Australia in the World

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Brookings Report: Historical tensions and contemporary governance challenges in Southeast Asia: The case of Indonesia

In this report published by the Brookings Institution, Ben Bland explains why Western nations need to engage with Indonesia in its own right, not as a part of plan to counterbalance China. To do so successfully, they need to develop a much better understanding of the long-running (and ongoing)

By Ben Bland

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The way to post-Covid recovery in the Indo-Pacific? Act now

Australia plans to spend a lot more on defence to confront what Prime Minister Scott Morrison says will be “a post-COVID world that is poorer, that is more dangerous, and that is more disorderly”. A chorus of voices have responded that Australian foreign policy risks becoming unbalanced, with

By Roland Rajah

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Defending Australia in a high-tech future

The recently announced $270 billion commitment to expand Australia’s military capability sets the tone for a deteriorating strategic environment. The 2020 Defence Strategic Update and Force Structure Plan are only part of the answer in aligning Australia’s response to this challenging future. It

By Thom Dixon

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For all its bluster, China knows Australia isn't merely doing the bidding of the US

There are signs that Beijing recognises Australia’s positions on Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xinjiang are based on its own interests. Originally published in The Guardian

By Natasha Kassam

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Melbourne or Washington, all politics is local, again

We all see the world through our own eyes. But this truism is so often forgotten. In Melbourne, where I live, a curfew has just been imposed, businesses shuttered, troops are increasingly seen on the streets, and the local premier is warning darkly of “what further steps” might follow if

By Daniel Flitton

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Young Australians turn from the US towards Asia. And it isn’t Trump

The recent 2020 Lowy Poll revealed that a mere 25% of young Australians aged 18–29 see the US-Australia alliance as “very important”. This is a stark contrast to the 43% across all age brackets with such high regard for the alliance. The reluctance by this section of the “millennials”

By Kate Clayton, James Blackwell

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Submission to Inquiry into Australia's Defence Relationships with Pacific Island Countries

In July, Jonathan Pryke presented a submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Inquiry into Australia's defence relationships with Pacific Islands

By Jonathan Pryke

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Economic diplomacy: Post-Covid trade, from decoupling to wet markets

Multilateralism lives With European leaders having just spent five days in close-contact negotiations in Brussels and now Australia’s first offshore ministerial visit for almost five months to Washington, a post-Covid diplomatic agenda is tentatively taking shape. Just what Covid 19 might

By Greg Earl

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Managing Chinese economic risks means more than diversification

There is growing support for diversifying Australia’s economic ties with China in order to reduce the risks of economic coercion. The main bilateral economic ties are through exports, imports and investment. Australia’s risks of economic coercion from China mainly come via exports. China buys 33

By Heath Baker

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Five Eyes: Blurring the lines between intelligence and policy

The public aura around the decades-old “Five Eyes” intelligence sharing partnership between Australia, the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand has expanded rapidly since the name was first publicly acknowledged. In 2014, an Australian prime minister publicly referred to the “Five Eyes” for the

By Ben Scott

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Why Australia hasn't given up on a rules-based world order

Putting 'negative globalism' talk aside, strategic shocks are forcing Canberra to think about an international system that can protect sovereignty and prevent great power conflict. Originally published in the Australian Financial Review

By Ben Scott

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Who’s afraid of China’s big bad wolf warriors?

Originally published in The Australian

By Alan Dupont

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Australia lays down the law in the South China Sea dispute

Australia has entered the renewed diplomatic fray about China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea, clarifying, if not entirely resolving, Canberra’s previously vague legal position on the strategically important and contested waters. The timing is significant, following the

By Bec Strating

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Interesting times for TikTok

From Delhi to Washington to Canberra, the future of the digital economy may be heavily influenced by how one question is answered: What to do about TikTok? The popular short-video platform owned by Beijing-based parent company ByteDance has been at the centre of a storm of controversy. Concern

By Elliott Zaagman

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Get behind Southeast Asia with clear policy against China bullies

Originally published in The Australian

By Malcolm Cook

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India, Australia and containing the China challenge

Australia’s strategy on engaging India has long revolved around the so-called “three Cs”: cricket, curry and the Commonwealth. In light of the changing status of bilateral relations in 2020, let’s add a couple more Cs to the list: China, and containment of. On Friday, it emerged that

By Aarti Betigeri

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DFAT cuts show our foreign policy's khaki tinge

Underinvestment in diplomacy suggests Australia is more eager to defend against a disorderly world than to try to reshape it. Originally published in the Australian Financial Review

By Jonathan Pryke

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Hidden gems in the 2020 Force Structure Plan

The recent release of the Defence Strategic Update and Force Structure Plan provided an outline of the government’s defence policy and capability priorities for the next decade. The Force Structure Plan in particular helps define how an additional $270 billion will be invested to deliver critical

