Events

Global wealth and power are shifting eastwards, changing the way the region – and indeed the world – works politically and strategically. Join Lowy Institute Program Director Hervé Lemahieu, the principal researcher behind the Asia Power Index, and Bonnie Bley, Research Fellow, for a visual and analytical journey through the changing distribution of power in Asia. The event will mark the Australian launch of the 2019 Lowy Institute Asia Power Index, the largest study of power in the region ever undertaken. Find out how countries in the region perform in terms of what they have, and what they do with what they have. This will be followed by a discussion of the Index’s findings and their implications for the changing political economy, military balance, and diplomatic networks of Asia. The event will conclude with a drinks reception.

Global wealth and power are shifting eastwards, changing the way the region – and indeed the world – works politically and strategically. Join Lowy Institute Program Director Hervé Lemahieu, the principal researcher behind the Asia Power Index, and Bonnie Bley, Research Fellow, for a visual and analytical journey through the changing distribution of power in Asia. The event will mark the Australian launch of the 2019 Lowy Institute Asia Power Index, the largest study of power in the region ever undertaken. Find out how countries in the region perform in terms of what they have, and what they do with what they have. This will be followed by a discussion of the Index’s findings and their implications for the changing political economy, military balance, and diplomatic networks of Asia. The event will conclude with a drinks reception.

Join us for a conversation with one of Australia’s most provocative public commentators, Professor Hugh White. Lowy Institute Senior Fellow Richard McGregor will chair a discussion on Professor White’s new book, How to Defend Australia. Over the past decade, Professor White has set the agenda of Australia’s China debate. This book will do the same for defence policy.
 
Hugh White AO is Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University and author of The China Choice and the Quarterly Essay 39, Power Shift. He has served as an intelligence analyst with the Office of National Assessments, as a senior adviser to Defence Minister Kim Beazley and to Prime Minister Bob Hawke, and as a senior official in the Department of Defence, where from 1995 to 2000 he was Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence.

Myanmar is facing a daunting array of challenges, from soaring economic inequality, rising ethnonationalism and continuing armed conflicts to fragile state institutions, the impact of climate change and the rise of China next door.
 
These challenges have long been seen through the lens of democratic change and the contest between the military dictatorship and Aung San Suu Kyi. However, more recently these issues have been overshadowed by the extreme violence in Rakhine State, the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims, and Aung San Suu Kyi’s muted response to the humanitarian crisis. 
 
Join eminent historian Dr Thant Myint-U in conversation with the Director of the Lowy Institute’s Southeast Asia Project, Ben Bland, as they discuss the problems facing Myanmar and the urgent need for fresh thinking if the country is to escape its tragic past and prevent an even worse crisis in the future.

One year after the corruption-tainted government of Najib Razak was ousted in a stunning electoral upset, sentiment in Malaysia has turned from elation to frustration. The motley coalition led by Mahathir Mohamad, the 93-year-old former and now new prime minister, has been weighed down by in-fighting. There are growing fears that he is backsliding on promises to roll back draconian laws and reinvigorate the sluggish economy.
 
Is Mahathir really a changed man? Will his government be subsumed by internal battles? And how will he manage growing US–China rivalry and simmering tensions with neighbouring Singapore?
 
Join two leading experts on Malaysian politics, Professor James Chin and Dr Vilashini Somiah, and Director of the Lowy Institute’s Southeast Asia Project Ben Bland to discuss these pressing questions and more.

One year after the corruption-tainted government of Najib Razak was ousted in a stunning electoral upset, sentiment in Malaysia has turned from elation to frustration. The motley coalition led by Mahathir Mohamad, the 93-year-old former and now new prime minister, has been weighed down by in-fighting. There are growing fears that he is backsliding on promises to roll back draconian laws and reinvigorate the sluggish economy.
 
Is Mahathir really a changed man? Will his government be subsumed by internal battles? And how will he manage growing US–China rivalry and simmering tensions with neighbouring Singapore?
 
