Nov. '67 88 75 79 73 69 63 61 78 75 57
Dec. '68 87 78 84 72 72 71 65 81 81 64
RELIGION
Multifarious religious denominations were categorized by Gallup, but it is intended to examine only the two predominant faiths: Roman
Catholic and Anglican, as little credence can be given to the smaller samples of the lesser known denominations. Nonetheless, it seems wrong to say, as one analyst has, that ” ... Catholics appear slightly more threat conscious than other denominations’1.1 The following table shows that Baptists felt the most security threatened.
Table 4-27 ; Security Perceptions of Catholics and Baptists Catholics Baptists Some countries threaten 53.7 (762) 52.4(31)
1967 No " tt 29.0 (410 26.6(16) Can't say 17,3 (245) 21.0(12) 1968 Some ” 11 54,0 (757) 58.0(60) None " 11 33.4 (467) 27.8(29) Can’t say 12.6 (177) 14.2(15) 1969 Some " II 53.0 (772) 58.1(61) None " 11 30,8 (450) 21.1(22) Can’t say 16.2 (236) 20.8(22)
Catholics were consistently more concerned about China than Anglicans:
Table 4*28 : Chinese Threat Perceptions of Catholics and Anglicans
1967 1968 1969 Catholics 32.7% 36.5 36.5 Anglicans 29.7% 29.0 30.5
It is perhaps wrong to say that the communist nature of the Chinese Govern ment is the only causal factor of the higher threat perception of Catholics, because Catholics were also worried about Indonesia - a non-communist
country; moreover, Anglicans expressed greater anxiety about Russia
(communist) and Japan (non-communist). So no easy explanation avails itself.
Ccdthclic respondent: brea< -the pattern, bin>ch emevyed coffer the p a rly bfecoKG/ou>*'iJ
Catholics a-r-e-the first of the higher threat pcrceivcrs since the
of hiqhtr threarperceiver? d /o p /a y/o ct ct afea/es /ere/ o f support' than lou>ev three*/ percentrr
■pa^-t-loci not to show a-correlative higher support Leve l than their 'peer.1 group for the recognition of the Peking Government. The table below shows that Roman Catholics, who had a higher threat perception than Anglicans, were slightly less inclined to favour recognition than Anglicans. There was a confluence of opinion by the February 1973 survey; and little differentiated the two in their respective attitudes to Taiwan.
T a b l e 4- 29 A p r i l 1969 Aug. 1970 Feb. 1973 R e c o g n i t i o n O p i n i o n and R e l i g i o n : C a t h o l i c s and A n g l i c a n s C a t h o l i c s 42% 45 56 ' An g l i c a n s 45% 50 55 T a b l e 4*30 : A p r i l 1969 Feb. 1973 S u p p o r t f o r T a i w a n ’ s C o n t i n u e d R e c o g n i t i o n C a t h o l i c s A n g l i c a n s 21% 23% 58 57 C a t h o l i c s , a s h i g h e r t h r e a t p e r c e i v e r s , a l s o d i s r u p t t h e p a t t e r n f ound i n t h e s e x , a g e , and income s u b - g r o u p s , by b e i n g l e s s f a v o u r a b l e t h a n t h e l o w er t h r e a t p e r c e i v e r s t o t r a d i n g w i t h C h i n a . P e r h a p s t h e C a t h o l i c s , l i k e t h e DLP i n t h e p a r t y breakdown ( t h e s e g r o u p s w i l l n o t be m u t u a l l y i n c l u s i v e ) d i s p l a y an i d e o l o g i c a l a s c e t i s m t h a t makes i t more d i f f i c u l t f o r them t o t r a d e w i t h an i d e o l o g i c a l (and s p i r i t u a l ) a d v e r s a r y . T a b l e 4- 31 : R e l i g i o n and Tr a d e w i t h Ch in a C a t h o l i c s A n g l i c a n s Nov. 1967 66 71 Dec. 1968 68 72 STATES I t can be s e e n from T a b l e 4 ’ 33 t h a t a s t a t e - b y - s t a t e a n a l y s i s d e f i e s e a s y e x p l a n a t i o n ; some s u r p r i s i n g p o s t u l a t e s d o , h ow e ve r, s u g g e s t t h e m s e l v e s from t h e G a l l u p f i n d i n g s on s e c u r i t y c o n s c i o u s n e s s , r e c o g n i t i o n o f C hi n a , and t r a d i n g , " ^ The f i r s t o f t h e s e i s t h a t Q u e e n s l a n d , a s t a t e 1 F o r a c o m p r e h e n s i v e a c c o u n t o f S o u t h e r n r e g i o n a l i s m i n t h e USA s e e , A l f r e d 0. H e r o, The S o u th e r n e r and W orld A f f a i r s 3 Baton Rouge, L o u i s i a n a S t a t e U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1965,
which one would expect to feel most vulnerable from an expansionist China, on only one occasion, 1969, registered a threat response of above the national average. NSW oscillated between a below average response to
above average each alternate year from 1967-1970; this movement was not dramatic, however. For the first three years of the threat poll, Victoria
showed above average fears of China - again defying simple explanation in terms of geographic propinquity, but a below average result was recorded in 1970. This relatively hard-line may perhaps be explained by the
presence of a strong DLP, right wing Labor component, and active Catholic Church in that state. Tasmania appears as the great fluctuator in the table, but this result should be treated with circumspection because of the small samples involved. South Australia retained no discernible patterns, moving above and below the national average with little eratic movement.