By Victor Abramowicz

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Social credit: The next China risk for Australian business

As China recovers from the Covid-19 crisis, the apparatus of the state is about to be devoted to a new form of social control. By the end of 2020, China plans to introduce its national social credit system. For some, this evokes dystopian visions of a surveillance state, monitoring more than a

By David Morris

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Don’t panic — Xi doesn’t hold all the aces in the great game of trade

Originally published in The Sunday Times

By Richard McGregor

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Regional security depends on making order from chaos

Originally published in The Australian

By Sam Roggeveen

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COVIDcast: Malcolm Turnbull on geopolitics and the pandemic

In this episode of COVIDcast, Hervé Lemahieu, Director of the Power and Diplomacy Program at the Lowy Institute, sat down with the Honourable Malcolm Turnbull, Prime Minister of Australia from 2015 to 2018, to discuss the geopolitical challenges Australia must confront in the wake of the pandemic.

By Hervé Lemahieu , Malcolm Turnbull

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COVIDcast: Malcolm Turnbull on geopolitics and the pandemic

In this episode of COVIDcast, Herve Lemahieu, Director of the Power and Diplomacy Program at the Lowy Institute, sat down with the Honourable Malcolm Turnbull, 29th Prime Minister of Australia from 2015 to 2018, to discuss global politics and the foreign policy challenges Australia must confront in

By Hervé Lemahieu

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Devaluing DFAT

The launch of the 2020 Defence Strategic Outlook prompted some observers to argue that Australia should boost the firepower of its diplomacy as well as its defence force. They reminded us that DFAT’s budget for diplomacy had been shrinking for decades, a trend documented in other assessments. Then

By James Wise

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Putting study abroad on ice carries a diplomatic cost

With global travel slashed to a bare minimum early in the Covid-19 pandemic, study abroad programs were among the first Australian organisations outside hospitality and retail to feel the economic impact of the crisis. With looming uncertainty and often no choice but to study online, most Australian

By Iona Main

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A high-risk, low-reward defence posture

For all the commentary generated by the release of the Defence Strategic Update and Force Structure Plan, which outline Australia’s defence policy and capability priorities for the next decade and beyond, it is strange that little attention has been paid to one particular phrase that the

By Victor Abramowicz

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Australia’s Russia problem (and how to solve it)

The 2020 Defence Strategic Update goes some way to preparing Australia to compete in a new multipolar, Indo-Pacific–anchored strategic environment. But a notable absence from the document is Russia. This matters. Australians too often speak of Moscow’s irrelevance and weakness since the end of

By Elizabeth Buchanan

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Modern Monetary Theory and mainstream economics converging

Stephen Grenville gives a detailed account in the Eureka Report on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), which after a decade on on the periphery of economic discussion, has recently surged in popularity

By Stephen Grenville

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A diplomatic step-up to match our military step-up

The release of the 2020 Defence Strategic Update marks an important milestone in Australia’s strategic thinking. As Prime Minister Scott Morrison noted, we are facing one of the most challenging set of strategic circumstances since the 1930s. The 1930s was characterised by a deep economic shock

By Dave Sharma

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Keeping the Kremlin in the Kelvinator

One effect of Australia’s more assertive posture on the People’s Republic of China has been to try to split off Beijing’s current and potential partners. This thinking was apparently behind Liberal MP Dave Sharma’s recent suggestion that Australia should back Russia’s participation in the

By Matthew Sussex

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Stoking the fire of Asia-Pacific missile proliferation

In the name of keeping the nation safe, Australia is joining the Asia-Pacific’s accelerating missile race. However, not only will it not keep the nation safe, it will stoke an uncontrolled fire that is engulfing the region’s strategic landscape. The wise response would be to throw everything at

By Tanya Ogilvie-White

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What resilience really means as a guide for Australian policymaking

Resilience is one of those terms that wins special prominence with policymakers during a crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic has been no different. “Everything my government does is designed to build our national resilience and protect our sovereignty, our freedom, our values and our independence”

By Jacob Taylor

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Yes, to balance China, let’s bring Russia in from the cold

Last month, US President Donald Trump surprised allies by calling for Russia and Australia to be admitted together with India and South Korea to an expanded G-7. Writing in support of the idea, federal Liberal MP Dave Sharma has cast the argument as a reversal of Nixon’s 1972 opening to Mao’s

By Matthew Dal Santo

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China eyes African prospects to iron out trade tension with Australia

Growing Sino-Australian diplomatic and trade disputes have led to Chinese import bans on certain Australian products, but iron ore – Australia’s biggest export to China – has largely been kept out of the fray. Although China did impose new import procedures that could potentially hold up

