Not in the sense that one country is better than the other — I’ve long been an advocate of the “not better, not worse, just different” school of thought — but rather in an objective way: Mexico has a much bigger population, but Australia is significantly larger in area.

Those kinds of things.

Mexico News Daily’s “Australia in Focus” week gave me a perfect opportunity to delve further into data on the two countries — a real treat for someone who is a bit of statistics nerd.

The result of my research is this addition to our “Mexico in Numbers” series of articles, in which I present a selection of data for Mexico and Australia, and make some objective comparisons between the two countries.

Population and demographics 

The population of Australia was estimated to be 26.63 million at June 30, 2023, while Mexico’s 2020 census found that just over 126 million people were living in the country.

Thus, Mexico’s population is around five times larger than that of Australia.

Mexico is the world’s 10th most populous nation (just ahead of Ethiopia and behind Brazil), while Australia ranks 55th.

Australians, on average, are much older than Mexicans. The median age of Australians was 38.5 in 2022, while the median age of Mexicans was 29 in 2020.

Life expectancy in Australia is considerably longer than in Mexico. In the first years of this decade, life expectancy at birth was 81.2 for males in Australia and 85.3 for females. The figures in Mexico in 2022 were 78.4 for women and 72.6 for men.

Almost one-fifth of Mexico’s population identifies as Indigenous, while the figure is much lower in Australia at just 3.8%.

Australians in Mexico, Mexicans in Australia

Given the vast distance between the two countries and the absence of traditional ties — such as those between Australia and England or those between Mexico and Spain — it’s not surprising that the number of Australians living in Mexico, and the number of Mexicans living in Australia, is not particularly high.

Australia’s 2021 census found that there were 6,845 Mexican-born residents, about half of whom are Australian citizens. Most moved to Australia this century as the Mexican-born population was just 1,154 in 2001.

Thus, the number of Mexicans who call Australia home increased by almost 500% in the space of 20 years. Concerns about security in Mexico, the opportunity to have “a better quality of life” in Australia and a desire to be close to family members already in Australia were among the reasons Mexicans migrated “Down Under,” according to a 2013 study.

The first recorded Mexican resident of Australia was a male living in Tasmania in 1881.

As for Australian residents in Mexico, there were 695 in 2020, according to the census conducted that year. Almost three-quarters — 72.4% — of those counted were male, while 77.6% of the total were aged between 25 and 39.

Family, work, education and personal reasons were the main things that brought Australians to Mexico. Mexico City has the highest population of resident Australians, with 317, or 46% of the total counted by the 2020 census.

Area and other geographical data 

With an area of 7.68 million square kilometers, Australia is the sixth largest country in the world. Mexico’s territory covers 1.96 million square kilometers, making it the 13th largest country in the world.

Mexico – it may come as a surprise – could fit into Australia almost four times over.

Australia is divided into six states and two mainland territories, whereas Mexico has 31 states and a 32nd state-like entity in Mexico City, the national capital. Mexico could easily fit into Australia’s largest state, Western Australia, whose area exceeds 2.5 million square kilometers.

Australia’s highest (mainland) mountain, the 2,228-meter-high Mount Kosciuszko, is dwarfed by Mexico’s highest peak — that of the 5,636-meter-high Pico de Orizaba, an active stratovolcano on the Veracruz-Puebla border.

About 18% of Australia’s territory is classed as desert, while approximately 70% of land is considered arid or semi-arid.

Around 40% of Mexico’s territory is classified as desert or semi-arid land. That territory includes the Chihuahuan Desert, which covers more than 500,000 square meters of land in northern Mexico and southern United States.

Economy 

Mexico became the the 12th largest economy in the world in 2023, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) GDP projections for 2023, overtaking South Korea and Australia to reach that position.

The IMF estimates that Australia’s nominal GDP was US $1.69 trillion last year, while that of Mexico was placed at $1.81 trillion.

While the overall size of the two economies is similar, per capita GDP is much higher in Australia given the country’s significantly smaller population.

Per capita GDP in Australia was just over $65,000 in 2022, according to the World Bank, while it was just under $11,500 in Mexico.

Mexico’s economy is currently growing more quickly than Australia’s. Preliminary data published in late January showed that GDP in Mexico increased 3.1% in annual terms in 2023, while growth in Australia was 2.1% in the 12 months to the end of September.

Indigenous languages 

More than 250 Indigenous languages were spoken in Australia at the time of British colonization in 1788, but the number had declined to 150 by 2021. Many of those languages have a small or very small number of speakers.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, just under 77,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people reported speaking an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander language in 2021.

In Mexico, there are 68 officially recognized Indigenous languages, of which Nahuatl and Maya are the most commonly spoken.

More than 7.3 million Mexicans speak an Indigenous language, according to the 2020 census, a figure that accounts for about 6% of the population.

Thus, there are around 95 Mexicans who speak an Indigenous language for every Australian who can communicate in a native Australian tongue.

Biodiversity 

Both Australia and Mexico are among 17 “mega-diverse” countries identified by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre of the United Nations Environment Program.

According to the Global Biodiversity Index, developed by the research firm The Swiftest, Mexico is the world’s fifth most biodiverse country and Australia ranks sixth.

The rankings are based on the number of bird species, amphibian species, fish species, mammal species, reptile species and plant species.

Mexico is home to 29,051 species across those six categories, while Australia has 26,772 species, according to the biodiversity index.

Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia and China are the world’s top four most biodiverse countries.

Shark attacks

There have been a few headline-making shark attacks in Mexico recently, but data shows that they are much more common in Australia.

According to the Florida Museum’s “International Shark Attack File,” there have been 706 confirmed unprovoked attacks in Australia since 1580 (more than 200 years before British colonization), and 42 attacks in Mexico in the same period.

This article is part of our Australia in Focus series. You can read the rest of the articles here.

By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)

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But as Mexican Secretary of Culture Alejandra Frausto Guerrero notes, “The best ambassador that we have outside the country is our culture.” 

The demographic basis of Indigenous diplomacy

Few countries are as rich in Indigenous cultures as Mexico or Australia, and both nations are legally committed to their preservation and ancestral rights in the 21st century.

Mexico has 68 recognized Indigenous ethnicities, grouped primarily by language. The largest of these are Mesoamerican and speak varieties of language families including Nahuatl, Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, Mazatec, Otomí and Totonac.

All of Mexico’s Indigenous peoples struggle with issues like language loss and political and economic marginalization. As younger generations have sought to integrate into Mexico’s dominant modern society, cultural erosion has also become a pressing concern for these communities.

Across the Pacific in Australia, census data shows that over 160 Indigenous languages are spoken at home. As in Mexico, however, language does not necessarily mean ethnicity, as other factors like history and cultural practices come into play. 

Indigenous Australians today face many of the same challenges as those in Mexico do. The Australian Human Rights Commission recognizes that “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to be one of the most vulnerable groups in Australia.” 

On the positive side, sociopolitical changes in both countries in the 20th century led to a greater appreciation for original peoples, both historically and as part of Mexico’s and Australia’s modern cultural identities. Although Indigenous people in Mexico and Australia remain highly vulnerable, both countries have implemented social and political efforts to conserve these cultures and protect their social and economic rights.

Growth of Mexico-Australia relations

While both are home to ancient cultures, formal relations between the two countries date back only to 1966. Both nations are members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and other intergovernmental organizations.

Australian Ambassador to Mexico Rachel Moseley notes that these ties have grown significantly in the past decade or so, with the Australian embassy’s activities in this country doubling. Mexican federal deputy Carolina Dávila Ramírez notes that “We share a profound pride in our roots which have enriched our identity, social reality and worldview.”

This pride was further prompted by the two countries’ growing economic ties. In 2022, trade between Mexico and Australia totaled almost US $2 billion, with Mexico exporting about $1.2 billion of automobiles and parts and importing about $8 million in grain and other agricultural products.

Cultural exchanges have been fairly typical, with Mexico sponsoring exhibitions of work by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and Mesoamerican artifacts. It also sends thousands of students to study at Australian universities.

But in 2020, the two countries signed a unique memorandum of understanding (MOU), the Memorandum of Understanding Between the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples of the United Mexican States and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies of the Commonwealth of Australia. This document is based specifically on the two countries’ Indigenous populations, a diplomatic angle few countries could ever contemplate.

What the Memorandum of Understanding does

Foremost, the MOU recognizes the “integral place of Indigenous Peoples historically and currently in both countries… as well as their contribution to the diversity and richness of our respective cultures.” 

The exchange is primarily managed by the federal-level agencies dedicated to Indigenous affairs in both countries. In Australia, that entity is called the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). In Mexico, it is the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI). In addition to working to conserve knowledge of their respective Indigenous peoples and their material cultures, both institutes research and document these peoples’ modern realities.  

One of the first activities that resulted from the MOU was an exchange of best practices between the two agencies. Through a series of online and presential exchanges of experts in 2023, INPI head archivist Octavio Murillo was pleased to discover that although Mexico does not have anywhere near the resources that Australia has, “We realized that many of the processes we do here in Mexico are very similar to those in Australia… there are the same standards for digitalization, for example. Even though we are not a rich institution, we already have what we need to do a good job.”

Sharing knowledge with the public in both countries

The other major INPI-AIATSIS initiative so far is the staging of various exhibitions in museums and other prominent locations in both countries to educate their respective populations about Indigenous peoples on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

In 2022, the Embassy of Mexico in Australia and AIATSIS presented “Portraits of Indigenous Mexico” at the Australian National University in Canberra, introducing Australians to the wide diversity of Indigenous and Afro-Mexican cultures. The exhibition featured work by famous Mexican photographers including  Nacho López, Miguel Bracho and Leticia Olvera.

In Mexico, there have been two important exhibits of Indigenous Australian culture. Last August, the INPI-run  Indigenous Museum in Mexico City hosted a documentary project “After 200 years: Photographic Essays of Aboriginal and Islander Australia” which began in 1988 and was updated in recent years. A month later, the Chamber of Deputies hosted the traveling exhibition “ Yuendumu Doors,” a collection of classroom doors painted in 1984 by elders of the Warlpiri people to keep the first generation of schoolchildren educated in Western schools connected to their ancestral culture.

The MOU stipulates much more than talks between experts and cultural exhibitions. It also calls for exchanges among the Indigenous people of both countries in areas like business and higher education. This year, the Australian government named Goreng Goreng public servant Justin Mohamed its inaugural Ambassador for First Nations People. As ambassador, he is tasked with working on international issues as they relate to Indigenous Australia, which includes establishing a University of Indigenous Languages in collaboration with Mexico. 

