Events

The Lowy Institute is pleased to invite you to an in conversation with Dr Michael Fullilove and Dennis Richardson AO, who until his recent retirement was one of Australia’s most experienced and respected public servants.

On 12 May 2017, Dennis Richardson retired as the Secretary of the Department of Defence, ending a storied public service career that began in 1969. In that time, he served as the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, as Australian Ambassador to the United States and as Director-General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. He was also Principal Adviser to the Prime Minister from 1990 to 1991.

The Lowy Institute is delighted to host Senator the Hon Penny Wong, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, for an address on Australia's national interests in a time of disruption.
 
 

In 2001, China entered the World Trade Organisation (WTO), a watershed in the history of globalisation. Fully integrating China into the global economy had profound consequences, both positive and disruptive. Domestically, Beijing applied WTO rules to promote far-reaching market-based economic reforms. Internationally, China’s strong export industry has led to the decline of old-line industries in advanced economies. Recently China has adopted a number of technological and economic policies and practices which will have new implications for international markets.
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Join journalist and author Paul Blustein and East Asia Program Director Dr Merriden Varrall to discuss China’s changing engagement with the global economy and the dangers facing the trading system. A Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Paul has written widely on economic issues for more than 35 years, including for The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, and is the author of five books on international economic institutions.

The Asian Financial Crisis erupted 20 years ago with the crash of the Thai baht on 2 July 1997. What did the guardians of the global financial system, in particular the International Monetary Fund (IMF) learn from that experience, and how well have they done in the period since then? Nonresident Fellow and former Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia Stephen Grenville will discuss these questions with Paul Blustein, a former Washington Post reporter and Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and author of The Chastening, a compelling account of the series of economic crises that rocked the world and the IMF's response.

China’s continuously growing role in world affairs can’t help but capture our imaginations — but how does the world look from Beijing? Is President Xi navigating global affairs with a skilful coherent strategy, or are the Chinese elite opportunistically grabbing on to whatever they can catch? Join Jane Perlez, Beijing Bureau Chief of The New York Times and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, for a discussion of politics in the Chinese capital with East Asia Program Director, Dr Merriden Varrall.

Following the passing of King Rama IX, Thailand is going through a period of significant political and social upheaval. Join us for a panel discussion on how Thailand will fare with its ‘triple threat’ of a royal transition, the entrenchment of military rule, and the potential escalation of separatist violence in its southern provinces. The discussion will feature Nicholas Farrelly, the author of a forthcoming Lowy Institute Analysis of the situation. He will be joined by three other leading experts on Thai politics, security, and human rights. 

Jake Sullivan, former senior foreign policy adviser to Hillary Clinton, describes the post-World War II order as “like the Parthenon” - with columns that included the United Nations, NATO, and the various Bretton Woods institutions. Now, in the age of Trump, Brexit, and China’s rise, we are entering a phase with fewer clean lines. “It’s surprising, it’s sometimes formal and sometimes informal, sometimes linear and sometimes ad hoc, sometimes shiny and sometimes not.”

Join Lowy Institute Director of Digital and Senior Fellow, Sam Roggeveen for a conversation with Hillary Clinton’s closest foreign policy confidant, Jake Sullivan, with the chance to ask your questions.

US President Donald Trump dismisses decades-old alliances; the UK turns its back on a European project that brought peace and prosperity to a war-wracked continent; President Duterte overturns Filipino foreign policy to adopt a pro-Beijing line. Populist political forces are on the rise in some of the world’s great democracies, including in the US, India, the UK and other parts of Europe. What does the age of populism mean for American foreign policy and for the global order? On 15 June, hear from a campaigner on the front line against the darker impulses of populism - Jake Sullivan, Hillary Clinton’s closest foreign policy confidant.

