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Kashmir, a year on from the change

It has been a little over a year since the Indian government under Narendra Modi curtailed the semi-autonomous status of Kashmir by revoking Article 370 of the Indian constitution. The article had given the state a certain degree of autonomy, including its own flag, constitution and freedom to enact

By Roshni Kapur

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Business, government must engage on international trade policy

Originally published in The Australian

By Dmitry Grozoubinski

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Hidden seams in the UAE-Israel deal

The main questions about the normalisation agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced a week ago are why did it happen and what will it change? It’s pretty clear what US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu get out of the deal – both leaders

By Ben Scott

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China has wine in its firing line – will Scott Morrison bail out Australian producers?

With sanctions already in place against beef and barley, Beijing’s ‘anti-dumping’ investigation is designed to punish Canberra over political disputes. Originally published in The Guardian

By Richard McGregor

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How China reversed the new Great Game of strategic competition

Beijing changes global governance in its own image rather than the other way around. Originally published in the Nikkei Asian Review

By Richard McGregor

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As Pakistan and Saudi Arabia drift apart, China moves in

Pakistan–Saudi Arabia relations are at a historically low ebb. In November 2018, Saudi Arabia announced a US$6.2 billion loan package for cash-strapped Pakistan. The package included a total of $3 billion in loans and an oil credit facility amounting to $3.2 billion. Then, however, Riyad

By Syed Fazl-e-Haider

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COVIDcast: Salvaging the liberal international order

In this episode of COVIDcast, Ben Scott, Lowy Institute Director of the Rules Based Order Project, sat down with Bobo Lo to discuss Bobo’s new Lowy Institute Analysis: “Global Order in the Shadow of the Coronavirus: China, Russia and the West”.

By Ben Scott

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Hong Kong is not dead, just entering a new phase of struggle

Originally published in The Sydney Morning Herald

By Ben Bland

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China is overturning the rules-based order from within

Persistent debates over the meaning of the “liberal” or “rules-based” international order demonstrate a point of agreement among scholars and policymakers: the real power of the concept when employed as a metaphor for a disrupted global order. Less well understood in comparison is the

By Malcolm Jorgensen

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US in Southeast Asia: Democracy is (sort of) out, deterrence is in

Speaking last month at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that while the late president did what he thought best for the American people in his historic rapprochement with China in 1972, a line has to be drawn in the sand between “freedom and tyranny

By William Choong

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Cambodia: Hard choices

Cambodia’s foreign policy has been largely driven by the politics of survival, as the government led by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) has an ambition to perpetuate its domination of Cambodian politics for at least another 50 years. Of course, this survival

By Kimkong Heng

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Chinese dams and the Mekong drought

The latest reports from the Lower Mekong Basin are cause for growing concern that another period of drought will succeed that of 2019, affecting Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Expected rainfall from late May through June and July has not arrived, and the level of water flowing in the river is

By Milton Osborne

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Chinese trawlers in the Galapagos: The protection challenge

The Galapagos Marine Reserve (GMR) covers 133,000 square kilometres and was established in 1998 to protect the remarkable biodiversity of the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador. Last month, Ecuadorian authorities in Guayaquil spotted a fleet of 260 Chinese boats fishing in the area around

By Mélodie Ruwet

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Submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Inquiry into the Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic for Australia's Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade

Joint submission by Lowy Institute researchers to the JSCFADT inquiry into the implications of the pandemic.

By Ben Bland, Alexandre Dayant, John Edwards, Michael Fullilove, Bonnie S Glaser, Stephen Grenville, Natasha Kassam, Lydia Khalil, Hervé Lemahieu , Richard McGregor, Shane McLeod, Annmaree O’Keeffe, Alex Oliver, Jonathan Pryke, Roland Rajah, Sam Roggeveen, Ben Scott

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Cyber sovereignty cuts both ways

The White House's approach to managing the potential security threats posed by TikTok, WeChat and other Chinese-owned apps is hardly a model of procedural justice. Without a clear legal or regulatory framework, the Trump Administration has issued executive orders banning transactions with the

By Elliott Zaagman

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A Chinese-built airport next door to a key Australia-US naval base?

Judging by recent satellite imagery, it appears that significant progress is being made on an expansion and upgrade project at Momote Airport, the nearest airfield to Lombrum Naval Base on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. The runway’s usable length has been extended by about 200 metres, precision

By Thomas Shugart

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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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Brunei, ASEAN and the South China Sea

On 20 July, after a long period silence on the issue, the Brunei Darussalam Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement declaring that it “maintains its two-step approach in addressing the South China Sea”. As bland as this statement sounds, it represents a critical development in the tiny

By Joshua Espeña , Anne Uy

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Inside China's coronavirus response

If Beijing had been open about its own early failings, instead of triumphantly promoting its later achievements, China’s global image might have been enhanced by the crisis. Originally published in The Australian Financial Review

By Richard McGregor

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Book review: Superpower showdown

Book Review: Bob Davis and Lingling Wei, Superpower Showdown: How the Battle Between Trump and Xi Threatens a New Cold War (HarperCollins, 2020). Global relations are undergoing a dramatic shift. China is increasingly assertive internationally and repressive domestically. Examples of its brashness

By Robert Wihtol

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COVIDcast: Looking at China from the grassroots, with Dexter Roberts

In this episode of COVIDcast, Lowy Institute senior fellow Richard McGregor sat down with Dexter Roberts to discuss his new book, The Myth of Chinese Capitalism: The Worker, The Factory and the Future of the World. Roberts was based in China for more than two decades reporting for Bloomberg

By Richard McGregor, Dexter Roberts

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COVIDcast: Looking at China from the grassroots, with Dexter Roberts

By Richard McGregor

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Which side would the US public choose in an India-China conflict?