Diplomatic impact

The initiatives that have come out of the AIATSIS-INPI memorandum of understanding have served to raise Indigenous historical and cultural awareness, not just as internal affairs but as international ones as well.  

Notable at the two exhibitions in Mexico were the similarities in history and cultures of two sets of peoples separated by a vast ocean. There may be several conclusions to draw from that, but this global perspective is significant and needs to be explored.

Ambassador Moseley notes that Indigenous Australians now have an impact on how their country interacts with the rest of the world. “We see a First Nations approach to foreign policy as one that project our modern diversity… [t]his is particularly relevant in Mexico, which also has a rich indigenous history dating back tens of thousands of years,” She sees Indigenous viewpoints as particularly helpful with environmental issues, including the international management of natural resources.

There is still much more work to be done, including expert and student exchanges, their continued participation in the Indigenous Language Institute together, and even exchanges among Indigenous small business owners. But the basic groundwork has been laid for long-term cooperation in Indigenous issues.

Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico over 20 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.

The post What you should know about Mexico and Australia’s Indigenous diplomacy appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Here are seven such stories, presented here in chronological order.

A Mexican winemaker makes a mark far from home

In 2018, Susannah Rigg wrote about Mauricio Ruiz Cantú, an oenologist from Monterrey who moved to South Australia via Coahuila to develop his winemaking skills and start his own wine labels.

A Mexican winemaker down under makes Australian wine for Mexico

A “100% Mexican” filmmaker who just happens to be Australian  

In 2022, Leigh Thelmadatter profiled filmmaker Michael Rowe, who shot to prominence with his debut film Año Bisiesto (Leap Year), set in Mexico City.

An aspiring Australian poet found his calling making films in Mexico

An Aussie artist in Oaxaca 

In early 2023, Gordon Cole-Schmidt spent some time getting to know artist and gallery/cafe owner Jaime Levin in Oaxaca city.

Once in Oaxaca: meet Australian artist and gallerist Jaime Levin

The “Gringo Zapatista” who hailed from Down Under

Sheryl Losser researched and wrote this fascinating article about Roderick James Martson, an Australian who fought in the Mexican Revolution.

The mysterious ‘Gringo Zapatista’ who fought in Mexico’s Revolution

Mexico City native wows Sydney with authentic Mexican food

Rosa Cienfuegos spoke to Mexico News Daily last year about her culinary enterprises in Australia’s best-known city.

Inspiring a love for Mexico Down Under: meet Rosa Cienfuegos

Australian sailor rescued off the Mexican coast

Last year we covered the extraordinary story of Tim Shaddock and his dog Bella, who were rescued by fisherman off the coast of Colima after spending a difficult three months at sea.

Sailor and dog rescued by Mexican fishermen after 3 months at sea

Aussie potter finds inspiration in Oaxaca 

Earlier this year, Laurel Tuohy profiled Australian curator and potter Stellah de Ville, who described the tradition of “making” in Oaxaca as “unparalleled.”

Stellah de Ville talks life, art and collaboration in Mexico

Mexico News Daily

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Macquarie, a Sydney-based financial services and asset management company, and infrastructure firm Aleatica have been in Mexico for some time, while Woodside is a newcomer, having acquired a stake in a large Gulf of Mexico oil field as the result of its 2022 merger with the petroleum division of the Melbourne-based company BHP Group.

In this article, part of the “Australia in Focus” series at Mexico News Daily this week, we’ll take a look at the three companies’ activities in Mexico.

The assets they own, and the projects they are undertaking, have the potential to have a significant impact on Mexico’s quest to take full advantage of the nearshoring opportunity, improve transport infrastructure and reach and maintain self-sufficiency for gasoline.

Macquarie in the thick of Mexico’s nascent nearshoring boom 

FIBRA Macquarie — a real estate investment trust that is listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange (BMV) — owns 256 industrial and commerical properties in 20 Mexican cities, according to the trust’s website.

The combined value of its real estate portfolio — one of the largest in Mexico — is US $3 billion.

Part of the Macquarie Asset Management division of Macquarie Group, FIBRA Macquarie listed on the BMV in 2012 and has continued to grow since then.

Twelve years later, it is playing a significant role in the nascent nearshoring boom in Mexico, as it is a major leaser of industrial space and has developed several industrial parks, including one that is set to open in Tijuana later this year.

In addition to manufacturing space — which is in high demand in Mexico as more and more foreign firms relocate here — companies are actively seeking warehouse and logistics facilities for “safety stocking” in Mexico to avoid supply shocks, according to FIBRA Macquarie CEO Simon Hanna.

With 35.6 million square feet of gross leasable area, FIBRAMQ, as the trust is known, is better placed than most to offer such space to those looking for it.

“Many learned the hard way during the COVID-19 pandemic that lean, just-in-time manufacturing left them exposed,” Hanna said, referring to North American companies that source inputs from outside the continent, especially Asia.

One of FIBRAMQ’s newest projects is a $90 million industrial park in Tijuana, which, once completed, will have over 80,000 square meters of leasable space across three state-of-the-art buildings.

Construction began last August, and the first of the three buildings is expected to be completed in the first half of this year.

“This project marks a pivotal step in our commitment to fostering economic growth and development in the region and capitalizing on the accelerating nearshoring activity into Mexico,” Hanna said.