Join two leading experts on Malaysian politics, Professor James Chin and Dr Vilashini Somiah, and Director of the Lowy Institute’s Southeast Asia Project Ben Bland to discuss these pressing questions and more.

One year after the corruption-tainted government of Najib Razak was ousted in a stunning electoral upset, sentiment in Malaysia has turned from elation to frustration. The motley coalition led by Mahathir Mohamad, the 93-year-old former and now new prime minister, has been weighed down by in-fighting. There are growing fears that he is backsliding on promises to roll back draconian laws and reinvigorate the sluggish economy.
 
Is Mahathir really a changed man? Will his government be subsumed by internal battles? And how will he manage growing US–China rivalry and simmering tensions with neighbouring Singapore?
 
Join two leading experts on Malaysian politics, Professor James Chin and Dr Vilashini Somiah, and Director of the Lowy Institute’s Southeast Asia Project Ben Bland to discuss these pressing questions and more.

The Indian general election is the world’s biggest exercise in democracy, with 900 million eligible voters. The election has been held in seven phases since 11 April, and results were declared on 23 May. Prime Minister and leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party Narendra Modi has been elected for a second term.
 
India’s foreign policy under Prime Minister Modi has divided analysts. Some believe India’s foreign policy has undergone a remarkable transformation, others argue Modi has merely repackaged the policies of his predecessors. Under Modi, the quad alliance with Japan, Australia and the United States has been resuscitated, although he has pursued a ‘neighbourhood first’ focus in foreign policy. On the border with Pakistan, tensions have escalated to the level of nuclear threat. Bilateral relations with China are a balancing act.   
 
Join us for an address by Professor Harsh V Pant, Director of Studies and Head of the Strategic Studies Programme at New Delhi’s Observer Research Foundation, on the future of India’s foreign policy in the wake of Prime Minister Modi’s re-election.
 
Professor Harsh V Pant is an influential and prolific foreign, defence and strategic policy writer and thinker. His latest book, Indian Foreign Policy: The Modi Era, was launched in April 2019 by India’s former Foreign Secretary, Dr S Jaishankar. Professor Pant is a guest of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as part of its Canberra Fellowships Program.

The Lowy Institute is pleased to host the Hon Kevin Rudd for a discussion on Xi Jinping’s China and the new era of strategic competition with the United States across trade, technology, and geopolitics. Mr Rudd served as Australia’s prime minister and foreign minister, lived in China as a diplomat, has studied the country’s history, politics, and language over many years, and has dealt with the leaders of the ruling Communist Party at the most senior levels. 
 
Mr Rudd who now leads the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York, will be will be in conversation with Richard McGregor, Lowy Institute’s Senior Fellow for East Asia.

This event is presented in partnership with the Asia Society

Since September 11, Australia has enacted over 80 counterterrorism and national security laws. The laws are often controversial although usually passed quickly through Parliament.
 
The Independent National Security Legislation Monitor (INSLM) reports on whether such laws are necessary, proportionate to the threats that caused them to be enacted, and comply with human rights standards and international law obligations. The role has been described as “an important and valued component of Australia’s national security architecture”.

When Vladimir Putin was re-elected as Russian president in 2018, his position as the dominant personality of the post-Soviet era was enshrined. In his 15 years as president over two terms, he has established himself as the strongman of a resurgent great power. He has been unrelenting in the pursuit of core goals: the consolidation of political authority at home; and the promotion of Russia as an indispensable power.

Join eminent Russian journalist Yevgenia Albats in conversation with Director of the Lowy Institute’s Asian Power and Diplomacy Program, Hervé Lemahieu, for a discussion of Russian politics and what it means for the rest of the world.

