This article originally appeared on Pacific Forum and is republished with permission. Read the original article here.
Soft power is a country's ability to attract and engage rather than coerce. In practice, soft power enables a country to project its values, ideals and culture internationally, fostering goodwill, enhancing security and strengthening long-term partnerships.
Australia has long been a symbol of cultural appeal, democratic values and educational excellence, and these factors have formed the basis of Australia's post-war soft power.
However, Australia's soft power ranking has shown a clear downward trend over the past decade. From 6th in the 2015 Soft Power 30 index, Australia has fallen to 10th in 2019 and to 14th by 2023 in Brand Finance's Global Soft Power Index.
This steady decline has significant implications for Australia's role and security in a region where non-coercive forces are becoming increasingly important.
For example, Edelman's Trust Barometer highlights an overall decline in trust in Australia in Southeast Asia, with the country named as one of the biggest losers in the index from 2021 to 2023, consistently falling into the distrusted category with a low score of 1-49 out of 100.
This reflects a serious problem for Australian diplomacy in an era of global power competition in the Indo-Pacific region: Australia must improve its soft power diplomacy to ensure regional influence and security before it is too late.
Changing priorities in Canberra's region
In recent years, the budget outlook for the existing federal government that underpins Australia's soft power has become extremely grim.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has seen its funding slashed, with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) facing a funding cut of A$526 million (US$357 million) from 2022 onwards, while tougher visa policies are expected to impact education diplomacy, with higher education institutions predicting a revenue shortfall of A$310 million in 2024.
While the Albanese government has pushed for fiscal gains in certain areas, the overall fiscal environment remains unusually pessimistic. Why has this happened?
One explanation is that Australia's prolonged economic downturn and soaring debt since the COVID-19 pandemic has led Canberra to increasingly prioritise domestic issues.
With a projected total debt of A$598.5 billion for the financial year to June 2024, the government needed to redirect funds to urgent domestic issues such as health care, economic stimulus, infrastructure and social welfare.
The budget restructuring is likely also driven by the need to maintain voter support with an election approaching and to focus on policies that directly affect people's lives. But despite these fiscal constraints, defense spending has surged.
The government has allocated a record A$36.8 billion to defense spending in the 2024-2025 budget, an increase of 6.3% on the previous year.
This increase in defense spending reflects a return to hard power in response to rising geopolitical tensions and the strategic imperatives of AUKUS over the coming decade. All factors considered, it is unfortunate that Australia has put public diplomacy on the back burner.
These trends are worrying, but it is also important to recognise that Australia's soft power efforts have always been relatively tenuous.
Unlike the British Council (1934), the Japan Foundation (1972) or the Korea Foundation (1991), Australia has never established an international cultural institution. Since the end of World War II, Australian governments have prioritised economic and strategic interests over soft power, preferring to allocate funds to areas directly linked to the national interest, such as defence and trade.
John McCarthy, a former ambassador to Indonesia, has noted that public diplomacy has consistently been the weakest aspect of Australia's foreign policy and that “Canada invests more money in public diplomacy than Australia allocates to its entire foreign service”.
But Australia's decline in soft power is not just down to budgetary constraints: controversial policies on Indigenous rights and asylum seekers, a lack of awareness of climate change, an inconsistent approach to human rights issues, restrictions on freedom of expression and disputes over environmental stewardship all complicate Australia's global image in the region.
As a middle-power with limited resources to advance its national interests, a concerted effort that prioritises the projection of soft power through public diplomacy should be at the centre of Canberra's foreign policy.
Addressing the issue
First, Australia needs to better utilise its national assets by developing more pro-Australian leaders in the region through international education. For many years, international education has been one of Australia's public diplomacy triumphs.
The country's higher education system is world-renowned for its quality and inclusiveness, attracting global talent from countries such as China, India, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand. In 2023, eight of Australia's top 10 sending countries for international students were from the Indo-Pacific.
Investing in international education therefore not only builds a positive image of Australia overseas, but also develops a generation of pro-Australian young leaders. Graduates of Australian universities often return to their home countries to take up influential positions in government, business and civil society, and act as informal ambassadors for Australian values and policies in their communities.
For example, as Beijing increases policy and security assistance to Fiji and Papua New Guinea, investing in pro-Australia leadership is crucial to maintaining regional stability and promoting democratic principles, transparency and sustainable development.
However, Australia's reputation in international education has taken a hit due to recent tightening of visa policies, which has led to more than 50,000 overseas applications being rejected between November 2023 and February 2024, pushing visa refusals to a record high and causing students to seek educational opportunities elsewhere.
“This is a step in the wrong direction, opening the door to competing regional countries to attract students who would otherwise come to Australia. While Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neill has emphasised the need to curb immigration levels, this approach has significant long-term implications for Australia's education diplomacy, and ultimately its public diplomacy.
Efforts to balance immigration must continue as Australia restores its reputation as a premier education destination. One possible solution is to introduce a program similar to Canada's Student Direct Stream, which would sustainably manage immigration levels while attracting global talent and streamlining the visa process for international students from key Indo-Pacific countries.
Second, redirecting financial resources towards public broadcasting to restore Australia's international media presence should be a top priority for Canberra.
“Until the past decade, Australia was the preeminent international media outlet in the South Pacific, as it had been since the Second World War,” writes Graham Dobell, a senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
What was in the 1990s a media presence comparable to CNN or the BBC has now disappeared. Indeed, Canberra's efforts to divest resources from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in an “unfocused” and non-strategic way are odd, given the existing evidence that international public broadcasting remains a powerful vehicle for promoting public diplomacy in the 21st century.
Many of our regional competitors, such as China’s CCTV and Japan’s NHK, also demonstrate sustained growth in their media influence through continued financial investment by their governments.
In comparison, the ABC's budget is currently one of the smallest in the world – a situation that must be addressed urgently. Australia's international voice cannot be rebuilt without substantial financial support from the Australian Government.
This extra funding must be deployed strategically: much of the ABC's original content over the past decade has been made for Australian audiences, but this is due to ongoing financial constraints.
As expected, rebroadcasting this type of content in the Pacific has had very limited impact as it lacks the necessary language and cultural relevance for regional audiences.
To meet this challenge, ABC must prioritize producing content that resonates with the diverse interests, languages and cultures of its Indo-Pacific audience. China's achievements in multilingual programming and content diversification are a compelling example.
By strengthening its media capabilities, Australia can better shape perceptions, increase its profile and strengthen its connections with audiences across the Indo-Pacific.
The decline in Australia's soft power is a cause for concern. Despite gradual efforts to improve, Australia's progress is not rapid enough to remain competitive with fast-growing regional rivals.
If Australia wants to protect its national security interests in a region where the balance of power is shifting, it must improve its soft power projection to avoid falling irreparably behind.
Helen Wu ([email protected]) is an emerging leader at Pacific Forum and a fourth-year international relations major at New York University.
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