“We remain committed to delivering market-leading industrial spaces that fulfill the evolving needs of businesses and incorporate superior sustainable building standards. We currently have a portfolio of 38 properties in the state of Baja California, hosting 57 companies and contributing thousands of jobs to the state’s economy,” he added.

In 2023, FIBRAMQ also developed projects in several other northern states, and in San Luis Potosí, Querétaro and Mexico City.

“We’ve continued deploying capital on sustainable industrial projects … to position our … [trust] for future growth and to capture nearshoring opportunities,” Hanna said last May.

He acknowledged later in the year that FIBRAMQ’s real estate portfolio was benefiting from “persistent demand and tailwinds due to nearshoring.”

FIBRAMQ, whose share price increased almost 17% last year, has headquarters in Mexico City and offices in nine other “core markets,” including Querétaro, Monterrey and Tijuana.

Aleatica invests heavily in highway infrastructure 

If you’ve driven in central Mexico, there is a good chance you’ve driven on a highway managed by Aleatica, an infrastructure company owned by the Melbourne-based IFM Global Infrastructure Fund.

The company operates six highways in Mexico including the Circuito Exterior Mexiquense in México state, the Viaducto Bicentenario in Mexico City and the Amozoc-Perote highway in the states of Puebla and Veracruz.

It is building another México state highway, the Autopista Atizapán-Atlacomulco, and also operates the Toluca International Airport.

According to a video on the Aleatica website, the company has invested more than 73 billion pesos (US $4.3 billion) in Mexico.

“This shows our solid commitment to propel the country into the future,” says Aleatica, which was ranked by the Obras por Expansión website as the 11th most important construction company in Mexico.

Aleatica’s presence in Mexico was bolstered in 2018 with IFM’s purchase of Spanish company OHL. The acquisition gave Aleatica additional highway concessions in Mexico, including that for the Circuito Exterior Mexiquense, a 118-kilometer-long highway that runs through 19 México state municipalities and links to a distributor road that runs to the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA).

As OHL allegedly benefited from a cozy relationship with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), there was some speculation in 2023 that its México state concessions now held by Aleatica could be reviewed if not revoked given that the PRI’s long-held rule in the state ended last September. However, the state government led by Morena party Governor Delfina Gómez hasn’t made any announcements to that effect.

While Aleatica has established itself as one of the most important infrastructure operators in Mexico, its presence in the country has not been without problems. The legality of its operation of the Viaducto Bicentenario is currently being questioned by federal authorities, and the construction of the Atizapán-Atlacomulco highway has faced delays.

The Milenio newspaper reported last month that the highway has been “practically forgotten.”

Aleatica was also in the news in early 2022 when a contract worker died in an accident while working on a section of the Circuito Exterior Mexiquense near AIFA.

The company says that “safety first” is one of its “five corporate pillars” and noted in its 2022 Annual Sustainability Report for Mexico that both employee accidents and deaths of motorists using its roads declined compared to the previous year. Aleatica is investing heavily in both maintenance of its Mexican highways and specific measures to improve safety and reduce accidents on them.

The company also touts its environmental credentials, and is aiming to become a “net zero” company by 2050, according to Aleatica México CEO Rubén López Barrera.

Woodside partners with Pemex to develop huge offshore oil field

Australia’s largest oil and gas producer announced last June that it had approved a multibillion-dollar investment in the Trion oil field, which it it jointly owns with Mexico’s state-owned oil company Pemex.

The Perth-based company, which has a 60% stake in Trion, said it would contribute US $4.8 billion to the project and that the total forecast outlay was $7.2 billion.

Mexico’s National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH) approved the development plan for the field in August. That plan estimated a total cost of $10.43 billion including investment and operating expenses.

Located about 180 kilometers off the Gulf of Mexico coast and 30 kilometers south of the Mexico-United States maritime border, Trion is estimated to contain well over 400 million barrels of oil. Extraction is slated to commence in 2028 and continue until 2052.

While a global energy transition is underway, Woodside CEO Meg O’Neil said in June that the company has “considered a range of oil demand forecasts” and believes Trion can “help satisfy the world’s energy requirements.”

The current Mexican government also believes that demand for oil will remain strong in the coming decades. Under Andrés Manuel President López Obrador, it has purchased a refinery in Texas, built a new one on the Tabasco coast and invested billions of pesos to upgrade Pemex’s six other refineries.

“We wish that oil was no longer used, that fossil fuels were no longer used, that the environment was looked after more, but there are processes that have to be carried out in the energy transition,” the president said last year after a meeting with OPEC Secretary General Haitham al-Ghais.

Woodside said it is “aligned” with Mexico’s ambition to increase oil production and has predicted that over US $10 billion in cumulative taxes and royalties will flow into Mexican government coffers as a result of the development of Trion.

O’Neil said that the company was developing the field “because we believe it will deliver value for Woodside shareholders and benefit for Mexico, including generation of jobs, taxation revenue and social benefit.”

Woodside has been a frequent target of criticism from environmental activists, but the company said last year that its “greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets remain unchanged by the decision to approve investment in Trion.”

By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)

This article is the fourth in Mexico News Daily’s “Australia in Focus” series. Read about the history of relations between Australia and Mexico here, an interview with Australia’s ambassador to Mexico here and the story of two Australians forever linked to Mexico here.

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Did you know that one of Australia’s most distinguished historians was an authority on the Mexica and Maya people?

