60 years of Aussie-Malaysia ties entering a new chapter
Published on: Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia's participation this year in the New Colombo Plan initiated by Australia is set to boost bilateral ties that have seen 60 years of cooperation in various fields. As they celebrate the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations this year, Australia and Malaysia can look back to the great strides they have made in forging cooperation in such fields as education, tourism and trade. The New Colombo Plan is an initiative of the Australian government to foster closer ties between Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.
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It aims to enhance knowledge of Asia-Pacific in Australia, and strengthen people-to-people and institutional relationships through study and internships undertaken by Australian undergraduate students in the region. Australian High Commissioner to Malaysia Rod Smith said that under the new plan, at least 153 Australian students would pursue their studies at Malaysian universities in various courses this year. Among them are four highest ranked Australian scholars who will further their studies at Universiti Malaya. "Currently, there are about 21,000 Malaysians pursuing their studies in Australia but only a few Australian students are in Malaysia. "Therefore, we are very pleased with the New Colombo Plan and we would like to see the number of Australians coming to Malaysia for study to increase," he told Bernama in an interview.
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Smith explained that Malaysia had participated in the previous Colombo Plan, established in 1957, and the scholarships had enabled about 4,000 Malaysians to obtained Australian qualification and some of them had achieved great success in their lives. The Colombo Plan was established on July 1, 1951, by Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom, and has now expanded to encompass 26 countries, including Malaysia.
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The plan is a partnership concept of self-help and mutual help in development aimed at socio-economic progress of the member countries. Touching on the 60th anniversary of Australia-Malaysia relations, Smith said the anniversary was an important and a meaningful one because it underlined how long Malaysia and Australia had been 'friends' and working together in the whole range of common interest since 1955. "In fact, our interest and partnership with Malaysia goes back before the independence of (then) Malaya (Malaysia), during the battlefields of World War Two, strengthened through the Emergency and Confrontation in Malaysia, and had continued to today. "That is why we set up a diplomatic mission here in 1955 ... that is testimony of how significant Malaysia is to Australia. Since then, our relationship has evolved into a very positive, dynamic and mutually beneficial one," he said. Smith said people-to-people ties through many areas, including education, defence and business, had become the fundamental factor for both countries to maintain their positive relationship. In the tourism industry itself, Malaysia received about 500,000 Australian visitors last year while about 300,000 Malaysians visited Australia during the same period, he said."So, if you put those together, it shows the strong and positive relations that we are having now," he said. In the area of defence, the history of military links between Australia and Malaysia started during the Sandakan Death March of World War Two and the ties have strengthened over the years, and this was demonstrated in the joint search for the Malaysian commercial aircraft, Flight MH370, that went missing in March last year. Australia and Malaysia are currently working together to tackle other forms of transnational security threats, like terrorism and human and drug trafficking.Smith said that Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, during his visit to Malaysia last September, discussed at length with Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak on the emergence and threat of the Islamic State (IS) militant group. "We (Australia and Malaysia) are now working very hard on that issue. So, it demonstrates the capacity and the quality of Malaysian and Australian defence security partnership," he said. Therefore, he said, Australia was looking forward to strengthening the security cooperation with Malaysia, especially in combating any new security threat in the future, like the IS. Smith also said that research on new economic opportunities between the two countries was among the potential areas that Malaysia and Australia could work on together in the future. "A lot of things (cooperation) have happened already. So, in the future, I would like to see more collaboration on research related to business since Malaysia and Australia have very strong research capabilities," he said. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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