The foreign policy of Sir Robert Menzies, Australia’s longest-serving Prime Minister, has often been judged as beholden to Britain and the United States. Under Menzies, however, Australia took some steps towards a more independent role for Australia in foreign policy. Key initiatives include the signing of the ANZUS Treaty, the Colombo Plan and the Australia–Japan Commerce Agreement. Troy Bramston’s latest biography, Robert Menzies: The Art of Politics, reveals a wealth of new information about the Menzies years, including his role in the Suez crisis.

Join Lowy Institute Executive Director Dr Michael Fullilove in conversation with Troy Bramston, as they explore Menzies’ foreign policy successes and missteps and the lessons they may yield for Australian foreign policy in the future.
 
Troy Bramston is a senior writer and columnist with The Australian and is the author or editor of nine books on Australian politics and political biography. His new biography, Robert Menzies: The Art of Politics, was published in April 2019.
 

In Remaking the Middle East, Lowy Institute Nonresident Fellow Anthony Bubalo argued that despite continuing turmoil in the region the future of the Middle East was not inevitably bleak. Amid the ferment the region has experienced over the past decade and a half he also pointed to ‘green shoots’ of change: from new forms of ‘uncivil’ society driving social and political change to ‘impious’ politics, making societies more tolerant and pluralist.
 
But one year on, are these green shoots maturing into more sturdy features of the region? Or are they being killed and uprooted by the region’s revived authoritarianism? Join us as Lowy Institute Research Fellow Lydia Khalil discusses these and other questions with the author.

Join us at the State Library of Victoria for our Aus–PNG Network Melbourne social evening. We’re hosting a panel with three experienced Pacific journalists – Caroline Tiriman, Mary-Louise O’Callaghan and Catherine Graue – on the challenges and opportunities of covering news in Australia’s nearest neighbour. We’ll be talking about how technology is changing the way Papua New Guinea gets its news and how Australians can better engage with emerging issues in PNG. Join us afterwards for drinks and a bite to eat, and the opportunity to chat to our panellists. 

The Aus–PNG Network is a Lowy Institute project aimed at strengthening people-to-people links between Australia and Papua New Guinea. We host professional workshops, public events and an annual Emerging Leaders Dialogue to connect the next generation of leaders in Australia and PNG. Find out more about our work at our website: auspng.lowyinstitute.org. The Lowy Institute acknowledges the ongoing support of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for the Aus–PNG Network.
 

Through the course of Xi Jinping’s presidency, China has been working to shape an alternative version of the internet – one in which the party state asserts its cyber sovereignty through an extensive censorship apparatus. Many foreign news sources are blocked at the border, and sensitive topics are censored. At a time when open societies are grappling with how to manage the downsides of a free internet such as hate speech and extremist material, other nations are embracing China’s restrictive practices.

Join Hong Kong-based CNN International technology reporter and author of The Great Firewall of China James Griffiths, New York Times reporter Vicky Xiuzhong Xu, Lowy Institute Research Fellow and former Beijing-based diplomat Natasha Kassam, in discussion with Lowy Institute Research Fellow Kelsey Munro, to explore the history, politics and reality of online censorship in China, and the consequences of an authoritarian internet for the rest of the world.

Global wealth and power are shifting eastwards, changing the way the world works politically and strategically. Join analysts from the Sydney-based Lowy Institute through a visual and analytical journey of the changing distribution of power in Asia. The event will mark the global launch of the 2019 Lowy Institute Asia Power Index, the largest comparative study of power in the region ever undertaken. Find out how countries rank in terms of their capacity to influence international events using eight measures of power: military capability and defence networks, economic resources and relationships, diplomatic and cultural influence, as well as resilience and future resources. This will be followed by a panel discussion with Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy scholars on the implications of the Index’s findings for the global balance of power in the 21st century. The event will conclude with a drinks reception and an opportunity for participants to personally engage with the Asia Power Index digital interactive.

China’s economic future is more uncertain than ever. Challenges have mounted on multiple fronts, including slowing growth, rising financial risks, and increasingly difficult external relations, not least with the United States.

