Lowy Institute

The 2022 Lowy Institute Media Lecture was delivered by the Financial Times chief foreign affairs columnist Gideon Rachman, who reflected on the place of foreign news coverage in a fracturing media environment. Gideon Rachman became chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times in July 2006. He joined the FT after a 15-year career at The Economist, which included assignments as a foreign...

What does great power competition mean, and where did the concept come from? In this episode of Rules Based Audio , Ben Scott speaks to author and analyst Ali Wyne about great power competition. They discuss whether it is a useful way of thinking about the world, and whether it can help foreign policymakers when they are deciding what to do. Ali Wyne is a senior analyst with Eurasia Group's Global...

In this episode of The Director's Chair , Michael Fullilove speaks with author and journalist Susan Glasser about next week's US midterm elections and the likely results. They discuss US political perspectives on the war in Ukraine, the Biden Administration's performance on foreign policy, and the continued influence of former president Donald Trump on US politics. Susan Glasser is a journalist an...

In this episode of Conversations, Hervé Lemahieu talks with Xueyin Zha and Jennifer Hsu about the Chinese messaging app and the role in it plays in the democratic participation of Chinese-Australians. They discuss the inherent risks and drawbacks of WeChat, such as censorship, but also explore how it became a medium of outreach and civic engagement for Chinese-Australians during the 2021 New South...

In this episode of The Director's Chair , Michael Fullilove speaks with His Excellency José Ramos-Horta , the President of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste. José and Michael discuss the fallout from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, relations between Timor-Leste and Australia and the role of China's in the Indo-Pacific region. José reflects on his time in leadership roles, and the need for his g...

In this episode of Lowy Institute Conversations, Research Fellow Jennifer Hsu talks with Nixi Cura to explore and assess some of China’s major soft power initiatives, including its successes and failures over the last five years. They discuss the role of Chinese visual culture, notably contemporary Chinese art as a medium of projecting China’s soft power. Nixi Cura read East Asian Studies at Yale...

In this episode of Lowy Institute Conversations, Research Fellow Jennifer Hsu talks with Sarah Tong to explore and assess some of the key stressors of the Chinese economy and major economic policies that have emerged in the last five years. They discuss the contradictory forces at play that are impeding economic structural reforms, the prospect of slower growth and how the international environmen...

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 exer...

At a time of significant geopolitical uncertainty, India is taking an ever more prominent role in world affairs. From its membership of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, to the influential part that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has played in talks with Russia's President at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, India is asserting its voice on major international issues. Dr S. Jaishankar...

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has become an international symbol of resistance as he leads his country’s response to Russia’s brutal invasion. From his defiant leadership on the streets of Kyiv in the early weeks of the attack to his eloquent advocacy on the global stage, President Zelenskyy has become an internationally admired figure at the heart of some of the most remarkable events in...

On 2 September 2022, the Lowy Institute hosted 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 shared her experiences as a woman in a male dominated career and her thoughts o...

In 2021, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) said that right-wing extremism makes up 50 per cent of its priority caseload. Since that announcement, intelligence and law enforcement agencies have disrupted a number of plots related to right-wing extremists in Australia. But this is not only an issue in Australia. There has been a 250 per cent increase in right-wing terrorism gl...

In this episode of the Aus-PNG Network Leadership Series, Mihai Sora speaks to Andrew Kuliniasi, award-winning playwright and Drama Director at the Moresby Arts Theatre, about how the dramatic arts engage with important social issues in Papua New Guinea.  Andrew tells Mihai about his own work, “Looking at the past informs the future… Meisoga as a play was about a sixteen-year-old girl that had to...

With Australia's security focus now firmly on the Pacific, it is easy to dismiss Australia's twenty-year military involvement in the Middle East as an aberration, or simply as a legacy function of our alliance with the United States. Yet Australia's direct connections and interests in the Middle East are much greater now than they were before the country committed military forces to the region. Ca...

Ben Scott talks to Maria Rost Rublee, an Associate Professor of Politics & International Relations at Monash University, and Alan Kuperman, an Associate Professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin, about Australia's plan to acquire nuclear powered submarines, and what that means for nuclear non-proliferation. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Lowy Institute Conversations, Research Fellow Jennifer Hsu talks with Zhiqun Zhu to explore and assess some of China’s major foreign policy initiatives and priorities over the last five years. They discuss the driving forces behind these initiatives, including President Xi Jinping himself, and the major institutions that shape China’s foreign policy, namely the Chinese state, th...

In this episode of Conversations, Susannah Patton talks to Greg Poling, Director of the Southeast Asia Program and Director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) about his new book, On Dangerous Ground: America’s Century in the South China Sea. The United States has strong interests in the South China Sea, including maintaining th...

Xi Jinping is one of the world’s most powerful leaders and will remain so for many more years if, as expected, he secures a third term as Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at the forthcoming 20th National Congress of the CCP. Despite being in power for close to a decade, he is also a man that remains a mystery to much of the world. Dr Joseph Torigian, one of the premier scholars of the...

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 sou...

Lowy Institute researchers unpacked the findings of the 2022 Lowy Institute Poll in Canberra. How has Russia’s invasion of Ukraine changed Australian attitudes? What do the public think about China and the new Australian government? How are Australians responding to the contested nature of our region? The annual Lowy Institute Poll has tracked Australian attitudes to the world for 18 years and unc...

There has been increasing concern that Russia and China are using state-owned media companies, social media campaigns and proxy actors to manipulate public discourse in the global south. In this episode, Sasha Fegan discusses the influence of disinformation in the media landscape in Africa. Her guests will talk about how Russia and China calibrate their messaging to different nation states, and ho...

On 21 July 2022, the Lowy Institute hosted the launch of 'The Consul', written by Nonresident Fellow Ian Kemish. The book was launched by Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs Hon Tim Watts MP, with a conversation afterwards between Ian Kemish and Natasha Kassam, Director of the Institute's Public Opinion and Foreign Policy program. How have world events shaped the way we travel now and what does...

In this episode of Lowy Institute Conversations, Research Fellow Jennifer Hsu speaks with Jessica Teets about policy experimentation and diffusion at the local level in China, and the consequences for civil society. Jennifer and Jessica discuss local-level policy innovations that have taken place in the past five years, and also where space for experimentation has shrunk. They talk about what the...

Aus-PNG Network Leadership Series: Music in PNG In this episode, Mihai Sora is joined by Allen Kedea, also known by his stage name AKay47, to discuss the music scene in Papua New Guinea, and the role that music can play in empowering young people and building stronger connections between Papua New Guinea and Australia. Papua New Guinea has lot of natural resources, but there is growing recognition...

In this episode of Lowy Institute Conversations, Natasha Kassam, Director of Public Opinion and Foreign Policy, discusses Taiwan-Australia relations with Dr Chen Jie, Dr Sophie McIntyre and Dr Roger Huang. They discuss the emphasis on democracy for both Taiwan and Australia, the potential for more cultural and indigenous diplomacy, and the role that United States and China play in shaping Australi...