Australia

He fainted on me. Big bloke, my local guide on Nauru, who in the sunbaked heat took me Topside on the island to steal a look at the refugee camp among the scraggy rocks known as the pinnacles. And down he went. Nauru was happy for reporters to visit the country then. In 2013, I was one of the last

Recent months have seen controversy swirling around Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, the national security risk it may or may not pose to Australia, and its involvement with the nation’s legislators. Amid these concerns, it is important to consider the company in its

Almost two years have passed since the US was represented in Australia by a permanent ambassador. It is now conceivable that Australia will receive a Presidential visit before it gets an ambassador. This is an unprecedented interregnum.  It is tempting to observe that this is a pretty

One of the worst human rights abuses in recent times is occurring in China’s far-western region of Xinjiang. The Chinese Communist Party has rounded up possibly one million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities in purpose-built concentration camps where they are subjected to

What’s at stake in the “China influence” debate? According to one view, China’s rise, if unchecked, will leave Australia a mere vassal state, while the United Front Work Department rends the fabric of our democracy from within. Viewed another way, Australia’s future

Australia’s not-so-old tendency to avoid tension that could jeopardise our economic and trade relationship with China had the unfortunate effect of making China dismissive of Australia’s regional interests. For too long, too few of us thought hard, if at all, about what a region deterred by

With government investment in higher education continuing to decrease, Australian universities are becoming more and more financially reliant on international student fees. As has been the case for a number of years, students from the People’s Republic of China are the largest group by a wide

An ill-fated business deal, a major corruption case, and protestations from Beijing about the visit of a dissident made the year 2009 something of an annus horribilis for Australia’s relations with the People’s Republic of China. It also marked the collapse of the Labor–Liberal

The news that US President Donald Trump has reassigned Admiral Harry Harris to Seoul from his expected posting to Canberra has brought forth a somewhat predictable bout of hair-pulling and hand-wringing from alliance sentimentalists. Rather than see this decision by the administration on its own

On 18 April, The Australian newspaper reported that Chinese students had “defied” warnings from their government about safety in Australia and enrolled in record numbers in the country’s universities for 2018. It was a nice image, of brave families and their children

Despite their other disagreements, several fans and critics of Clive Hamilton’s Silent Invasion: China’s Influence in Australia converge around the claim that his comments on national sovereignty are overstated. The Chinese Government’s influence operations, we are assured

The “bitter split among Australia academics” (reported in the Financial Times) with regard to attitudes towards China, and the Skripal poisoning incident that prompted an unprecedented number of European countries to take highly symbolic measures against Russia, have a common denominator

Australia does not have a coast guard, but does guard its coasts. It has achieved this since 2005 by using the inter-agency operational authority now known as the Maritime Border Command. This authority combines assets from Defence and what is now the Australian Border Force (ABF) under a

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are scheduled to meet for the first time on 27 April at Panmunjom, the “truce” village on the border of the two countries. The rapidly changing security environment on the Korean Peninsula has reached a critical juncture.

John Carlson says Australia approached maritime boundary negotiations with Indonesia in 1972 by arguing the Timor Trough was the meeting point of two geologically distinct continental shelves at a subduction zone. But the trough does not constitute two separate shelves any more than a rumpled carpet

Japan’s whale hunters are expected home any day, carrying up to 300 minke whales killed in the Southern Ocean. A harpoon ship, Yushin Maru No. 2, quietly slipped into Shiogama Port on Saturday, while the giant abattoir ship Nisshin Maru is still at sea (with its marine tracking monitor turned off

Democratic dividends Sitting in the largely lifeless media centre of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s $56-million grand diplomatic gambit, it was hard not to be struck by the irony of Australia’s earnest embrace of the ASEAN way, with its emphasis on consultation and non-intervention.

Ahead of Malcolm Turnbull’s weekend confab for South East Asian leaders, Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo reportedly thought it would be a “good idea” if Australia joined ASEAN. Lowy’s Aaron Connelly is dubious. Reality check: Australia has not been invited to join ASEAN, and will not

Membership or not Our experience with Vietnam and the Philippines over the past few years only serves to show why the newly revived idea of Australia joining the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is like stepping through Lewis Carroll’s looking glass. Only a short time ago, the

The upcoming ASEAN-Australia Special Summit has led to a surge in analysis of the Association of South East Asian Nations and Australia-ASEAN relations in Australia. In February, ASPI released a special report by Graeme Dobell recommending Australia seek ASEAN membership claiming that ASEAN

International Women’s Day has, for more than 100 years, been a celebration of the contribution of women and girls to their communities, nations, and the world. As Australia’s first female Foreign Minister, I am keenly aware that while International Women’s Day is important, it is what we do on

The signing of a treaty between Australia and Timor-Leste marking maritime boundaries in the Timor Sea represents a huge step forward in resolving the two states’ long-standing disputes. The conciliation process that led to the agreement was groundbreaking for being the first time such an approach

In her article “How Australia crossed a line in the Timor Sea”, Kim McGrath claims that Australia had evidence supporting Indonesia’s claim in maritime boundary negotiations – but buried it. This serious charge is not substantiated by the 1970 report from then Bureau of

Ever since John Howard was unseated in the 2007 election and Australia launched itself into its decade-long cycle of political leadership instability, us foreign-policy types have wondered what damage it must all be doing to Australia’s reputation abroad. For the BBC’s Nick Bryant, a regular