I haven’t finished reading the Australian Government’s Australia in the Asian Century White Paper yet, and I may blog on additional aspects of it in the coming days, but one thing that particularly strikes me  is the focus on the importance of learning Asian languages.

I don’t dispute that learning a foreign language is a laudable goal.  It opens up new worlds of literature, allows one the opportunity to converse and share ideas with people from another country, and affords an insight into the way users of that language think.  Learning another language is enjoyable (if, on occasion, frustrating) and gives one a real sense of achievement.

In the context of the debate surrounding Australia’s role in the Asian century, however, I’m not so sure that familiarity with an Asian language is essential.  It’s certainly desirable, but I believe that ensuring Australian school children are reasonably familiar with Asian history is much more important.

I enjoyed learning languages in school (French and Italian), but due to competing interests was unable to devote the necessary time required to become fluent.  I think the same will be true for the majority of Australian school children.  Only a relative few will pursue language study long enough to become fluent in, say, Mandarin.

In contrast, even if students choose not to history beyond their school years, being exposed to Asian history will give them some sort of framework they can use to interpret the decisions and policies of neighbouring countries.  Without a knowledge of Chinese history, for example, it’s difficult to understand the reasons behind Beijing’s recent actions surrounding the Senkaku islands.

Much of the debate surrounding Australia’s place in Asia in recent years has focused on the idea of increasing the ‘Asia literacy’ of its citizens.  Learning an Asian language is too intimidating for many people, but exposing school children to the history of the region seems to me the best way to increase ‘Asia literacy’ and encourage children to study the language of the country they are most interested in.