy was always to keep some power projection East of Suez, a policy described by one dissident wit as a fantasy line stretching across the Himalayas. The fact that the UK fleet was still pretty awesome right through the end of the decade meant the British government was still capable of dreaming all sorts of things about staying in those colonies forever.
This strategy doesn't really finish until Thatcher.
No way. ASBish.
The only possible Asian colony scheme that could have happened IOTL was if Australia had takes part or all of Borneo as a posession at the end of WWII, an idea that was mooted as 'payment' for the AIF/RAN/RAAF undertaking the Oboe landings.
Cook
Banned
It isn’t; there were strong objections to Vietnamese refugees being allowed to settle in Australia in the late 1970s and Cambodian refugees in the early 1980s and neither constituted anywhere near the numbers contemplated here. Australia at the time was preparing to de-colonialize Papua New Guinea so acquisition of Singapore would have to be as a State of the Commonwealth rather than as a territory, requiring approval by referendum and it would have a snowball’s chance in hell of being approved.
Hong Kong was a lease to the British Government; there is nothing in the provisions of that lease that would allow a transfer of sovereignty to Australia.