УДК 327 EXTERNAL POLICY OF AUSTRALIA WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF ASIA- PACIFIC REGION Gleb Vyacheslavovich Toropchin School of History and International Relations Department of Modern History and International Relations Department of Foreign Languages glebtoropchin@mail.ru Asia-Pacific region is considered to be among the most rapidly developing regions of the world. For instance, total yearly GDP growth of the regional countries was predicted to reach 7.3% in 2011 [5]. In fact, this region is even called “locomotive of global growth” [7]. Australia is one of the major actors in it, being a country with developed (not developing) economy, along with Japan and New Zealand [5]. Social stability, low level of unemployment and maturity of so- called real sector of economy are believed to be among competitive advantages of the state within the region, which can contribute to the economic evolvement of this part of the world [http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_CN/cn/Insights/dr/43ac865d05762310VgnVCM2000001b56f 00aRCRD.htm]. As for the correlation of forces, it can be said that the Commonwealth of Australia is a dominating power in the southern part of the APR (this can be proved both by geography, as Australia is the biggest state of the subregion in terms of area, comprising 9/10 of its territory [1], and by their economic and sometimes legal control of adjacent domains and even independent states, like East Timor). First of all, the definition and borders of the concept of APR itself are to be determined. Basically, there are at least two most common understandings: the narrow one (here APR comprises the geographically smaller states of Southeast Asia in the first place) and the broad one (according to which the Asia-Pacific region is not limited by the insular states of Oceania and Southeast Asia developing markets, but includes China, India, Japan, countries of Latin America situated on the Pacific side, Russia, U.S. and Canada as important actors spreading their influence). Definitely, the broad one seems to work better in our situation, since we are to consider the regional processes in global context as well. Such understanding of the regional borders is also stipulated by spectacular growth rates, which is a general trend for all these countries [11]. Within that kind of framework, one can distinguish between several trends and areas of cooperation between Australia and other regional actors: general interaction in political and law fields; economic and trade cooperation; cultural, scientific and technological partnership. Now that we have denominated these aspects, it is necessary to dwell upon them in a more detailed way. - Politics and international law. The international processes in the region with the participation of Australia in the last 15 years basically followed the agreed limits of the specific “J. Howard doctrine” [17]. Its contents are predetermined by the traditionalist position of John Howard (Australia’s Prime Minister in 1996-2007, Liberal Party). But it meant cooperation on equal terms with the actors of the region, regardless of their internal affairs and social order (for instance, Howard claimed that his country was simultaneously able to strengthen its “long-standing ties with the United States of America, yet at the same time continue to build a very close relationship with China” [10]. At the same time, Australia acted strictly in compliance