By Cornelia Tremann

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Indonesia: Still caught between trade and protectionism

The entry into force of an ambitious Indonesia-Australia trade deal on Sunday is a boost to the bilateral relationship, coming after nearly a decade of difficult negotiations. No two neighbouring G20 economies trade as little as Australia and Indonesia, and the investment relationship is similarly

By Ben Bland

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Australia must enter the grey zone to counter threats of the future

Originally published in The Canberra Times

By Ben Scott

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The cost of conspiracy in muddling public health messages

A spike in coronavirus cases across Melbourne has seen local hotspot suburbs largely locked down and some 3000 people in public housing towers prevented from leaving home at all. But the sharp reminder that “This is not over” which now flashes on freeway signs across Australia’s second largest

By Clare Murphy

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Australia’s Strategic Update: What it means for Indonesia

One might assume that Australia’s announcement of a significant increase in defence funding and move to a more assertive defence posture would be welcomed by Jakarta. After all, as the old proverb goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, and Indonesia certainly has its own challenges with

By Greta Nabbs-Keller

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Southeast Asian democracies in declining health amid Covid-19

The Covid-19 pandemic is affecting democracies in the Asia-Pacific region in ways that demand Australian attention. The ability to weather a crisis of this magnitude depends upon partnerships and collaboration – economic, social and political – with key countries in the region. These

By Melissa Crouch

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Keeping Indonesia’s economy afloat through the COVID-19 pandemic

Well-crafted emergency financing from Bank Indonesia and international partners such as Australia could be pivotal in getting Indonesia through this crisis

By Roland Rajah, Stephen Grenville

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Economic diplomacy: Diversification dilemmas

Costing the D word Diversification might be the word of the moment in the lexicon of Australian trade debate, even though few advocates make much attempt to explain how it will actually work. But now we have two interesting efforts to quantify just how selected reductions in trade with China in

By Greg Earl

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Defence Strategic Update 2020: A first assessment

The Defence Strategic Update 2020 launched yesterday in Canberra is a notably candid assessment of the strategic challenges Australia faces and the measures with which the government plans to meet them. It explicitly declares “Australia’s ability – and willingness – to project military power

By James Goldrick

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Emerging From COVID: Policy Responses To The Pandemic

In this new feature, Lowy Institute experts provide policy recommendations for Australia to address issues that are critical to our nation’s — and the world’s — successful emergence from the pandemic

By Alex Oliver, Natasha Kassam, Richard McGregor, Roland Rajah, Ben Scott, Sam Roggeveen, Hervé Lemahieu , Stephen Grenville, Alyssa Leng, John Edwards, Ben Bland, Alexandre Dayant, Shane McLeod, Jonathan Pryke

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How to fight China's cyber-warriors

We must persuade Beijing that it should do it as it would be done by in cyber space. Rules are much better than retaliation. Originally published in the Australian Financial Review.

By Ben Scott

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Vale Owen Harries 1930–2020

On behalf of my Chairman Sir Frank Lowy as well as the Board and staff of the Lowy Institute, I would like to express my sadness at the news that our friend, colleague and mentor Owen Harries passed away yesterday. When Owen joined the Lowy Institute as a Nonresident Fellow shortly after its

By Michael Fullilove

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Owen Harries: Never the ideologue

It would be difficult to think of anyone who has been more percipient about international affairs in recent decades than Owen Harries. Harries, who was the Australian ambassador to UNESCO as well as editor of the National Interest magazine for several decades in Washington, never occupied high

By Jacob Heilbrunn

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A pivot to globalism, but grievances lurk

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the international system was in a profound state of disequilibrium. Two forces arguably sit at the centre of this turbulence: a “top-down” changing balance of power among nation-states, and a “bottom-up” revolt by mass publics against political

By Darren Lim

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Australians look to India more – and don’t always like what they see

A lack of trust from the Australian population towards India is probably the last thing the Morrison government wants right now, as it seeks to shore up its relationship with its Indian Ocean neighbour. But a lack of trust it is: according to the 2020 Lowy Institute Poll, just 45% of Australians

By Aarti Betigeri

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Australia’s shifting mood on climate change

At the beginning of 2020, Australia’s national conversation was dominated by the catastrophic bushfires raging throughout the country. The fires killed at least 34 people, burned through more than 11 million hectares and destroyed nearly 6000 buildings. In March, the first scientific assessment of

By Bec Strating

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Generation why? Younger Australians wary of United States

“Australians are inclined to wonder whether there is real understanding in the United States … of the requirements imposed upon America by its world leadership,” wrote historian Gordon Greenwood in Foreign Affairs magazine in July 1957. At times there has been a tendency in the United States

By Natasha Kassam

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