Peter Norman and Inga Clendinnen will forever be inextricably linked to Mexico, the former due to one memorable day in the Mexican capital, the latter because she dedicated years of her professional life to researching and writing about the country’s pre-Columbian peoples.

Both are deceased, but their legacy — forged in large part in and by Mexico — will live on.

Australian sprinter makes a stand against racism in Mexico City

The first Olympic Games to have ever been hosted in Latin America began on Oct. 12, 1968 in Mexico City, 10 days after the Tlatelolco massacre and six months after Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis.

Four days after the opening ceremony, the final of the men’s 200-meter race was held in the Olympic University Stadium, where United States athlete Tommie Smith won the gold medal, Peter Norman of Australia snatched the silver and John Carlos of the U.S. claimed the bronze.

Better remembered than the race is the medal ceremony, at which Smith and Carlos each raised a black-gloved fist as the Star-Spangled Banner played in what CNN described as “an act of defiance aimed at highlighting the segregation and racism burning back in their homeland.”

Before the ceremony, Norman reportedly told his fellow medal-winners: “I will stand with you.”

While he didn’t raise his fist, the then 26-year-old Australian demonstrated his support for the Black Power salute – and his opposition to racism and discrimination more broadly – by wearing an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge on his tracksuit jacket, as did both Smith and Carlos.

“My attitude was they’d earned the right to do what they thought they had to do with their one square meter of Olympic dais, and I was glad they were doing it, and glad I was with them,” Norman said in an interview.

All three athletes paid a heavy price for their protest in Mexico City on that autumn day in Mexico City more than 55 years ago.

“Smith and Carlos were sent home in disgrace and banned from the Olympics for life,” CNN reported, while Norman wasn’t selected in the Australian team for the 1972 Munich Olympics despite running times that qualified him to compete in both the 100 and 200-meter races.

“As soon as he got home he was hated,” said Matthew Norman, the athlete’s nephew.

“… He suffered to the day he died,” said Norman, who made a documentary film about his uncle called “Salute.”

Peter Norman died of a heart attack in 2006, and Smith and Carlos — who greatly appreciated his solidarity in Mexico City — served as pallbearers at his funeral and gave eulogies.

The BBC reported that “the Australian parliament made an official apology to Norman in 2012 for the treatment he received in the wake of the 1968 Olympics and recognized “‘the powerful role [he] played in furthering racial equality,'” while The Sydney Morning Herald said in October 2018 that Norman was “finally being recognized as the hero he deserves – and always wanted – to be.”

“About time, too. It’s only taken half a century,” the newspaper added.

The image of Norman on the podium with the two African-American sprinters is considered one of the most iconic photographs in history, and is one of Sports Illustrated’s “100 greatest sports photos of all time.”

The silent protest of the three Olympians was one of many demonstrations in Mexico City in 1968, a time when the Mexican student movement was fighting for greater political freedoms and for an end to the authoritarianism of the Institutional Revolutionary Party government, which, at the time, had already been in power for decades.

An “outstanding historian” inspired by the Mexica and Maya civilizations

Inga Clendinnen was a highly-decorated Australian author, historian and anthropologist who wrote books about the Maya and Mexica civilizations in addition to works on other topics.

Born in the Australian state of Victoria in 1934, Clendinnen was an “outstanding historian” whose “studies on the oppression of the Maya, on the Aztecs, and on the Holocaust, have used the craft of the anthropologist to describe violence’s cultural origin, conduct, and consequences,” according to the Dan David Prize.

Clendinnen was one of the winners of the prestigious and lucrative prize in 2016, the year of her death.

She is best known for her book “Aztecs: An Interpretation,” published in 1991, four years after an earlier work “Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 1517–1570″ was released. 

While her better-known book has “Aztecs” in its title, Clendinnen acknowledged that it is “more properly” about the “Culhua Mexica” people.

“I want to discover something of the distinctive tonalities of life as it was lived in the city of Tenochtitlán in the early sixteenth century on the eve of the Spanish conquest,” she wrote in its introduction.

“My interest is not primarily with the doings of the great and powerful or with the wisdom and aspirations of the elite, who unsurprisingly have generated most of the sources, but with some of the multiple ways in which ordinary Mexica men and women … made sense of their world,” Clendinnen continued.

“… There is one activity for which the ‘Aztecs’ were notorious: the large scale killing of humans in ritual sacrifices,” she added.

According to an obituary in The Sydney Morning Herald, Clendinnen “said she had found herself tossing down drinks early in the day” when writing “Aztecs” due to “the sheer horror of the material.”

“I mean there was blood everywhere. There were hearts everywhere,” she said.

The obituary also noted that “throughout her life-threatening illness” — Clendinnen suffered from autoimmune hepatitis for years — “she held onto the image of the Aztec warrior.”

“When I thought through the labyrinth of possibilities and memory and so on, I found at the very heart of the labyrinth a little Aztec warrior as the vision of how one ought to be in conditions of challenge,” she said.

“Stoical, self-possessed, consenting if it comes to death, as the only way to sustain your autonomy and your dignity.”

By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)

This article is the third in Mexico News Daily’s “Australia in Focus” series. Read about the history of relations between Australia and Mexico here and an interview with Australia’s ambassador to Mexico here. 

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There have been significant developments in the relationship between Australia and Mexico since her first posting to Mexico, but, as Moseley recently told Mexico News Daily, there is an opportunity for the two countries to collaborate even more closely and enhance ties in a range of areas.

