Australia's Trade

Passing lane Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Southeast Asia is “where Australia's future lies” and Treasurer Jim Chalmers says even more enthusiastically that …

Australia’s Southeast Asia trade stumbling block

Australia recently announced the creation of a $2 billion Southeast Asian Financing Facility to increase trade and investment in the region. While this is a good start, to get the…

Australia confronts an Indonesian nickel glut

Australia’s undercooked economic relationship with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was naturally a focal point of discussion during the ASEAN–Australia Special Summit…

Economic diplomacy: Strategic funding comes in from the cold

Soft dollars While the multiples of defence to aid and intelligence to diplomacy spending have received a lot of attention in recent years as they have relentlessly widened,…

Economic diplomacy: To market, to market, with China

Trading up Australia’s international economic engagement kicked off in 2003 with then foreign minister Alexander Downer telling his Cabinet colleagues that he was set to claim…

Australia and Africa: Economic diplomacy is out of sync with investment ties

Two West African nations report that Australia – and not France, the United States or China – is their largest foreign investor. Large Australia-linked energy and minerals…

Don’t let China veto Australia’s ties with Taiwan

Conflict over Taiwan would be calamitous. It risks sparking a US–China war, imperilling millions of lives on both sides of the Strait, and destroying Taiwan’s hard-won liberal…

Economic diplomacy: Pulling the right global value chain

Stepping up Late last month, the Albanese government took important steps towards dealing with two of the most debated developments in international economic relations since…

Policy Briefs

Enhancing Australia's Taiwan ties

Australia has limited its economic and political engagements with Taiwan due to fears of upsetting China. Is now the right time for change?

Australia must play the geoeconomics game, or risk being side-lined

Last month, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon stated geopolitics is now the biggest global risk to the economy. Australian business leaders on the receiving end of Chinese economic…