The most surprising results tabulated are those relating to Western Australia, where respondents of the Gallup surveys were, with the exception of 1968, less concerned about a potential threat than one would have inferred from political pronouncements, editorials [West
Australian) of newspapers, and some scholarly works.* Moreover, these
fears were not transferred to another country, especially after the Freeth statement about the Soviet naval presence in the Indian Ocean in 1969.
Table 4*32 ; The Russian Threat Perception with Particular Reference to W.A. 1967 1968 1969 1970 National Average 13% 11% 16% 15% Qld 14 11 16 18 NSW 12 13 16 15 Vic 14 8 17 16 Tas 6 8 26 19 SA 15 16 15 10 WA 14 9 17 12
See, for example, J.R, Robertson, op,oit.
Perhaps the best account of the episode is Andrew Farran , ’"The Freeth Experiment’", Australian Outlook3 vol. 26, no. 1 (April 1972).
Table 4*33 : State by State Comparison of the Fear of China National Average Queensland NSW Victoria Tasmania South Australia Western Australia 1968 1969 1970 1967 30.8% 29.9%(n=268) 27.7 (n=640) 36.0 (n=611) 25.4 (n= 50) 31.7 (n=186) 29.7 (n=128) 31.7% 28.9%(n=260) 33.1 (n=781) 32.5 (n=551) 32.9 (n= 65) 27.0 (n=158) 32.9 (n=141) 30.1% 30.4%(n=272) 29.8 (n=700) 31.8 (n=540) 36.5 (n= 72) 26.1 (n=152) 27.6 (n=118) 27.1% 27.6%(n=252) 28.8 (n=684) 26.3 (n=462) 25.1 (n= 51) 27.1 (n=165) 20.8 (n= 96)
Moreover, Gallup material on "countries threatening Australia’s security" reveals the paradox that even in 1969 - one year after the first intrusion of Soviet ships in the Indian Ocean - Western Australian respondents felt
less threatened by foreign countries than respondents from the other five states. From 1967 to 1970, Western Australia's 'threat' response was higher than the national average, albeit by a very small percentage in 1967 and
1968 and made its paradoxical movement to register below the average in 1969-70; their 'no threat' response was always higher than the national average.
Table 4*34 : Countries Threatening Australia's Security
National Western Average Australia 1967 Some countries threaten Aust 52 54
No " " " 32 35 Can't say 16 12 1968 52 53 34 37 13 11 1969 51 51 36 40 13 9 54 50 36 38 10 12 1970
It would seem, then, that Western Australians are less sensitive about defence than is commonly presumed. Further investigation of Gallup findings show that it is the non-Perth residents who have a high threat consciousness, whereas Perth respondents have a comparatively low threat awareness, especially of China,
On the matter of recognition, Western Australians are inclined to favour it, and as with the religion breakdown, a lower threat perceiver shows a relative willingness to accord recognition to Peking.
The aim of this chapter has been to identify and trace the main
currents of opinion in Australia towards China, leading up to the change of government in 1972. While the idea of ’threat' was central to the
analysis, it was found useful to draw on related survey results such as recognition, trade, and the admission of the Peking Government to the United Nations. The conclusion reached supports Huck's earlier work on this subject in which he found that "the idea that all Australians are
fearful of China... cannot be sustained."*
The analysis of majority opinion from 1949 to 1965 suggested that China may not have been seen by all, or even most, Australians as an immediate or serious security threat, because the Soviet Union dominated the world stage and much of the Australian foreign political debate in the 1950's, although China did become more prominent after about 1960, and a growing number of Gallup respondents indicated a willingness to trade with China - hardly the reaction of a perilously threatened peoples. With respect to recognition, problems of interpretation were encountered, and no ready answers seemed to arise from the detailed breakdowns. Thus, while it cannot be stated with much certainty that if a respondent opposed
recognition he was automatically coded as feeling threatened by China, it can at least be said that the recognition responses displayed a steadily increasing number of Australians in favour of diplomatically recognizing Peking.
In the period 1967-1970 just over a majority of Australians thought Australia was threatened by some country or other, and a smaller but growing number thought that no country posed a threat. Moreover, in the late 1960's at the time of the Vietnam War, when China was clearly presented to the Australian people as a militaristic aggressor, less than one third of those respondents who thought Australia was threatened saw China as the chief threat to Australia's security. From this, three conclusions emerge:
firstly, it appears that Australians, as a group, were less threat conscious in the late sixties than many writers have suggested; secondly, the fear of China was less than is commonly thought; and thirdly, by 1970 the general fears about Australia's continental security that persisted seemed to be dissipating, although there was no suggestion of a transmutation. There were even indications at the turn of the decade that the long-standing public attachment to Taiwan, so carefully nurtured by the L-CP Government, was
beginning to cleave.
