Australia

The announcement by the Duterte administration last month that it will terminate the 1998 Philippines-US Visiting Forces Agreement will likely also raise questions about the future of the Australia-Philippines political and security relationship. Australia and the US are the only two countries that

The title alone is enough to make senior members of Australia’s intelligence community shudder. And fair enough – Australia’s intelligence agencies are a well-reviewed community; there have been three over the past decade (in 2011, 2017 and another due this year). Senior figures including

In 2020, the Commonwealth’s much-heralded Modern Slavery Act (MSA) obliges Australian companies above a consolidated revenue threshold of $100 million to report on their policies and actions relating to ending modern slavery in their supply chains. The issue of modern slavery is fraught, complex

Clayton Christensen’s 1997 book The Innovator’s Dilemma provides a series of compelling examples of companies ignoring or dismissing the disruptive potential of immature technologies until it’s too late, only for their upstart competitors to consign them to the dustbin of

The rise of Asia and growing superpower competition pose serious challenges for countries such as Australia and Israel, and they should face them together. On the one hand, Asia’s economic dynamism offers access to new and growing markets; on the other hand, changing regional dynamics in Asia have

The visit by Indonesia President Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”) to Canberra this month brought fresh hope of cooperation between the two nations. With Jokowi bringing the freshly ratified Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA) as a “gift” for Australia, most of

Moving on It is notable that while the three old Cs (curry, cricket, and the Commonwealth) still reappear at Australia-India gatherings, this week’s Indonesian summitry occurred with little reference to the parallel three Bs (boats, beef, and Bali). These two strange neighbours seem

Dealing with China in 2019, particularly its attempts to interfere in Australia’s domestic politics, was tough work for the government. Unfortunately, the China challenge is likely to get harder in 2020 and for every year after, and foreign interference won’t even be the biggest concern. 

In any relationship, it’s never a great sign when both parties have to reassure each other constantly about the strength of their bond. The more you feel the need to say it, the less true it tends to be. So it was revealing that both Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Indonesian

Indonesia’s former ambassador to Australia, Imron Cotan, recently characterised Indonesia and Australia as “like-minded” countries, speaking in the context of economic priorities ahead of President Joko (Jokowi) Widodo’s three-day visit to Australia. However, for many in the Australia media

In the past decade, Latin America has become one of the venues for the strategic dispute between the United States and China. This is a natural consequence of Beijing’s growing economic and political links with a region that has traditionally been part of Washington’s sphere of influence. Due

“India is not going to be a bastion of Western liberalism”, declared Stephen Harper, the former Prime Minister of Canada, at the inaugural session of the Raisina Dialogue, hosted by the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. “Although it’s a democracy”, Harper continued, “India has

Jason Rezaian was correspondent for the Washington Post in Iran from 2012 to 2016 – only for more than 18 months of that time, he was unjustly held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, in the same wing where Australian-British academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert is presently locked away on accusations of

Last month, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a much-awaited reform package to regulate the tech giants and their immense market power. Australia was to be “the model jurisdiction” for “dealing with digital platforms”, he declared. However, strong language aside, the promised reform

Recent years have witnessed a dramatic transformation of the Indian-Australian strategic relationship. While Australia worried about India’s naval expansion in the late 1980s, and recalled its high commissioner from New Delhi after India’s 1998 nuclear tests, India and Australia are fostering a

Bollywood beckons India is planning a more expansive approach to economic engagement with Australia just as Australia gears up to restart formal negotiations on a bilateral trade deal, which may possibly involve a narrower agreement than the previous lapsed talks. Prime Minister Scott Morrison’

As 2019 winds up, Lowy Institute staff and Interpreter contributors offer their favourite books, articles, films, or TV programs this year. Ross Garnaut’s Superpower has already been reviewed on The Intepreter. But can I include it in the context of “favourites for 2019”? This book marks not

The China “debate” in Australia has entered a new phase. Some are calling, with varying degrees of explicitness, for Australia to adopt a long-term, confrontational posture towards the PRC. This is usually cast as the only morally right response given that the PRC is a repressive and

The Australian Senate has appointed a select committee to inquire into the risks posed to Australian democracy by foreign interference via social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. We need this. That much is clear from a growing pile of international inquires and reports, including by

In what we now see in retrospect as something of a political “golden age” – say from the early 20th century through to the 1980s or so – political parties were the institution through which the political aspirations of different sections of the community were articulated and conveyed to the

The recent publication of Peter Hartcher’s Quarterly Essay Red Flag: Waking Up to China’s Challenge coincided with fast-breaking stories about Chinese espionage and influence operations in Australia, the leaking of the Xinjiang Papers from inside China, and the overwhelming victory by Hong Kong

The recent allegations of Chinese espionage and election interference – and the subsequent doubts cast upon them – have reignited the China debate in the Australian public consciousness. The debate has become increasingly polarised, with a shortage of goodwill. Some have had their integrity and

In recent years, the deepening of Australia’s engagement with China (our most important trade partner) has exacerbated concerns over the motivations and consequences of its government’s influence in Australian political and economic life – and understandably so. Nowhere is the increasing

Although Behrouz Boochani has never set foot on the Australian mainland, his is a familiar name in the country, a link to the men on Manus Island subject to Australia’s offshore processing arrangements in the Pacific. His escape to be “free in New Zealand” this month, after six years