With the publication of this interview with the ambassador, Mexico News Daily continues its “Australia in Focus” week, during which we are publishing a series of articles on a range of topics related to the Australia-Mexico relationship and the “Australian presence” in Mexico.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

PETER DAVIES: Hello Ambassador, thank you for speaking to Mexico News Daily. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your role in Mexico?

AMBASSADOR RACHEL MOSELEY: First of all, thank you for this opportunity. My name is Rachel Moseley and I’m here to represent Australia not just in Mexico, but also in Central America and the Caribbean (Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama). I have a Master of International Relations from the University of New South Wales and a Bachelor of European Studies from the Australian National University and the University of Bologna in Italy. Aside from English, I speak Spanish and Italian.

Before coming here, I served as head of the Ukraine Taskforce and assistant secretary, Latin America and Eastern Europe Branch at Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). I have worked with DFAT since 2002, both in postings overseas and in Canberra.

Overseas, I have served as deputy head of mission in Papua New Guinea and Mexico City; as well as second secretary in our mission to the UN in Geneva. In Canberra, I have had a number of positions including assistant secretary, People Operations Branch; acting assistant secretary, Security Policy Branch; and adviser to the foreign minister.

I am thrilled and honored to be back in Mexico, now as ambassador.

Mexico has a special place in my heart, I spent my honeymoon in Quintana Roo and my husband and I welcomed our first child here during my first posting to Mexico.

Work-wise, my three main priorities as ambassador are: first, to work on generating new opportunities in trade and investment, while also supporting Australian companies already operating in Mexico. Second, increase cultural and education cooperation, especially when it comes to Indigenous peoples. And finally, to advance cooperation on multilateral issues such as gender, human rights, climate change, non-proliferation and disarmament.

PD: How has the Australia-Mexico relationship changed in the 12 years since you first started working in Mexico City as deputy head of mission?

RM: Australia, Mexico, and indeed the whole world, are different compared to 12 years ago. In Australia, I think we are seeing more of a recognition of the importance of Latin America. Conversely, over the past decade Mexico has increased its focus on the Indo-Pacific.

In terms of the Australia–Mexico relationship, perhaps the largest change in the relationship was the entry into force of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans–Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) in 2018.

This has enabled businesses to interact more with each other, which also creates people-to-people links as well. I hope to see a lot more interaction between our countries as more benefits are realized through the CPTPP with each passing year.

PD: What are Australia’s priorities in the bilateral relationship with Mexico today and moving forward?

RM: First, growing bilateral trade and investment. Mexico is currently Australia’s largest trading partner in Latin America, with two-way trade in goods and services worth more than five billion Australian dollars [about US $3.3 billion].

The CPTPP is the first free trade agreement between Australia and Mexico. Some of the tariff reductions under CPTPP are still coming into force, providing new opportunities to expand trade.

For example, under the CPTPP, the tariff rate on Australian barley exports to Mexico was cut from 43 per cent to zero. Our first shipment of Australian barley left for Mexico in January 2021, and the grain is now our largest export to Mexico. Malting barley is a key input for Mexico’s beer industry, the fourth largest producer in the world. Much of this beer is, in turn, exported internationally.

Australian investment in Mexico is also growing rapidly, led by companies like [oil and gas company] Woodside, [financial services firm] Macquarie and [infrastructure company] Aleatica. Their operations are helping to create jobs in Mexico, and they bring unique capabilities and best practices in terms of social and environmental responsibility.

As I mentioned before, we want to continue our cooperation with Mexico in the multilateral space. Australia shares many values in common with Mexico, and we engage with the world based on these. For example, Australia worked closely with Mexico in the UN Human Rights Council last year to establish a separate and distinct status for Indigenous Peoples voices to be heard in dialogues on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, a historical first.

Finally, we are working to strengthen people-to-people exchanges, including with our indigenous communities. We recognize that First Nations knowledge and expertise can be leveraged to help solve global challenges, including in areas such as climate change. Australia and Mexico both have rich Indigenous histories dating back thousands of years, and there is much we can gain from sharing experiences and best practices. For example, there has been interest here in Mexico in the use of traditional Indigenous knowledge in land management and fire hazard reduction in Australia.

PD: Australia and Mexico collaborate in groups such as APEC, the G20 and MIKTA. Do you see any scope for enhanced cooperation on a multilateral or bilateral level?

RM: This year, Latin America will be prominent on the international stage. Both APEC and G20 will be hosted in the region, in Peru and Brazil, respectively. And Mexico will chair MIKTA, a grouping of five middle powers — Mexico, Indonesia, Republic of Korea, Türkiye, and Australia — united by a commitment to work together to build consensus and seek collective solutions to global challenges. MIKTA has just completed its 10th anniversary and remains just as relevant today. We stand ready to support Mexico’s chair year, and work together to bridge divides in the multilateral system, protect public goods and strengthen global governance.

As mentioned, Australia and Mexico cooperate closely on multilateral and human rights issues, but there is scope to do more. We both have highly experienced, well respected, women foreign ministers who are driving this engagement.

Mexico was the first Latin American country to implement an explicitly feminist foreign policy. In a similar vein, Australia has adopted a First Nations foreign policy — one that projects our modern diversity and the rich heritage of First Nations People. This work is about ensuring First Nations communities share in the benefits of our international engagement, including trade and investment opportunities. We want to work with Mexico to share more of each other’s experience.

