Washington could win hearts and minds in Iran
Originally published in The Australian
Sunday 09 Aug 2020 | 15:45 | SYDNEY
What's happening on 
Coronavirus
The Covid-19 pandemic is an enormous challenge to global public health. The response to the pandemic will also have long-lasting effects for globalisation, international trade, economic growth, and global poverty. Security perceptions will be redefined as nations reassess their defence priorities. The leadership contest between the US and China will also be affected by perceptions of government competence in dealing with the virus.
Below is a comprehensive compendium of research, media commentary and Interpreter articles from Lowy Institute experts and commentators from around the world dealing with Coronavirus.
What price privacy? Contact tracing apps to combat Covid
Few in the West would have imagined two months ago that their government would consider tracking their personal mobile phones. But as Covid-19 rapidly sweeps through cities and incapacitates health systems, manual tracing of potentially infected individuals can no longer keep up. Even
By Xueyin Zha
In the US, a campaign with no trail
In the midst of a public health pandemic, the 2020 presidential election has receded into the background of American political life. Candidates have been forced off the campaign trail. There are no rallies for the press to cover and fundraising efforts are stalled. Most states with near-term
By Erin Hurley
Covid-19: Why did global health governance fail?
The system that has been developed to provide a global response to epidemics and pandemics has failed miserably. Covid-19 has spread all over the world, shutting down entire countries. Governments, and even subnational governments, are now competing fiercely for scarce medical stocks, while critical
The Director’s Chair Ep. 1: Susan Glasser and Peter Baker on COVID-19, America and Trump
In the first episode of The Director's Chair, a new Lowy Institute podcast, Michael Fullilove speaks with Susan Glasser of The New Yorker and Peter Baker of The New York Times about COVID-19, the Trump administration and America
Australia should offer Indonesia crisis insurance – quickly
The Morrison government needs to urgently consider how it might best help Indonesia manage the economic risks posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Indonesia faces a perilous outlook. The government is struggling badly to control the virus. Making matters far worse, Indonesia has also been among
By Roland Rajah
Covid-19 and Pacific labour
As borders close and globalisation contracts, consider the impact on the Pacific Island neighbours. Many countries in the region rely on labour mobility, with workers sent to Australian and New Zealand to help with fruit picking and work in regional areas. Workers on these schemes send around A$9,
As Africa prepares to fight Covid-19, China steps up
As China slowly begins to recover from Covid-19 and re-start its economy, it is seeking to position itself at the head of the global virus response and fill the void in humanitarian assistance created by Western paralysis. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Africa, where China has a long history
Trading our way out of the Covid-19 lockdown
To emerge in the best way possible from the Covid-19 pandemic requires us to understand the nature of the economic crisis. Our slowdown has arisen from deliberately-introduced frictions in human interaction at local, regional and international levels. While people remain able to trade in many kinds
Covid-19 ceasefire unlikely to hasten peace in Thailand’s south
The main insurgent group in Thailand’s south is stopping attacks to allow a stronger response to Covid-19 in the area. But it’s unlikely to bring political settlement closer unless security forces reciprocate — something they have been loath to do in the past.
On 3 April, the Barisan
Why 15 countries still haven’t reported any cases of Covid-19
From its origins in Wuhan mere months ago, Covid-19 has literally travelled as far around the world as possible. On the other side of the globe, Wuhan’s antipodal point sits in Córdoba Province, Argentina, which recorded three deaths from the virus in early April. The number of countries with
How to win the war: some valuable lessons from history
Comparison with wartime sacrifices might put the necessary inconveniences into perspective. Nonresident Fellow Stephen Grenville writes on COVID-19. Originally published in The Australian
Coronavirus will not dominate elections in South Korea this week
On Wednesday 15 April, South Korea will hold legislative elections. South Korea’s parliament, the National Assembly, is elected every four* years. Composed of 300 members, it has 253 single-member district seats and 47 proportional representation seats.
The Landscape
The left currently holds a
Vietnam, North Korea, politics and Covid-19: The numbers tell a story
As Covid-19 continues its relentless spread to almost every country, Vietnam and North Korea stand out in Asia for reporting low numbers of infections and zero deaths, despite neither country possessing the resources of many of their neighbours.
So far, Vietnam has reported roughly 250 infections
By Khang Vu
Why South Asia may come out of Covid-19 crisis better than many expect
Many people assume that South Asia is a sitting target for coronavirus, with potentially millions of deaths leading to an impoverished and destabilised region just around the corner. That might well happen, and the countries in the region are locking down. But there are also reasons to think that
Covid-19: A war of words
Once upon a time in a United Nations press office, in a country where the routine threat of violence made armchair pursuits something of a sport, a group of colleagues started a collection of all the bureaucratic jargon and mumbo-jumbo we encountered in our daily dealings with official information
COVIDcast Episode 6: Geopolitics and the pandemic
In episode 6 of COVIDcast, the Director of Lowy Institute’s Southeast Asia Program, Ben Bland, sat down with Hervé Lemahieu to discuss geopolitics and the coronavirus pandemic. Hervé is the Director of our Asian Power and Diplomacy Program where he leads the research for the annual
Economic diplomacy: foreign investment under Covid, supply chain kinks
World beating
When the Australian government asserted control over all new foreign investment two weeks ago in response to Covid-19, the move was sugar-coated with the reassurance the country was still open for business.