As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton led one of the Obama Administration’s signature foreign policy initiatives, the ‘pivot’ to Asia. On 13 June, hear from Hillary Clinton’s closest foreign policy confidant, Jake Sullivan, about what motivated the pivot and what US Asia policy will look like under President Trump and beyond. A rising China, a belligerent North Korea and an unruly ASEAN are among the many challenges facing the US in the Asia-Pacific. Can this still be ‘America’s Pacific Century’, as Clinton promised when she first described the pivot in 2011?

The annual Owen Harries Lecture honours the enormous contribution Mr Harries, a Nonresident Fellow of the Lowy Institute, has made to the international policy debate in Australia.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has called a snap election – the first early election in the UK since 1974. Opinion polls indicate her Conservative government is in for a thumping victory, but in an era of voter volatility, is this an unnecessary gamble? Or will May get the mandate she wants to negotiate the UK’s exit from the European Union on the best terms?
 
Join us at the Lowy Institute on 9 June, the day after UK polling day, for a panel discussion about what the results mean for the UK, EU and the world.

Mr Hyland is the United Kingdom’s first Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. The Commissioner’s role is to lead the UK’s efforts to tackle modern slavery and human trafficking. Mr Hyland will address the Lowy Institute on what is one of the most significant global human rights issues of the modern day, and the domestic and international actions countries can take to tackle it.
 
Kevin Hyland was head of the London Metropolitan Police’s Human Trafficking Unit, and has over 30 years’ experience of investigating serious and organised crime. Mr Hyland was appointed as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for "services to Combating Human Trafficking" in the 2015 New Year Honours. While in Australia, Mr Hyland will participate in a public hearing at the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade parliamentary inquiry into establishing a Modern Slavery Act in Australia.

North Korea is moving closer to its cherished strategic goal: the possession of a functioning nuclear missile capable of hitting the United States. The regime’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests have gathered pace, creating a momentum which US and regional policy makers are struggling to control. Sanctions have failed to halt the development of the North’s nuclear program. The recent, brazen assassination of Kim Jong Un’s half-brother by an outlawed chemical weapon in Malaysia’s main airport is also widely believed to have been carried out at Pyongyang’s direction, although no North Korean suspects have been brought to justice.
 
While South Korea has lived with North Korea’s provocative behaviour for decades, how will other neighbours and the Trump administration deal with the looming threat? Is there a US-China “grand bargain” on the cards? Will the United States pursue unilateral counter-measures? Or does the solution lie elsewhere – with the possibility that a new South Korean president will pursue a pro-engagement strategy?
 
Join Dr Euan Graham, Director of the International Security Program at the Lowy Institute and Korean foreign policy expert, Dr Jiyoung Song for a discussion on the future of North Korea and how it will shape regional security.

China is a rapidly ageing country. According to the World Bank, the working age population is predicted to fall by 10% by 2040. While the size of the workforce is falling, the pool of over 65s are rising, predicted to reach 350 million by the same year.

What are the economic effects of a shrinking labour pool and rising number of aged dependents, and how will the two-child policy limit these effects? Join Dr Merriden Varrall, Director of the East Asia Program at the Lowy Institute, Dr Jane Golley, Associate Director of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University and Dr John Edwards, Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute, to explore how population dynamics will shape China’s economy and what it means for our economic future at large.

The race for Iran’s presidency is heating up as more hardline candidates join the contest. Join Lowy Institute Deputy Director Anthony Bubalo and a panel of experts to preview Iran’s crucial presidential elections on 19 May. Joining Anthony will be Dr Rodger Shanahan, Research Fellow at the Lowy Institute, Dr Naser Ghobadzadeh, from the Australian Catholic University and Alice Drury, who lived and studied in Iran between 2014 and 2016.

Allan Gyngell's new book Fear of Abandonment: Australia in the World since 1942 is a gripping and authoritative account of the way Australians and their governments have helped create the world we now inhabit. 

Join Allan Gyngell, former Executive Director of the Lowy Institute and former Prime Minister Paul Keating for a discussion of the history of Australian foreign affairs and its impact on our place in the world now.