Events

Intensifying strategic competition between the US and China is having ramifications around the globe. The risk of military conflict is growing in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. Global economic growth is slowing, and supply chains are shifting. China and Russia are forging closer ties in response to commonly perceived threats. Will US-China competition abate or increase? How can Australia best navigate these dangerous shoals?

Join us for a speech by Lowy Institute Nonresident Fellow Bonnie Glaser followed by a Q&A with Michael Fullilove, the Institute’s Executive Director.

The last wave of globalisation delivered enormous economic benefits. But the massive social disruption and displacement fell disproportionately on less-skilled workers, helping to spawn the current populist revolt. The next wave of globalisation, however, might prove different, as emerging technologies combine with global economic forces to create a whole new set of opportunities and challenges.
 

Indonesian President Joko Widodo was decisively re-elected in April but his second, and final, term in office looks set to be anything but plain sailing. The election revealed deep divides in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, with politics polarised along religious lines. The economy remains sluggish despite promises of structural reforms to unlock rapid growth. And Indonesia’s democratic system, long seen as a beacon of progress, is facing intensifying challenges, from crackdowns on free speech to a deterioration in the protection of minority rights.  

Please join us at a Sydney edition of the Australian National University’s Indonesia Update to discuss the state of democracy in Indonesia and the challenges ahead in Jokowi’s second term. The event will include a political update presented by Edward Aspinall, an update on the economy by Paul Burke, and panel discussions featuring Burhanuddin Muhtadi, Nava Nuraniyah, Martin Daniel Siyaranamual, Eve Warburton and Ben Bland.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) is charged with protecting Australia and its citizens from terrorism, foreign interference, espionage, sabotage, and politically motivated violence.

Join us for a public address by ASIO Director-General Duncan Lewis at the Lowy Institute followed by a Q&A with the Institute’s Executive Director, Dr Michael Fullilove.

Duncan Lewis has served as the Director-General  of Security since 2014. Mr Lewis served in the Australian Defence Force for 33 years, including as commander of the Special Air Service Regiment and Major General, Special Operations Commander Australia.

Since 2005, Mr Lewis has served in a number of Australian Public Service roles, including assistant secretary of the National Security Division within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Australia’s inaugural National Security Adviser, and Australia’s Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg, the European Union, and NATO. Mr Lewis was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia in 2005.

Modern technologies offer enormous opportunities for police and for criminals. Most crimes have a digital element. Rapid technological advances have led to new tools such as facial recognition, camera-equipped drones, and fingerprint scanners. These advances provide enormous amounts of data to be assessed and interpreted, generating a role for artificial intelligence in modern policing. They also create new tensions between protection of citizens’ safety and protecting personal data, as well as presenting a multitude of challenges for police leaders, policy makers, and those who hold the police to account. 

Cressida Dick was appointed UK Commissioner of Police in 2017, the first female commissioner in the history of the Metropolitan Police. She leads the United Kingdom’s largest police service, having served as a police officer for most of her 35-year career.
 

Anna Fifield, a long-time foreign correspondent, is one of the most knowledgeable journalists writing about North Korea, a nation that has largely walled itself off to outsiders. In her new book, The Great Successor: The Secret Rise and Rule of Kim Jong Un, she draws on her dozen-plus trips to the country to penetrate the layers of myth and propaganda surrounding the young leader and his nuclear arsenal. Fifield has gained rare access to Kim’s inner circle (including the aunt and uncle who posed as his parents while he was growing up in Switzerland, members of the entourage that accompanied basketballer Dennis Rodman on his visits, and the Japanese sushi chef who pointed to Kim as the most likely successor to his father) to give a detailed and insightful portrait of one of the world’s most secretive dictators. Fifield, the Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post and former Seoul correspondent for The Financial Times, will be in conversation with Richard McGregor, a Lowy Institute Senior Fellow.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Bobo Lo and Lowy Institute Executive Director Michael Fullilove discuss key themes in Russian domestic and foreign policy, including the stability of the Putin regime, the issue of political succession, and Moscow’s growing activism in the Asia-Pacific region.

Join us for an in-conversation with Dr Bobo Lo and Dr Michael Fullilove, Executive Director of the Lowy Institute, followed by a Q&A.

Join us for a discussion with esteemed archaeologist and historian Professor Ian Morris on the forces that drove the rise of the West to global dominance in the 16th–19th centuries and those that now propel China. The Lowy Institute’s Sam Roggeveen will chair this conversation on the patterns of history and what they reveal about the future.
 

Effective engagement with the Asia-Pacific holds the key to Russia’s prospects in the 21st century world. Yet it is unclear how far Moscow is ready to move away from its traditional focus on the West. Bobo Lo assesses the commitment, and chances of success, of the Kremlin’s latest effort to project Russia as a significant player in Asia.
 

Join Dr Euan Graham, Executive Director of La Trobe Asia and Lowy Institute Nonresident Fellow, for an in-conversation with Dr Bobo Lo, followed by a Q&A.

