The Chinese Communist Party will shortly hold its 20th National Congress during a highly unsettled period in international affairs. In February, after President Putin and President Xi declared a "friendship without limits", Russia launched its brutal invasion of Ukraine. In August, China responded to US Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei with major military exercises. Meanwhile, President Biden has become increasingly vocal in his support for Taiwan.

Just days ahead of the CCP Congress, the Lowy Institute hosted the head of one of the most influential think tanks in Washington. Richard Fontaine addressed the Institute on the present and future of international order. After his remarks, he spoke with Executive Director Michael Fullilove about US security policy in Asia, China’s challenge to the United States and the rules-based order, as well as how the Ukraine war is being viewed in Washington.

Richard Fontaine is Chief Executive Officer of the Center for a New American Security. He served as President of CNAS from 2012–19 and before that as Senior Fellow from 2009–12. Prior to his time at CNAS, he was foreign policy adviser to Senator John McCain and worked at the US State Department, the National Security Council, and on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

This event was hosted as part of the project Australia's Security and the Rules-Based Order, which receives funding from the Australian Department of Defence Strategic Policy Grants Program.

Please join us for a rare insight into the story of women in the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) from its Director-General, Rachel Noble. ASD is Australia's foreign signals intelligence, cyber security, and offensive cyber operations agency. At this in-person event, the Director-General will also share her experiences as a woman in a male dominated career and her thoughts on what leaders and managers can do to help to continue breaking down barriers for women. Following her speech, the Director-General will take questions from Lowy Institute Executive Director Michael Fullilove and the audience.

Half of all Australians were born overseas or have a parent who was born overseas, and Australia is home to more than 250 ancestries and 350 languages. The new Labor government has invoked Australia’s multiculturalism as a part of our national identity in its recent engagement with the region. But what is the role of Australia’s multiculturalism in foreign policy? Are diversity and diasporas a source of soft power and engagement? Our panel examined how Australia’s multiculturalism can inform foreign policymaking chaired by Dr Jennifer Hsu, Research Fellow in the Lowy Institute’s Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program.

Panel guests include:

Dr Melissa Phillips is a Lecturer in Humanitarian and Development Studies in the School of Social Sciences at Western Sydney University. She has previously worked for the United Nations and international NGOs in South Sudan, North Africa, and the Middle East, and recently co-edited Understanding Diaspora Development: Lessons from Australia and the Pacific. 

Jason Chai is the Director of Market Access and Government Affairs for Cochlear Asia-Pacific. He is a former Australian diplomat and has worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, as well as at senior government levels, including as a Chief of Staff to a Victorian Minister of Trade and Investment. 

Alfred Deakin Professor Fethi Mansouri holds a research chair in Migration and Intercultural Studies and the UNESCO Chair for comparative research on cultural diversity and social justice. He is the founding Director of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. He is the editor of the Journal of Intercultural Studies and since 2010 has served as an expert adviser to the United Nations on cultural diversity and intercultural relations.

Recorded on 10 Aug 2022

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue is becoming increasingly important to Indian, Japanese, Australian and American efforts to balance Chinese power and extend the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific.

Its strategic importance to Australia was underscored this May when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made the Quad leaders’ meeting in Tokyo his first foreign engagement as Prime Minister. At this special event, the Lowy Institute’s Executive Director Dr Michael Fullilove discussed the Quad’s evolving role with leading thinkers from two other Quad countries:

• Dr Samir Saran, President of India’s Observer Research Foundation.
  Dr Saran curates the Raisina Dialogue, India’s annual flagship platform on geopolitics and geo-economics, and is the founder of CyFy, India’s annual conference on cybersecurity and internet governance. Samir has authored four books, including The New World Disorder and the Indian Imperative with Shashi Tharoor, and Pax Sinica: Implications for the Indian Dawn with Akhil Deo.
• Dr Kori Schake, Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
  Dr Schake was the Deputy Director-General of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. She has had a distinguished career in government, working at the US State Department, the US Department of Defense, and the National Security Council at the White House. She has also taught at Stanford, West Point, Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, National Defense University, and the University of Maryland.

Recorded on 17 June 2022

Moscow’s escalating confrontation with the West means that Russia is now more reliant on China, geopolitically and economically, than at any time in the two countries’ history. What are the implications arising from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — the most serious conflict in Europe since the end of the Second World War? What impact will the war in Ukraine’s have on the evolution of the Sino-Russian partnership, which has assumed pivotal importance — not just for the outcome of the war, but for the future of global order?

On 26 May 2022, the Lowy Institute hosted this event with Dr Bobo Lo, Nonresident Fellow to mark the launch of his Lowy Institute Analysis Paper Turning point? Putin, Xi and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Dr Lo’s address was followed by a conversation with Hervé Lemahieu, Director of Research of the Lowy Institute and audience questions.

Dr Bobo Lo is a Nonresident Fellow with the Lowy Institute and is an independent analyst on global affairs. He is an Associate Research Fellow with the Russia/NIS Center at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) and has written extensively on Russian foreign and security policy, with a particular focus on Sino-Russian relations. Dr Lo is a former diplomat and served as Deputy Head of Mission at Australia’s Embassy in Moscow. He is the author of Russia and the New World Disorder, which was shortlisted for the 2016 Pushkin House Prize and was described by The Economist as the ‘best attempt yet to explain Russia’s unhappy relationship with the rest of the world’. His most recent book is A Wary Embrace: What the China-Russia relationship means for the world. He holds an MA from Oxford and a PhD from Melbourne University.

US National Cyber Director Chris Inglis addressed the Lowy Institute on the role of cyber in US strategy and the outlook for international cyber cooperation to build resilience and counter threats. Afterwards, he spoke in conversation with Research Fellow Ben Scott, Director of the Australia's Security and the Rules Based Order Project. 

Read more: Foreign espionage: An Australian perspective

To mark the 70th anniversary of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, ASIS Director-General Paul Symon addressed the Lowy Institute on the past, present and future of foreign espionage from an Australian perspective. After the speech, Mr Symon spoke in conversation with Dr Michael Fullilove, Executive Director of the Lowy Institute.

Paul Symon’s military career spanned 35 years and culminated in the rank of Major General. He served as the Deputy Chief of the Australian Army from late 2008 until 2011, and from 2011–14 was Director of the Defence Intelligence Organisation. In mid-2015, Paul left the military and joined the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He was appointed Director-General of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service on 18 December 2017.

Read more: Foreign espionage: An Australian perspective