But with Prime Minister Scott Morrison now declaring his
By Greg Earl
Cry the beloved world
The first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded in China starting in December last year. We watched on with growing alarm, but thought that it wouldn’t happen here.
The second wave has been unfolding from mid-February onwards in the rich countries of the world (as well as Iran). Some have
The World After COVID‑19
How will the coronavirus pandemic change the world? Lowy Institute experts provide their analysis
WHO and China: Compounding politics and policy
This should be the greatest hour for the World Health Organisation, the UN’s Geneva-based body dedicated to fighting just such a global threat as Covid-19.
Instead, WHO is struggling to defend its own credibility – while the impact of the contortions into which it has forced itself by adhering
COVIDcast Episode 6: Geopolitics and the coronavirus pandemic
COVIDcast is a Lowy Institute pop-up podcast for anyone interested in understanding the effect of coronavirus on global politics. Each week for the next few weeks, Lowy Institute experts will sit down to discuss the implications of coronavirus for the world.
In episode 6, the Director of Lowy
By Hervé Lemahieu , Ben Bland
We’re all socialists now
Of all the people who might have been expected to emerge from the current coronavirus crisis with their reputations enhanced, I don’t think many would have nominated Karl Marx.
And yet when governments around the world are adopting unimaginably radical solutions to address yet another “crisis
By Mark Beeson
Asia after the pandemic
Prognostication about the world after the crisis while still very much in the midst of the chaos is a fraught business. But just as planning for the post-war world began in 1942, think we must about what will come when the coronavirus recedes.
Prior to the global shutdown, Asia was already
By Nick Bisley
Coronavirus in conflict: The fight has hardly begun
The War on Covid-19
In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, the mobilising language of war is being used by leaders from UN Secretary-General António Guterres and World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to France’s President Emmanuel Macron and British
Fighting corona will strain US military capacity in the Indo-Pacific
Captain Brett E. Crozier, the recently deposed commander of America’s pandemic-stricken aircraft carrier the USS Theodore Roosevelt, was absolutely right when he told his superiors that “sailors do not need to die” from the Covid-19 outbreak onboard. But he was well off the mark in his
Indonesia: A health and economic crisis also threatens national unity
The spread of Covid-19 throughout Indonesia is more than a health and economic crisis but a direct challenge to national unity. What began as a problem of resources and hospital capacity has developed into one of policy, driven not by expertise but instead by political considerations about how to
By Bradley Wood
Covid forces Singapore to confront conditions for its migrant workers
In 2015, a small group of migrant workers gave me a tour of their home, a former factory building that had been retrofitted to house construction workers from Bangladesh. About 130 men lived in the building, with up to 18 or 19 men in a large room. They slept in bunks, using clothes and towels to
By Kirsten Han
Japan and coronavirus: Abe needs to make bold decisions
The last ten days in Japan have been extraordinary. First, the global Covid-19 pandemic forced the International Olympic Committee to postpone the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics until July 2021. And now, after a slow response, Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has announced a state of emergency for
Covid-19: Refugees at risk
The first case of Covid-19 was detected near the world’s largest refugee camp last month. Human rights groups fear it’s only matter of time before it spreads among the roughly one million Rohingya refugees living in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
Having fled ethnic cleansing at the hands of the
By Max Walden
US regional leadership: A shot across the bow
For years at the Shangri-La Dialogue, the pre-eminent meeting of defence ministers held in Singapore, successive secretaries of defence from the United States have repeated ad nauseam that Washington is a “resident power” in the region.It is becoming increasingly evident that the Covid-19
A French perspective on Australia’s role in the Indian Ocean
Every government is struggling with the Covid-19 crisis, with one eye to the post-coronavirus world. In this context, it may be worth looking at the French perception of Australia and their prospects, and need, for enhanced cooperation after the crisis.
France increasingly sees Australia as a key
Presenting The Interpreter self-isolation cooking special
Jamie Oliver stamped “like” on my tweet about cooking a deep pan pizza on the weekend, so that’s my self-isolation menu approval sorted. Celebrity chef endorsement – tick.
#pukka pic.twitter.com/XH4by4GV9n — Daniel Flitton (@danielflitton) April 3, 2020
I asked
A post-Covid world and the limits of “America first”
The Covid-19 pandemic is a great leveller – a fearsome test of governments and governing philosophies the world over. Democracies and autocracies alike have been exposed and found ill-prepared, under-equipped, and too slow to respond.
