By Peter Cai, writer

Foreign Minister Penny Wong delivered an eloquent and touching speech about importance of leveraging Australia’s Asian diaspora communities in advancing the country’s interests abroad and especially in our immediate region at the inaugural Centre for Asian Australian Leadership lecture.

She argued Australia’s multicultural society offers the country a huge advantage in engaging with the country’s neighbours and the most economic dynamic region.  There are more than four million Australians of Asian descent including 1.1 million from Southeast Asia.

“We have a huge advantage in that task, quite simply because of who we are,” she said, “I can’t think of any other country that matches our inherent ability to find common ground with world’s people. Our challenge is to take this ability and make it central to how we engage with the world.”

As she acknowledged in her speech, this is a not particularly new idea from the country’s first Asian-Australian foreign minister. In fact, this idea comes from a rich and storied body of reports and white papers going back decades.  In 1995, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade published a report outlining the importance of overseas Chinese business networks in Asia.

More recently, the Peter Varghese report on An India Economic Strategy by 2035 has a whole chapter on the role of the Indian diaspora, describing the group as “a national economic asset”. Former Macquarie boss Nicholas Moore has also identified Australia’s one million strong Southeast Asian diaspora as a critical enabler for the government’s ambitious goal to forge closer economic and business ties with the region.

Beyond reports: Asian communities still lack recognition

Though there is a broad recognition of importance of Asian diaspora communities as a national asset by foreign policy makers in Canberra, it is far from clear whether this is widely shared across the country’s corporate, academic and cultural institutions, even those with strong Asia-focused missions.

One manifestation of this challenge is underappreciation of qualifications and experience gained in Asia.  The experiences of graduates of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) serves as a good example.  For years, Australian alumni of this elite Indian institution struggled to get the professional recognition they deserve. Some hiring managers even treated IIT degrees as diplomas from technical colleges.

This is ironic, given IIT graduates enjoy global success and renown especially in the Silicon Valley. As early as 2005, the United States Congress recognised their unique contribution to the American technology industry. 

An Indian entrepreneur who lives in Melbourne and is an IIT graduate said: “If you ask 100 top CEOs in America, have you heard of IIT? I bet 95 to 99 per cent of them would say yes, I can assure you that if you go to top 100 CEOs in this country, I would be surprised if more than five have heard of it.” 

This problem has been identified in the Varghese report.  It recommends the country should focus on attracting talented and highly competitive graduates from top Indian institutions with scholarships and other incentives linked to career advancement and entrepreneurship   opportunities.

If English-educated IIT graduates struggle with professional recognition, we need to spare a thought for alumni of Nanjing, Yonsei or Hitotsubashi universities, all leading institutions in the region. Apart from Singapore or Hong Kong, professional experience gained elsewhere in Asia does not seem to account for much.

Some institutions are doing better than others. appointing Asian Australians to key positions of influence and leadership. Indian Australian business leaders like Swati Dave and Tim Thomas are spearheading the government's ambitious program to engage with the world's most populous country.  Asian Australians like Li Cunxin, David Li and Craig Chung have been appointed to iconic Australian arts institutions like Queensland Ballet, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the Australian Ballet.

Australia’s Asian diaspora communities are not the only natural asset in forging better business, political and cultural ties with regional neighbours. There are millions of Australian alumni in the region and many of them are in the position of influence and power. The  Moore report acknowledged this point, saying more than half a million South East Asian students have studied in Australia since 2002 and they are significant asset for Australian businesses. 

Some industry players have cultivated their alumni religiously and have built a strong business network stretching back decades. For example, each year, Diary Australia invites business associates from China, Japan and Southeast Asia to take part in their scholarship program to learn about the country’s dairy farming practices and manufacturing.  The industry has more than 850 influential alumni across the region, the most important export market for Australian dairy products.

This year Dairy Australia celebrates the 25th anniversary of its scholarship program in China, which is its largest export market with an alumni that includes the chairman of one the country’s largest diary companies. The alumni network has played a key role in the industry’s success in the important Chinese export market.

The challenge, as presented by Wong, is how to take our diaspora and alumni assets and make them one of the key pillars of our engagement.

Peter Cai is a writer.

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