PD: The Australian Embassy has recently funded a range of projects in Mexico including ones aimed at preventing violence in public secondary schools and another that offered training to young female sports journalists. Can you tell us a little bit about Australia’s Direct Aid Program?

RM: The Direct Aid Program (DAP) is part of the Australian Government’s overall social development assistance program. DAP was created to provide funding assistance directly to communities for sustainable development activities through flexible small grants. Through helping people in need, we can show Australia is a supportive and trusted partner in addressing aid challenges in partner countries.

DAP projects engage a wide range of partners including community groups, non-government organizations, and educational institutions.

Although DAP projects cover a range of sectors such as education, health, water and sanitation, environmental protection, women’s empowerment, and gender equality, supporting people with disabilities, economic livelihoods, food security and human rights, each diplomatic Post around the world can define its own priority topics according to its interests in the countries they work in. This year, we focused the program on four main topics: gender equality, indigenous peoples, environment and sustainability, and human rights.

We always try to fund at least one project for each of our nine countries and in the last few years we have funded up to 16 projects, each with $20,000 Australian dollars on average.

PD: Knowledge of Mexico — and especially Mexican food — is increasing among Australian people. In your experience, could the same thing be said about Australia among Mexicans?

And what is the Embassy doing to increase awareness of Australia and promote the country as a destination for tourism, investment and education?

RM: Yes, absolutely! Through our social media accounts, we share a lot about life in Australia and have highlighted the stories and experiences of our alumni. In our interactions with the public, we have noticed that there has been an increase in knowledge of Australian culture, especially food and drinks.

For example, we love a high-quality cup of coffee and that is something [Mexico City resident] Rafa discovered while studying in Australia. He has now opened his own Australian-style coffee shop in Mexico City called Cumbé Coffee Roasters.

On occasions we have partnered with Cumbé and other spaces to give away classic Australian treats like sausage rolls, ANZAC biscuits, lamingtons, and pavlovas. We are also thrilled that our famous Tim Tam biscuits are now available in Mexico and every Mexican who tries them ends up loving them. Finally, we cannot forget about our wine. This year we welcomed Trifon Estate Wines to Mexico, and we could not be more excited to give everyone a taste of the fantastic wines we produce in Australia.

In terms of education, the Embassy has strengthened its relationships with organizations that grant scholarships or educational loans and state governments. We have been present at major study fairs such as BMI Expo Posgrados, where Australia was the country of honor in the 2022 and 2023 autumn editions.

We are working to link Mexican universities and schools with Australian institutions to establish cooperation and mobility links. In fact, Australia was delighted to be the guest of honor at the 2023 Mexican International Education Association national conference.

Australia has also supported Mexican women who are early career researchers through the APEC Australia Women in Research Fellowships. We have had five Mexican recipients since the program began last year, supporting professional development through international experiences, strengthening our university partnerships, and advancing research that address shared challenges between Mexico and Australia.

Mexico and Australia are closer than they appear, and we want to share that with everyone!

For updates on Australian government initiatives in Mexico, follow the Australian Embassy on Facebook and Ambassador Moseley on X.   

This article is the second in Mexico News Daily’s “Australia in Focus” series. Read about the history of relations between Australia and Mexico here.

The post Rachel Moseley, Australian Ambassador to Mexico, talks to Mexico News Daily appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Welcome to the first Mexico News Daily Global Mexico series, exploring Mexico’s relationships with other countries around the world. We launch with “Australia in Focus”, a week of stories about relations between Mexico and Australia. What is the diplomatic history between the two? What do these two geographically distant countries have in common? What are Australian companies and individuals working on here in Mexico?

Be sure to check our site every day this week for a new story about the Mexico-Australia relationship, and stay tuned for our next Global Mexico series in March.

Kate Bohné, chief news editor

A deepening bond despite the distance

Three months before making a historic first visit to China by an Australian prime minister, Gough Whitlam became the first Australian prime minister to visit Mexico, where he met with Mexican president Luis Echeverría Álvarez in Mexico City.

“In Mexico, which is a leader of opinion in Central and South America, my delegation and I received an enthusiastic and warm reception, especially from President Echeverría and Foreign Minister [Emilio Óscar] Rabasa,” Whitlam told the Australian Parliament shortly after his July 1973 trip.

“I believe the visit has opened a window onto Central and South America; that in [the] future we shall have more frequent and meaningful contacts with Mexico and, indeed, with
other Latin American countries.”

Just over 50 years later, Australia and Mexico remain geographically distant, but the relationship between the two nations has grown closer, just as Whitlam suggested it would.

A brief history of key developments in Australia-Mexico relations

Before we look at at the state of the bilateral relationship today, let’s first go back to the 1960s.

Formal diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in March 1966 when the Prime Minister of Australia was Harold Holt and the president of Mexico was Gustavo Díaz Ordaz.

Those two men — the former Australia’s most famous drowning victim, the latter Mexico’s president when the infamous Tlatelolco Massacre occurred — never met, but their respective governments established embassies in each other’s countries.

Even before diplomatic relations began, Australian flag carrier Qantas established another important connection between Australia and Mexico, commencing in 1964 the so-called “Fiesta Route,” which linked Sydney to London via Fiji, Tahiti, Acapulco, Mexico City, The Bahamas and Bermuda.

