Asia awareness lacking

For the past two decades, the Asia New Zealand Foundation has taken an annual temperature check of New Zealand’s comfort levels about Asia, using its ‘‘Perceptions of Asia and Asian Peoples’’ tracking survey.

New Zealand has changed significantly since the first survey was carried out in 1997. One prominent feature is the growth in the population identifying with an Asian ethnicity, from 6 per cent in 2001 to an estimated 15 per cent in 2018.

Despite those changes, two-thirds of respondents to last year’s report said they knew little or nothing about the region.

This time, we asked Kiwis several general knowledge questions, and the results confirm New Zealand has its work cut out if it wants to improve its ability to engage in Asia.

On average, respondents answered two out of six questions correctly. Most people (73 per cent) were able to identify China as New Zealand’s largest trading partner.

But only a minority knew Indonesia was a democracy.

Sure, knowing the answers to six general knowledge questions is not the be-all and end-all when it comes to constructive international engagement (though if you’re trying to sell a product in Indonesia, I’d suggest it’s helpful to know it has a democratic political system and is home to the world’s largest Muslim population).

The most worrying finding was that young people had a particularly low level of knowledge (more than half of respondents under the age of 30 answered only one question correctly, or got them all wrong) – somewhat puzzling when they’ve grown up in a more diverse country than their parents did (and are themselves part of a more ethnically diverse generation).

This doesn’t bode well for New Zealand’s ability to raise global citizens. Clearly, we can’t assume that we’re an Asia-savvy nation just because we’re seeing more Asian people on the main streets of any New Zealand town or city.

For the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s part, much of our work – our education programme, business and media internships and our Leadership Network – is already directed at young New Zealanders.

But we think we could do better at articulating ways to help young people, regardless of background, to improve their Asia-related skills and knowledge.

We’re developing a ‘‘#Thinkasia’’ careers pathway as a coherent strategy that involves all of our programmes. We’re fortunate to have some role models in our Leadership Network, which has more than 400 young people from a range of professions and ethnicities.

In promoting our #Thinkasia pathway to young people, we will need help from a lot of people – parents, teachers, role models and especially New Zealand business.

Given our economic ties to Asia, it should be a no-brainer that our businesses need Asia-savvy young people. But it’s clear the signals about the importance of Asia to New Zealand aren’t getting through.

The full ‘‘New Zealanders’ Perceptions of Asia and Asian Peoples’’ report can be accessed at www.asianz.org.nz.