Section III, dealing with the responses of the various population sub-groups, tends to confirm the conclusions reached in the previous
chapter on Vietnam; namely, that public opinion, while generally stable, is diffuse. The higher and lower threat perceiver concepts were employed in order to see what correlations could be deduced from comparisons of, for example, recognition and the threat perception question. No consistent pattern emanated from the data; on the one hand, the higher threat per-
ceivers in the party (DLP voters) and religious (Catholics) sub-groups were less inclined to favour the recognition of Peking than the lower threat perceivers in their sub-groups, yet, the higher threat perceivers in the
age (under 40’s), sex (men), and income (upper income earners) sub-groups displayed a greater inclination than their respective peer groups to recognize Peking. Thus, it cannot be maintained that a disinclination to recognize the Communist Government in China entails a perceived security threat; indeed, it might well be the case that people with a fear of China might wish to recognize Peking in an effort to draw China into international discourse.
The sub-group breakdowns show ALP voters as less conscious of a Chinese threat than L-CP supporters, women less than men, the young
(under 40) less than the old - although the very old showed some fluctuation, lower income earners less than middle and upper income earners, Catholics less than Anglicans, and the states analysis found no reason to suggest that Western Australians feel more vulnerable to
CHAPTER FIVE
THE AMERICAN ALLIANCE
The previous chapter on Australian attitudes to China analyzed the threat aspect of the "threat - alliance” syndrome in Australian
political attitudes. This chapter will deal with the American alliance1 , in particular, the hypotheses that are generated from questions about American defence installations in Australia.
The decade 1963-1973 saw the development of subtle, but important, transformations in international relations, such as the development of
’detente' between the USA and the Soviet Union following the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, and not so subtle, but equally important, trans formations in the international power balance such as China's rise to nuclear-power status in 1964. For Australians, security was becoming increasingly bound up with the United States; the 1963 North West Cape
Agreement was perhaps the harbinger of, at least, a decade of ever increasing interaction between the USA and Australia, and the Vietnam War demonstrated the closeness of the relationship. Vietnam was generally seen as the quid pro quo for future American protection, and, in many respects, Chapter Three said more about Australia's relationship with her super-power ally than about fears of an insurgent communist peril. And, since Vietnam was the most important foreign policy issue in the period under discussion, what follows suffers from the unreality of removing the discussion of the alliance from the contextual framework of the war. However, Vietnam explains only partially the Australian-American relationship as viewed by Australians.
1 The term is used in a loose generic sense to denote the relationship rather than any formal treaty; its more precise connotations will emerge as the chapter unfolds.
The war was defended by the L-CP Government through invocation of its membership of SEATO, but this formed only part of the formal
alliance. Vietnam has now ceased to be the contentious political issue it was in the late 1960’s and early 1970's. What has been, and will prove to be, a more enduring test of the alliance is the question of American
communications-defence installations based in Australia, and the L-CP’s defence of the agreements establishing these facilities was "squarely based on the ANZUS Treaty".* As one Liberal member told Parliament: "there is a price to pay for an alliance, and the price we pay takes the form of the facilities provided at Woomera, Pine Gap, and North West Cape." It is not sufficient, then, to draw all our conclusions concerning the American alliance from the Vietnam experience, for, while the L-CP Government attempted to associate public hostility to the war effort as ipso faoto rejection of the alliance, opposition to the war should not be seen as necessarily implying antagonism to Australia's defence treaties and their obligations, although this is not to say that the war may not have
precipitated some disaffection with the alliance.
It is proposed to look at four Gallup questions: firstly, those relating to nuclear weapons bases; secondly, communications installations; thirdly, the perceived value of the treaties with the USA; and finally, alternative alliances. The results should cast some light on the principal questions underlying this case study - the extent of public support for the continuation of the alliance, and the price seen as worth paying. The treatment will follow similar lines to previous chapters, commencing with a sketch of responses of the general public in war-time Australia through to the early 1960's, to be followed by a more detailed analysis of the
last decade.
1 N. Harper, "Australia and the United States", in G. Greenwood and N. Harper (eds.), Australia and World Affairs 1966-1970, Melbourne, Cheshire for the AIIA, 1974, p.281.
1 THE GENERAL PUBLIC AND THE ALLIANCE : 1943-1963
A seminal point in Australia's foreign relations was 26 December 1941, when the Prime Minister, John Curtin, declared that Australia looked to America 'free of any pangs as to our traditional links of kinship
with the United Kingdom'. It was not for another ten years, however, that a defence alliance - ANZUS1 23 - was signed: the signatories being Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. There seems little doubt that the vast majority of Australians saw the USA as their defender from Japanese invasion, and the ensuing gratitude was to be a dominant theme in the formation of Australia's foreign policy and attitudes for three decades.
The ANZUS Treaty, signed in 1951, was designed primarily against the possibility of a resurgent Japan, although the dangers of "Communist
2