“Plenty of Australians still have great memories of the Fiesta Route, including some very lucky Qantas employees,” Qantas says on its website.

The service, which ended in the mid 1970s, resulted in many Australians visiting Mexico, giving a boost to people-to-people links between nationals of the two nations. More on such ties later.

While Echeverría didn’t visit Australia as president, just a couple of years after his six-year term ended he took up a post as Mexico’s ambassador to Australia, a position he held for just over a year in the late 1970s.

In 1982, Australia and Mexico entered into an agreement on scientific and technical cooperation, which provided a platform for collaboration that has increased over the years.

Eight years later, Carlos Salinas de Gortari became the first sitting Mexican president to visit Australia, where he met with Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

“I have come to strengthen the friendship and frank understanding that unite Mexico and Australia,” Salinas said at a lunch with Hawke in Canberra in June 1990.

During the trip, the Mexican president advocated greater trade between the two countries, telling the Australian Parliament there was “a great opportunity to intensify our trade relations and our cultural and tourism exchanges.”

In 1989, Reuters reported shortly after Salinas’ visit, Mexico’s exports to Australia were worth US $77 million, while Australia’s exports to Mexico were worth $30 million.

This century, collaboration between Australia and Mexico has increased in a range of areas, with the two countries signing memorandums of understanding on energy, mining, agriculture, education and indigenous cooperation, among other things.

Australian prime ministers and Mexican presidents have met on numerous occasions since the inaugural meetings in Mexico and Australia in 1973 and 1990, respectively. Several of the more recent meetings occurred at APEC and G20 summits.

In 2016 — the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Mexico-Australia diplomatic relations — Australia’s governor general at the time, Sir Peter Cosgrove, visited Mexico City and met with then Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto.

Australia and Mexico “share interests regarding global economic liberalization and regional integration,” the Mexican government said at the time.

It also noted that “Australia was Mexico’s 29th largest trading partner worldwide [in 2015], with bilateral trade standing at $1.6493 billion USD.”

Thus, the value of two-way trade had increased by more than 1,400% in the space of 26 years.

While problems are common in bilateral relations, there haven’t been any major disagreements between Australia and Mexico, perhaps due to the vast geographical distance between the two nations.

“The relationship between our people and our countries has always been friendly, prosperous and open, and this continues to be the case,” Cosgrove said in Mexico City in 2016.

The modern-day relationship between Australia and Mexico 

Mexico is Australia’s largest trade partner in Latin America, with two-way trade worth just under US $1.95 billion in 2022, according to the Mexican government. Mexican exports to Australia accounted for over 60% of the 2022 total.

Cars, medical instruments, fruit and vegetables, and alcoholic beverages including beer and tequila are among the products Mexico sends to Australia, while barley, iron, steel and wine are among the goods shipped in the opposite direction.

“In 2022, tequila consumption has increased rapidly, placing Australia as the third largest [per capita] consumer of tequila in the world,” according to the Mexican government.

“Other Mexican distillates, such as mezcal, have been very well accepted as niche products in the Australian market,” the embassy says.

Facilitating trade between Australia and Mexico is the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free trade pact that entered into force in late 2018 and to which 11 countries are party.

While trade is one pillar of the Australia-Mexico relationship, joint participation in a range of international organizations is another.

Those groups include the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the G20 and MIKTA, a grouping that includes Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey and Australia.

“Mexico and Australia share topics of interest on the multilateral agenda, in particular, climate change, disarmament, human rights, trade liberalization, combating transnational organized crime and terrorism [and] nuclear non-proliferation,” according to the Mexican government.

As mentioned earlier, another aspect of the bilateral relationship — and one that goes beyond government ties — is scientific and technical cooperation. In a four-year period between 2015 and 2018, more than 3,100 Australian researchers collaborated with Mexican researchers on projects in a range of fields including medicine, agriculture, biology, astronomy and physics.

While it’s not part of the Australia-Mexico relationship as such, another connection between the two countries is the (admittedly minor) rivalry in men’s soccer, or football.

The “Socceroos” have played “El Tri” on six occasions for two wins, one loss and three ties.

However, the two teams are yet to meet at a FIFA World Cup. Will there be a first World Cup showdown at the 2026 edition of the tournament, which Mexico will co-host with the United States and Canada?

“Deepening” people-to-people links between Australians and Mexicans

People-to-people links are another important aspect of any bilateral relationship, whether they are between high-ranking political leaders, business people or anyone else.

According to the Australian government, people-to-people links — defined by the Lowy Institute think tank as “ongoing, biding friendships and business relationships between individual people across national boundaries” — between Australia and Mexico are “deepening, with increasing numbers of Australians visiting Mexico and increasing numbers of Mexican students choosing to study in Australia.”

Australian residents of Mexico and Mexican residents of Australia are perhaps best-placed to develop such friendships and relationships in an Australia-Mexico context.

Australian filmmaker Michael Rowe is one such person in the former category, while restaurateur Rosa Cienfuegos fits into the latter. We’ve profiled both here at Mexico News Daily.

On a personal note, I — an Australian resident of Mexico for more than 10 years — can vouch for my own strong people-to-people links with Mexicans, including within my family.

My wife is Mexican and our young son is a dual Mexican-Australian citizen. We hope he grows up as both a proud Australian, y un mexicano orgulloso.

By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)

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