Events

With the threat of armed conflict looming more seriously over Asia than it has in decades, Oriana Skylar Mastro will discuss Asian approaches to diplomacy during war. Professor Mastro’s new book, The Costs of Conversation, covers the diplomatic decisions of China and India in past conflicts in Asia and provides signposts for crisis management and conflicts in the future. After a war breaks out, what factors influence states’ decisions to talk to their opponent, and when might their position on wartime diplomacy change? How do we get from only fighting to also talking? 

Join us for a panel discussion moderated by Natasha Kassam, Research Fellow at the Lowy Institute, to discuss the obstacles to peace talks in wartime.

The elections in Taiwan in January promise to be one of the region’s most consequential polls in recent decades. With Beijing increasingly vocal about using force to unify the island with China, voters face a choice between a president determined to resist Beijing and an opponent struggling to articulate an alternative. The polls on the self-governing island, which has a pivotal role in high-tech global value chains, are also taking place in the shadow of protests in Hong Kong and growing US–China tensions. In the lead-up, Beijing has been taking a leaf out of the Russian playbook by overtly and covertly influencing Taiwan’s local media and community groups. 
 

Australia faces no more difficult international challenge than managing its relationship with the People’s Republic of China, our largest trading partner and a peer competitor of our great ally the United States.

Join us for an address on China by former prime minister Tony Abbott, followed by a Q&A session chaired by Dr Michael Fullilove, Executive Director of the Lowy Institute.

Hyperpartisan and foreign-state sponsored disinformation targeted at voters through social media is undermining democracy and interfering with elections from the US to India, from Indonesia to Taiwan. Authoritarian adversaries, partisan domestic actors, and weak democratic governments are using the platforms and the extensive data they hold on individuals to manipulate voters and spread false narratives. The implications for the health of democracies everywhere are troubling. And with the US Presidential election looming in 2020, many argue that not enough is being done to halt the spread of deliberately false and misleading information. How can democracies fight back? 

The Lowy Institute’s Sam Roggeveen has written a provocative new book, Our Very Own Brexit, arguing that the political conditions which created Brexit also exist in Australia. But forget what you have read about populism and the rise of right-wing xenophobia. What Australia has in common with Britain and other Western democracies is something we rarely talk about: the steady decline of our big political parties. The ‘hollowed out’ state of contemporary politics could lead one of our political parties to exploit an issue that ties Australia to Asia and which will determine our future security: immigration.

Join us for a conversation between Sam and Professor Hugh White to mark the launch of Our Very Own Brexit.

Since 2012 several hundred Australians have travelled to Syria and Iraq to undertake jihad with Islamic State, al-Qaeda or other radical Islamist groups. Dozens more supported them financially or in the planning of attacks. There are many preconceptions about the types of people in Australia attracted to jihad, but there has been little data publicly available on which to base these assumptions. For the first time, Lowy Institute Fellow Rodger Shanahan has collected and analysed data on 172 individuals known to have joined radical Islamist terrorist organisations or who have been charged with terrorism offences. This new analysis provides comprehensive information on the backgrounds of Australians who have undertaken jihad, which will enhance our understanding of the typologies and motivations of those who are likely to be attracted to similar messaging in the future.

“The fog of Australian politics on climate change has obscured a fateful reality: Australia has the potential to be an economic superpower of the future post-carbon world,” argues Dr Ross Garnaut in his new book Superpower: Australia’s low-carbon opportunity.
 
Join us for a conversation between Dr Garnaut and Roland Rajah, Director of the Lowy Institute International Economy Program, about the role Australia can play in meeting this critical global challenge.

The Aus-PNG Network is pleased to invite you to join us at the National Gallery of Victoria for this network social evening. Enjoy a drink and a bite to eat with other people interested in the PNG-Australia relationship. We’ll be highlighting new connections between high schools in PNG and Australia under a program that’s facilitating exchange visits between more than 20 schools in our two countries, and talking about the importance of people-to-people links forged through education.

The Pacific Islands region has vaulted back to the centre of Australian foreign policy thinking. Prime Minister Morrison has positioned Australia’s “step up” in the region as his signature foreign policy initiative. Other governments have responded with their own “redial”, “pivot”, “uplift”, and “elevation” plans.
 
Much of this reaction is being driven by China’s rise, amid fears that fearing China will try to leverage its influence – be it debt, diplomacy, or trade – to achieve strategic outcomes. Great power competition has returned to the Pacific.

The Lowy Institute’s Sam Roggeveen has written a provocative new book, Our Very Own Brexit, arguing that the political conditions which created Brexit also exist in Australia. But forget what you have read about populism and the rise of right-wing xenophobia. What Australia has in common with Britain and other Western democracies is something we rarely talk about: the steady decline of our big political parties. The ‘hollowed out’ state of contemporary politics could lead one of our political parties to exploit an issue that ties Australia to Asia and which will determine our future security: immigration.

Join us for a conversation between Sam and Lowy Institute Nonresident Fellow Anthony Bubalo to mark the launch of Our Very Own Brexit.

As the United Kingdom faces a divisive but potentially decisive election framed around Brexit, the European Union is contemplating a future without the UK. 
 
If British voters back Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Brexit plan, what sort of future relationship will the EU look to build with the UK? What will be the impact on Ireland and Northern Ireland? And how will Brexit affect Australia's ties with the EU?

The Lowy Institute’s Sam Roggeveen has written a provocative new book, Our Very Own Brexit, arguing that the political conditions which created Brexit also exist in Australia. But forget what you have read about populism and the rise of right-wing xenophobia. What Australia has in common with Britain and other Western democracies is something we rarely talk about: the steady decline of our big political parties. The ‘hollowed out’ state of contemporary politics could lead one of our political parties to exploit an issue that ties Australia to Asia and which will determine our future security: immigration.

Join us for a conversation between Sam and award-winning journalist George Megalogenis to mark the launch of Our Very Own Brexit.
 

The Pacific Islands has vaulted back to the centre of Australian foreign policy thinking. Prime Minister Morrison has positioned Australia’s Pacific “step up” as his signature foreign-policy initiative. Other governments have responded with their own “redial”, “pivot”, “uplift”, and “elevation” plans.
 
Much of this reengagement is being driven by China’s rise, with analysts fearing China will try to leverage its influence – be it debt, diplomacy, or trade – to achieve strategic outcomes, including setting up a military base. Great power competition has returned to the Pacific.
 
Foreign aid is often the first tool used by nations to engage in the region, much of which is underdeveloped and vulnerable to disasters and the effects of climate change. Each year, more than 60 donors invest more than US$2 billion in foreign aid in the Pacific. More than one third of this aid goes to Papua New Guinea.
 
This event will showcase the second-year update of the map, which incorporates new data and new functionality, as well as present new analysis of Chinese debt diplomacy and its impact on debt sustainability in the Pacific.
 
Join Lowy Institute researchers to discuss what’s new in the Lowy Institute Pacific Aid Map, and what it can tell us about development in Papua New Guinea.

In March 2019, Islamic State officially lost its caliphate. The last remaining sliver of territory under its control was overtaken by Coalition forces, and US President Donald Trump declared the militant group “100% defeated”. 
 
Yet Islamic State remains defiant. Its reclusive leader has made two public pronouncements encouraging his followers since the fall of the caliphate. It retains affiliate networks around the world, and in the wake of its defeat, it committed one of the largest terrorist attacks ever – the Easter Bombings in Colombo, Sri Lanka.