The recent military standoff between India and China in the Galwan Valley raises a fascinating question about the attitudes of the American public towards Asia’s great powers. We know from extensive polling that the American people are increasingly sour about China. A March 2020 survey by the

By Vasabjit Banerjee, Timothy S. Rich

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Beijing hard-liners kick against Xi Jinping's wolf warrior diplomacy

Foreign policy hawks concede that current strategy is winning China no new friends. Originally published in the Nikkei Asian Review.

By Richard McGregor

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Western liberalism’s crisis is self-inflicted

Originally published in The Australian

By Bobo Lo

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Battle for Hong Kong takes on a new shape

Last week marked the first anniversary of one of the more significant moments during the protests in Hong Kong during 2019. The Yuen Long incident, on 21 July 2019, is remembered by many peaceful protesters as a mob attack by white-shirted thugs who many believed to be government-backed members of

By JJ Rose

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Global Order in the Shadow of the Coronavirus: China, Russia and the West

It’s time to rethink global governance and its priorities

By Bobo Lo

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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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On China, the US speaks loudly but carries no stick

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has busily tried to smooth out what has been a fairly ragged Asia policy. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s speech at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library last week was the culmination of a number of set-piece acts intended to emphasise a yet

By Nick Bisley

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Pompeo’s Surreal Speech on China

An ideological struggle is under way between Beijing and free societies, and the Trump administration is on the wrong side. Originally published in The Atlantic

By Thomas Wright

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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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China’s catastrophic success: US strategic blunders fuel rivalry

The Trump administration publicly identified China as a great power competitor in its November 2017 National Security Strategy. This followed the Obama administration’s eventual rejection of Xi Jinping’s 2013 proposal for a grand bargain – “a new type of great power relations

By John Culver

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The Risks of China’s Ambitions in the South Pacific

Originally published by The Brookings Institution as part of its Global China series assessing China's growing role in the world.

By Jonathan Pryke

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India-China relations and the geopolitics of water

The Tibetan plateau is often called the “Third Pole”, owing to its glacial expanses and vast reserves of freshwater. For as many as nine countries in the surrounding region, the status of rivers emerging from the plateau is a key concern. China has claimed express ownership over Tibet’s

By Ameya Pratap Singh, Urvi Tembey

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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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A nervous watch on the Three Gorges Dam

To understand China, it’s not a bad idea to keep an eye on what is happening inside the country. Much of the current international discussion about China focuses on China’s plans to expand its overseas influence – both in Asia and beyond. But as the legendary American politician Tip O’Neill

By Peter McCawley

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Is Huawei in the UK a canary in the coalmine?

It is not a coincidence that Britain’s turnaround on using Huawei for its 5G infrastructure happened at the height of the pandemic. Covid-19 brutally brought back the realisation that international value chains are only as strong as their weakest link. This new awareness made plain that

By Daniel Woker

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China's Deep State: The Communist Party and the Coronavirus

China's political system was instrumental both in plunging the country into the COVID-19 crisis and aiding its recovery, but its pandemic management has not endeared it abroad.

By Richard McGregor

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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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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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The obstacles to Syrian aid

On Saturday last week, following weeks of lobbying by humanitarian agencies and difficult diplomatic negotiations, the UN Security Council renewed its authorisation for the UN and its partners to provide humanitarian assistance in north-western Syria from across the Turkish border. The final

By Rebecca Barber

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Twisting India’s Chicken’s Neck

Indian officials claim that China is continuing its build-up along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the de facto border between India and China in the Galwan Valley of eastern Ladakh region. New satellite imagery supports the claim that not only is the People’s Liberation Army holding ground

By Syed Fazl-e-Haider

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Obstacles remain for Pakistan dam backed by China

Over the last decade, the demand to build a new mega-dam intensified in Pakistan. The proposed Diamer-Bhasha dam, 320 kilometres from the border with China in the north, was an obvious choice, because all provincial governments agreed to its location. At 272 metres high, it would be the highest

By Adnan Aamir

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The brakes on Beijing’s ambition

When discussing the rise of China, a sense of inevitability often pervades. China’s sheer population size and economic base will inevitably see it become the dominant regional power– or so the argument goes. China’s faster reopening from Covid-19 lockdowns has added to such arguments. That

By Henry Storey

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China has only itself to blame for Australia's move on Hong Kong

The Australian government and its partners had no choice but to recognise the new reality in the territory and offer some of its citizens a way out. Originally published in The Guardian

By Ben Bland

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India-China conflict: A move from the Himalayas to the high seas?

Last month’s clash between Indian and Chinese troops in Ladakh was the most significant conflict between the two countries since 1967. Despite signs of a partial tactical pullback in some places, there is considerable risk of further confrontations and even escalation along the disputed border.

By David Brewster

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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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The semiconductor industry is where politics gets real for Taiwan

One might wonder how something as small as five nanometres – about the width of two strands of DNA – could be of consequence to the complex political relationships between the US, China and Taiwan. Semiconductor chips are the brains of all our electronics, from mobile phones to cars to fighter

By Kate Sullivan-Walker

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