The United States, for all its power, wealth, and
Xi Jinping emerges stronger from Covid-19 outbreak
The tardy response by the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) to the Covid-19 outbreak triggered widespread community outrage. But Beijing’s draconian crackdown, paired with intense scrutiny and intrusion into the daily lives of ordinary citizens, has further consolidated power in the hands of
By Jennifer Hsu
Coronavirus: Global giants stumble while agile nations inspire
Lowy Institute Executive Director Michael Fullilove writes on the ways COVID-19 will alter some of the patterns of international life. Originally published in The Australian
A global call to arms
With confirmed Covid-19 cases now well past the million mark, most of the world is looking inward. Many countries feel overwhelmed by their local fight against the virus. But while some countries are just coping, others face a choice between stopping the pandemic or a famine. Most likely they will
How the virus could stagger Asia's giants
COVID-19 looks set to hit the emerging world hard. For Australia, what happens in India and Indonesia could be most consequential. Originally published in the Australian Financial Review
By Roland Rajah
COVIDcast Episode 5: Pandemic in the Pacific
COVIDcast is a Lowy Institute pop-up podcast for anyone interested in understanding the effect of coronavirus on global politics. Each week for the next few weeks, Lowy Institute experts will sit down to discuss the implications of coronavirus for the world.
In Episode 5, Lowy Institute’s
Covid-19: Averting economic disaster in the Pacific
Six locations across the Pacific Islands region now have confirmed cases of Covid-19. Many of these countries are already ravaged with major diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, dengue, diabetes, and occasionally even polio. So Pacific politicians are all too conscious of the potential of any
COVIDcast Episode 5: Pandemic in the Pacific
In episode 5 of COVIDcast, Lowy Institute’s Director of Research, Alex Oliver, sat down with Jonathan Pryke and Shane McLeod to discuss how the crisis of coronavirus is affecting Australia’s immediate neighbourhood, the Pacific Islands. Jonathan is the Director of Lowy’s Pacific Islands
Timor-Leste: The consequences of Covid-19
As of today, Timor-Leste has one confirmed case of Covid-19. Nonetheless, the feeling of panic among the public has been mounting. There is a valid reason for this: Timor-Leste’s public health system is under-resourced to respond to an outbreak of this scale.
Over the last one month, the
Covid-19 is not only a health crisis, it’s a migration crisis
As Covid-19 spreads around the globe, it is precipitating a series of other shocks, one of which is a crisis in human movement. Australia, as one of the key migrant-receiving nations globally, is particularly affected.
The migration crisis currently unfolding in Australia is primarily one of
By Anna Boucher
Covid-19: Jokowi must win back his people’s trust after early missteps
Indonesia troubles are mounting fast. The country continues to see an increase in the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases since discovering its first two on 2 March. In the weeks since, the number has risen to 1,677 cases, including 157 deaths, and 103 recoveries. Predictions suggest there may be as
China-US geopolitics in the age of corona
The coronavirus pandemic is a “black swan” moment: a rare and unpredictable event that could have momentous, system-wide, and unforeseen consequences. China deserves credit for having mobilised quickly, efficiently, and effectively after initial missteps to defeat the Covid-19 disease.
What if the realists are right?
If there’s one thing we can be confident about at the moment, it’s that policymakers won’t be turning to international relations (IR) specialists for advice on how to handle a truly global problem. Most of us are accustomed to being studiously ignored, but it’s still a bit deflating.
By Mark Beeson
Coping with crisis: How much “resilience” is on display?
“Resilience” has become a popular concept in 21st century life. In times of far-reaching social and economic change, with increasing stress and strain on both individual and group-level resources, “resilience” is often invoked as the thing that will see us through to emerge stronger and
Double disaster: Emergency preparedness in the era of Covid-19
The humanitarian system is facing unprecedented uncertainty in the midst of the biggest pandemic since 1918. Over the last 10 years, the requirements for emergency relief programs have consistently outstripped resources – before the outbreak of Covid-19, efforts were aimed to address the needs of
By Jess Lees
Covid-19: New Zealand, isolated, yet far from alone
Tumultuous times. Along with every other country, New Zealand faces an uncertain period. Remoteness might mitigate some impact of Covid-19, but it does not provide protection from the consequences of global disruption.
It is hard to imagine in late January as the disease took hold in Wuhan that
By Dick Grant
A political impasse in Timor-Leste as coronavirus looms
In late January, Timor-Leste’s governing alliance collapsed after the largest coalition party, Xanana Gusmão’s CNRT, abstained on the government budget, leading to the resignation of the Prime Minister Taur Matan Ruak. By late February Gusmão revealed a new 34-seat majority coalition, which
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