Winter Games harden China’s global freeze
The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games were China’s coming out party as a global power. The 2022 Games tell a very different story. Originally published in the Australian Financial Review
Saturday 22 Jan 2022 | 15:49 | SYDNEY
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Can China win back global opinion before the Winter Olympics? Does it even want to?
Originally published in The Conversation
By Jennifer Hsu
Don’t let the China hawks frighten you
China will become more powerful -- but any hostile reach towards Australia will always be limited by technology and regional politics. Originally published in the Australian Financial Review
Settling in for long, fruitful innings with new partner India
Originally published in The Australian
Australia can learn from Tokyo's smarter approach to China
Japan has played its Beijing cards more intelligently than Canberra. Originally published in Nikkei Asia
Australian election 2022: Big businesses, small productivity gains
Originally published in The Canberra Times
By John Edwards
America Is Up—and China Is Down—in Asia
But U.S. Power Faces Threats at Home. Originally published in Foreign Affairs.
Managing Asia’s bipolar disorder
US standing is up, China has been dragged down and middle nations have seen a steady decline in their influence, according to the latest Lowy Institute Asia Power Index. Originally published in The Australian Financial Review
Solomon Islands unrest not helped by foreign powers behaving badly
While geopolitics may have been a spark, the true drivers of this week’s unrest go much deeper than foreign policy. Originally published in the Australian Financial Review
Australia’s early intervention can help Solomon Islands but the roots of the conflict run deep
Honiara has awoken to a calmer scene but tension lingers as quelling the violent protests has not resolved their underlying causes. Originally published in The Guardian
By Mihai Sora
US seeks recalibration, but China is unlikely to reciprocate
Washington wanted the Biden-Xi meeting to establish guardrails to prevent confrontation. Beijing will probably see that as just code for maintenance of the US-dominated status quo. Originally published in the Australian Financial Review
By Ben Scott
Confessions of a Reserve Bank board member
Originally published in The Canberra Times
By John Edwards
Vigilance against foreign influence does not require overzealous suspicion of Chinese-Australians
Originally published in The Sydney Morning Herald
By Jennifer Hsu
What Taiwan really wants
Originally published in The New York Times
Telstra’s Digicel Pacific challenge
The deal with the government insulates the telco from financial risk. But accepting the role of Australia’s lead business ambassador in the region makes it no set-and-forget investment. This article was first published in the Australian Financial Review on 29 October 2021
Far more than just the money, Digicel is a very big deal
Originally published in The Australian. By Jonathan Pryke and Mihai Sora
International rules make U.S.-China conflict more likely
Cross-border principles governing conduct only exist if they are accepted by states. Originally published in Nikkei Asia Review
By Ben Scott
Why Australia needs a security rebalance
The pandemic has blown up any idea that we can easily spot the future threats to Australia. So how do we prioritise our finite security resources? Originally published in the Australian Financial Review
By Ben Scott
PNG is back on the brink of a delta variant disaster
Complacency and vaccine hesitancy at all levels of society have left PNG wide open to delta infection. The country needs outside help – and very quickly. Originally published in the Australian Financial Review. By Jonathan Pryke and Brendan Crabb.
Australia is Making a Risky Bet on the U.S.
Australia has thrust itself into a central role in America’s rivalry with China. Originally published in The New York Times
What a new defence pact reveals about America
A deal between the United States, Britain, and Australia serves as a rebuttal of the argument that Washington is in retreat. First published in The Atlantic
AUKUS must walk and chew gum at the same time
Originally published in The Canberra Times
By Ben Scott
This is America’s new foreign policy on show
The abandoning of Afghanistan is all about a shift to diplomacy and deal-making, not firepower and force.
Originally published in the Australian Financial Review
By Ben Scott
New man in Tehran aims for supreme power
Originally published in The Australian
How Biden's China doctrine can swing the pendulum back
A shift toward the center is more likely in coming months.
Originally published in Nikkei Asia Review
By Ben Scott
The trouble with Washington’s ‘Rules-Based Order’ gambit
Improved U.S. compliance with international norms would greatly enhance U.S. defense of the rules-based international order.
Originally published in The Diplomat
By Ben Scott
Why the US is quietly outshining China
Xi Jinping likes to say China owns the future and the West is in decline. But appearances can also deceive.
