Australia and the rise of the rest
"The Post-American World" is the title of a new book by the Newsweek columnist and global big thinker, Fareed Zakaria, which argues that the US is in slow decline, and that the world has entered a period of "post-Americanism".
It is one of those "Honey: Who Shrunk the Superpower?" sort of books. It notes that America can no longer boast the world's tallest building - that honour goes to Taipei; Bollywood has overtaken Hollywood; the European-made A380 is bigger than the American-made jumbo jet.
This is something much broader than the much-ballyhooed rise of China or even Asia, writes the Indian-born Zakaria; "It is the rise of the rest."
The book comes out here in August, and I wonder how many times it will mention "Australia", "Howard", and "Rudd". But Australia is unquestionably part of Zakaria's "rise of the rest" - I would argue a big part.
First all the boring stuff: the Australia exports that are feeding, fashioning and fuelling the rise of the rest. Australia is the world's biggest exporter of black coal, the third biggest producer of iron ore and has the largest known recoverable resources of uranium, which is essential for the nuclear ambitions of India and China.
By the end of the decade, it should be able to boast the planet's largest solar energy plant, and be the world leader in geothermal "hot rock" power generation.
Australia is the world's fourth largest exporter of wheat, and the fourth largest exporter of wine. If you want to fully understand why there are wheat riots in Egypt and pasta protests in Italy, then go see the empty grain silos in rural Australia.
In investment banking, Macquarie Bank, the Sydney-based "Millionaires Factory", is now estimated to be the world's largest non-governmental owner of infrastructure. It owns all manner of things, from Thames Water in London to the Indiana Tollway, from the Chicago Skyway to Red Bee Media, which was perhaps better known in its previous incarnation, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Broadcast. Staying with global finance, up until 2005 the World Bank was run by an Australian, James Wolfensohn, who grew up in Sydney and who fenced for Australia at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
On the geopolitical front, Kevin Rudd has just made it into "100 Most Influential People List". At a tribute dinner for John Howard in Sydney earlier this month, George W Bush and Tony Blair sent video good wishes, a measure of Australia's enhanced global standing.
Even under Kevin Rudd, Australia remains America's closest Asia-Pacific ally. When John McCain set out his foreign policy vision in an essay late last year, he noted: "I will tend carefully to our ever-stronger alliance with Australia." In the same essay, Britain did not merit an equivalent mention.
Culturally, Australia boasts at least three of the finest prose stylists in the English language, the two-time Booker prize winner, Peter Carey (although he lives in New York and his latest book, in my uneducated opinion, is a bit of a dud), Tim Winton and Booker prize winner Thomas Keneally. And is there a more accomplished film star in the world right now than the saintly Cate Blanchett - who, in a wonderful historical inversion, rose to global prominence playing an English monarch?
In media, just two words: Rupert Murdoch. The world's most influential business newspaper, the , is now not only owned by a native Australian, Murdoch, but edited by one as well, Robert Thomson.
Australia's culture is influencing the world in more subtle ways as well. Just think of all those Chinese students studying in Australian universities, drawn Down Under partly because of the strict visa requirements introduced by the US in the aftermath of 9/11.
In sport, Australia's sporting academies are the envy of the world, and have helped regularly give it one of the highest ratios of Olympic medals per capita of any country. At the Athens Olympics in 2004 it came third in the "medal tally by population" league table, behind the Bahamas and Norway (the UK came 29th, the US came 34th and India was last).
Its anti-doping regimes provide the global gold standard. In cricket, the world's second most popular sport, Australia still dominates the field of play, if not the corridors of power.
Australia remains a lifestyle superpower. For all its infrastructure problems, Sydney still ranks as the world's favourite city among tourists, according to magazine - the 12th time it has topped this readers' poll. Sydney and Melbourne can boast some of the finest restaurants on the planet.
I'd love to hear what you think about Australia's cultural, diplomatic and economic reach. Am I overestimating or underestimating it? And what about the notion of post-Americanism? Having spent the past week with a US naval task stationed off the coast of Burma - America is the only country that could come close to mounting that scale of operation so far from its shores - I suspect it's a little early to write off the US.
But I am in no doubt that the rise of the rest extends to this far-flung corner of the planet. The land down under is increasingly front and centre.
I'm 
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