Join Lowy Institute International Economy Program Director Roland Rajah in conversation with one of the world’s foremost experts on the Chinese economy, Dr Nicholas Lardy of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Dr Lardy will present the findings from his latest book, arguing that China’s future growth prospects could remain as bright as they were in the past, but are overshadowed by the spectre of resurgent state dominance.

More than a decade since the global financial crisis, economic thinking has continued to evolve, shaped by the harsh realities of recent experience. With global economic governance also under pressure and potentially fraying, the kind of cooperation needed to contain potential crises and sustain global economic prosperity is vastly more difficult and uncertain. What are the key lessons from the 2008 crisis and what does this mean for managing future economic crises?

Join Lowy Institute International Economy Program Director Roland Rajah and Professor Maurice Obstfeld, former Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund and Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, for a discussion about the latest economic thinking on the future of the global economy and where policymaking is headed.

China’s economic future is more uncertain than ever. Challenges have mounted on multiple fronts, including slowing growth, rising financial risks, and increasingly difficult external relations, not least with the United States.

Join Lowy Institute Senior Fellow Dr John Edwards in conversation with one of the world’s foremost experts on the Chinese economy, Dr Nicholas Lardy of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Dr Lardy will present the findings from his latest book, arguing that China’s future growth prospects could remain as bright as they were in the past, but are overshadowed by the spectre of resurgent state dominance.

 

After a coup, a new constitution and a controversial election, Thailand’s political future remains as uncertain as ever. The general election in March, the first since the 2014 coup, was marred by allegations of irregularities and the election commission will not announce the final results until May. In the meantime, the commission has brought sedition charges against the leader of a pro-democracy party that did better than expected in the election.

Thailand is stuck in a protracted seesaw between democracy and military rule. How will the final election results affect this balance? What role, if any, will King Vajiralongkorn play in determining Thailand’s future trajectory after his coronation in May? And how will the political impasse impact Thailand’s chairmanship of ASEAN this year?

Join leading Thai political scientist Professor Thitinan Pongsudhirak and Director of Lowy Institute’s Southeast Asia Project Ben Bland for a discussion on what happens next in one of Southeast Asia’s most volatile nations.
 

The attacks on Al Noor and Linwood Mosques in Christchurch, in which 50 people lost their lives, represent the deadliest mass killing in New Zealand’s modern history and the worst terrorist attacks ever carried out by an Australian. The events of 15 March have already prompted large-scale gun reform in New Zealand as well as a Royal Commission into the attacks. More broadly, the attacks have prompted reflection on violent extremism in all its forms – including the kind perpetrated by the far right – and on the nature of far-right extremism as a global movement.

Join us for a panel discussion in which we will look at what changes are required at the policy and law enforcement levels to reduce the risk of extremist attacks; whether the Christchurch attack is linked to other far-right and white supremacist movements around the world; the nature of reciprocal extremism and how jihadism and far-right extremism may amplify each other; how online environments contribute to radicalisation; and how the Australian far right fits into the global picture. 

After a coup, a new constitution and a controversial election, Thailand’s political future remains as uncertain as ever. The general election in March, the first since the 2014 coup, was marred by allegations of irregularities and the election commission will not announce the final results until May. In the meantime, the commission has brought sedition charges against the leader of a pro-democracy party that did better than expected in the election.

Thailand is stuck in a protracted seesaw between democracy and military rule. How will the final election results affect this balance? What role, if any, will King Vajiralongkorn play in determining Thailand’s future trajectory after his coronation in May? And how will the political impasse impact Thailand’s chairmanship of ASEAN this year?

Join leading Thai political scientist Professor Thitinan Pongsudhirak and Director of Lowy Institute’s Southeast Asia Project Ben Bland for a discussion on what happens next in one of Southeast Asia’s most volatile nations.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak is Director of the Institute of Security and International Studies and Associate Professor of International Political Economy at the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok.