Originally published in the Australian Financial Review
China’s communists guard their future from the past
As they celebrate their party’s centenary, China’s leaders remain obsessed with the fate of the Soviet Union and its political reforms. They study history to avoid a repeat.
Originally published in the Australian Financial Review
By Peter Cai
Xi's tech crackdown preserves socialism with Chinese characteristics
Protecting foreign investors has never been a top priority.
Originally published in Nikkei Asia Review
Xi Jinping reels in his tech titans
Private enterprise created China’s vaunted digital economy. But Big Brother is always in charge. Originally published in the Australian Financial Review
China’s looming succession crisis
What will happen when Xi is gone?
Originally published in Foreign Affairs
Australia buying Digicel hits two birds with one stone
On top of staving off a China telco monopoly, underwriting the purchase would show the government is putting big money on the table to get ‘blue chip’ companies to invest in the Pacific. Originally published in the Australian Financial Review
There is no wages case for a permanent cut to immigration
RBA governor Philip Lowe makes a reasonable point about the short-term suppression of wages in some industries. But long-run evidence shows migration lifts demand for workers. Originally published in the Australian Financial Review
By Roland Rajah
Fear of military conflict on the rise in Australia
In an opinion piece originally published in The Australian newspaper, Lowy Institute director of public opinion and foreign policy Natasha Kassam and research director Alex Oliver describe how the pandemic, China’s behaviour, and a change in US leadership have catalysed some rapid shifts
We only have a guest seat at G7 table
Originally published in the Australian Financial Review. Australia has been invited to this gathering of friends, but has no say in any decisions about how to get China to play by the rules. That’s a risk for the years ahead
Unrivalled Xi Jinping still has challenges
Originally published in the Australian Financial Review. China’s ruling party and its leader are now masters of everything they survey. But can the economy keep delivering when the private sector is cowed
Will Indonesia’s Omnibus reforms bolster recovery from COVID-19?
Originally published in East Asia Forum.
By Roland Rajah
Catching up in the space race isn’t a moon shot
China’s ‘God of Fire’ mission foreshadows a scramble for control of space — and Australia is being left behind. Originally published in The Australian
By Alan Dupont
Australians have never been so fearful and insular
How Australia has dealt with COVID-19 and the rift with China underscores changes in the national psyche. Originally published in The Australian Financial Review
Revealed: China’s plan to wean itself off Australian iron ore
For a China determined to punish Australia, the windfall gains delivered to Canberra from surging iron ore prices are intolerable. Originally published in the Australian Financial Review.
China, the West and Covid
It is hard to believe the world will easily forget China’s governing system allowed Covid to get out of hand and spread to the four corners of the Earth.
Originally published in The Australian
Evaluate the Ladakh crisis, keep China at bay
A critical assessment of the stand-off offers New Delhi key lessons in managing the strategic competition with China. Originally published by The Hindu
‘Fortress Australia’: what are the costs of closing ourselves off to the world?
Originally published in The Conversation.
Australians need clarity on war or peace
A formal annual threat assessment from the government is better than the shapeless war talk voters are getting at the moment. Originally published in The Australian Financial Review
By Ben Scott
Stoking fears of war could serve China’s goals. Australian policy needs rethinking
Tensions in the region are escalating, but trumpeting the coming threat of war plays into Beijing’s goals and risks undermining Taiwan further. Originally published in The Guardian
Biden and Xi talk of a clash of civilisations. But the real shared goal is dominance
The US president has challenged the idea that the ‘east is rising, the west declining’. Instead, he insists that America’s day is far from done. Originally published by The Guardian
Extremism and clear terminology
New terminology introduced by ASIO to describe violent extremist groups carefully avoids ‘right- or left-wing’ descriptors. But in not calling out right-wing extremism, is the national security agency guilty of double standards and bowing to the conservative side of politics?
Originally
By Lydia Khalil
China strategy: Get a bigger stick with which to protect ourselves
Originally published in The Australian Financial Review
By Alan Dupont
The Pacific went a year without COVID. Now, it’s all under threat
Originally published by The Conversation
Is there life after Xi?
The Chinese president has rewritten the post-Mao rules, and the global implications could be profound. Originally published by Inside Story
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