Sarah Bishop is a PhD candidate within the ANU College of Law undertaking research on Thai Constitutional Law focusing on court interpretation of constitutional rights provisions. Sarah's primary area of research interest is Asian law, with a particular focus on Thai public law. Her previous research has focused on areas in which the country's newly established public law courts have been particularly active―political party regulation and environmental regulation.

Ben Bland is the director of the Southeast Asia Project at the Lowy Institute, Australia’s leading international think-tank. He sets the Institute’s research agenda for this important region, commissioning analysis papers and organising programs of events and visiting fellows.

Thitinan’s visit to Australia is part of the ASEAN–Australia Visiting Fellows Program at the Lowy Institute, which is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia–ASEAN Council of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

After a coup, a new constitution and a controversial election, Thailand’s political future remains as uncertain as ever. The general election in March, the first since the 2014 coup, was marred by allegations of irregularities and the election commission will not announce the final results until May. In the meantime, the commission has brought sedition charges against the leader of a pro-democracy party that did better than expected in the election.

Thailand is stuck in a protracted seesaw between democracy and military rule. How will the final election results affect this balance? What role, if any, will King Vajiralongkorn play in determining Thailand’s future trajectory after his coronation in May? And how will the political impasse impact Thailand’s chairmanship of ASEAN this year?

Join leading Thai political scientist Professor Thitinan Pongsudhirak and Director of Lowy Institute’s Southeast Asia Project Ben Bland for a discussion on what happens next in one of Southeast Asia’s most volatile nations.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak is Director of the Institute of Security and International Studies and Associate Professor of International Political Economy at the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok.

Thitinan’s visit to Australia is part of the ASEAN–Australia Visiting Fellows Program at the Lowy Institute, which is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia–ASEAN Council of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Since the start of the Syrian civil war, up to 200 Australians have travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight with jihadist groups, and dozens more have been charged with terrorism offences in Australia. The legal process against jihadists in Australia and those returning from overseas will continue for years to come. Foreign fighters claim that they simply provided humanitarian assistance or did not fight, and domestic terrorists often blame mental health issues for their acts. Yet little is known publicly about their true motivations, how they organised themselves, what role mental health has really played in their actions, how contrite they have been, and how likely they are to be rehabilitated.
 
Research Fellow Dr Rodger Shanahan has written widely on foreign fighters and has been an expert witness in more than two dozen terrorism cases in Australia. He will attempt to shed light on the often darkened world of the Australian jihadist, using their own words and those of the courts to try to explain the motivations and worldview of Australian terrorists.

The Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Penny Wong, will address the Lowy Institute on what a Labor Government would mean for Australia’s international engagement. How does Labor see Australia’s place in the world? What would be the priorities for a Labor Government? After her address, Senator Wong will join Lowy Institute Executive Director Dr Michael Fullilove in conversation.

Senator Penny Wong, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, was first elected in 2001. She held several ministerial positions between 2007 and 2013, including Minister for Climate Change and Water and Minister for Finance and Deregulation. Since 2016 Senator Wong has been Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs.

This event will now be held on Tuesday, 30 April 2019.

The economy, tax, debt and health are the issues that are most likely to dominate the federal election campaign. But there are other matters of importance to Australians that should be debated. Which party is best able to balance our delicate relationships with Washington and Beijing? Both parties have promised to give a higher priority to our relationships in the Pacific but whose plans are most likely to succeed? Both parties are committed to increasing defence spending but will this fall victim to the competition to cut income taxes and achieve sustainable budget surpluses? Will spending on foreign aid also be sacrificed because of budgetary pressures? What do the findings of the Lowy Institute Poll tell us about voters’ attitudes?

Join us as distinguished Lowy Institute experts Alex Oliver, Richard McGregor, Annmaree O’Keeffe, and Sam Roggeveen discuss these and other important foreign policy and defence issues during the federal election campaign, moderated by Executive Director Dr Michael Fullilove.