It is two decades since a bloody secessionist conflict on Bougainville was settled – first in a truce, and then in a peace agreement that deferred the question of the region’s future political status. 

In 2019, that question will be answered when the people of Bougainville vote on whether to become independent from Papua New Guinea.
 
Join us for this special event to hear from Ben Bohane on the prospects of a new nation being formed on Australia’s doorstep. 
 

The withdrawal by the Trump administration from the Obama-era nuclear deal (known as the JCPOA) and the subsequent campaign of ‘maximum pressure’ against Iran by the United States in an effort to get a better deal from Tehran, has raised regional tensions to near boiling point. Five ships have been attacked in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, a US drone shot down by an Iranian missile, and an Iranian and UK tanker seized. The war of words between Washington and Tehran has been escalating week by week. And the European states have been busy trying to keep the JCPOA alive rather than signing up to President Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign.
 
It is a difficult policy problem to resolve and even more difficult to gauge how the current American policy is seen by Iranians given the difficulty in gaining press access. In order to provide some insight into these questions, Lowy Institute Research Fellow Dr Rodger Shanahan will hold a discussion with Dr Amir Mogadam from the University of Newcastle, Mahmoud Pargoo from the Australian Catholic University and Dr Gorana Grgic from the University of Sydney to discuss the current tensions in the Gulf from US and Iranian policy perspectives.

Hong Kong is facing the deepest political crisis since it was handed back to China by the United Kingdom in 1997. The partially autonomous Chinese territory has been shaken by weeks of huge democracy protests, and violent clashes between activists, the police and supporters of the Chinese Government. The spark for the latest tensions was a now-suspended bill that would have allowed Hong Kongers to be extradited to mainland China. But the protests are being driven by opposition to Beijing’s intensifying pressure on the freedoms and autonomy that were promised to the city for 50 years from 1997. 
 
Join our panel for a discussion about the causes of this crisis, the implications for this global financial centre, and the impact on China’s place in the world.

Australia, along with many other Western countries, has a strong interest in the ongoing stability of Afghanistan. Not only in the sunk cost in collective blood and treasure but also because we have seen how semi-governed territory provides opportunities for jihadists to plan and train for attacks against the West.

Join Lowy Institute Research Fellow Dr Rodger Shanahan for a discussion with Christine Fair about the future security prospects for Afghanistan and the challenges it faces not only internally but also externally from regional actors advancing their own strategic agendas.

Join us for the launch of the latest Lowy Institute Paper published by Penguin Random House Australia, Xi Jinping: The Backlash by Richard McGregor.

China’s president Xi Jinping has transformed China at home and abroad with a speed and assertiveness that few foresaw when he came to power in 2012. Finally, he is meeting resistance, both at home among disgruntled officials and disillusioned technocrats, and abroad from an emerging group of nations that are pushing back against China’s geopolitical and high-tech expansion. With the United States and China at loggerheads, Richard McGregor outlines Xi’s rise, and the backlash. 
 

Join us for the launch of the latest Lowy Institute Paper published by Penguin Random House Australia, Xi Jinping: The Backlash by Richard McGregor.

China’s president Xi Jinping has transformed China at home and abroad with a speed and assertiveness that few foresaw when he came to power in 2012. Finally, he is meeting resistance, both at home among disgruntled officials and disillusioned technocrats, and abroad from an emerging group of nations that are pushing back against China’s geopolitical and high-tech expansion. With the United States and China at loggerheads, Richard McGregor outlines Xi’s rise, and the backlash. 

Richard McGregor, Lowy Institute Senior Fellow, is a leading expert on China’s political system and Asian geopolitics. He is the award-winning author of The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers and Asia’s Reckoning: China, Japan and the Fate of US Power in the Pacific Century. 

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is the world’s most important military alliance. Now in its 70th year NATO remains a lynchpin of the liberal world order.

Jens Stoltenberg is NATO’s Secretary General, the alliance’s chief civil servant, responsible for coordinating the work of the organisation. 

He served as Prime Minister of Norway from 2000 to 2001 and from 2005 to 2013. He was appointed NATO’s 13th Secretary General in 2014 and his term has been extended until 2022.

Join us for a public address by Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the Lowy Institute on 7 August 2019.

Join us for the launch of the latest Lowy Institute Paper published by Penguin Random House Australia, Xi Jinping: The Backlash by Richard McGregor.

China’s president Xi Jinping has transformed China at home and abroad with a speed and assertiveness that few foresaw when he came to power in 2012. Finally, he is meeting resistance, both at home among disgruntled officials and disillusioned technocrats, and abroad from an emerging group of nations that are pushing back against China’s geopolitical and high-tech expansion. With the United States and China at loggerheads, Richard McGregor outlines Xi’s rise, and the backlash. 
 

On 30 May 2019, James Marape was sworn in as the eighth Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea. Securing the votes of almost 90 per cent of PNG’s Parliament, Mr Marape has a broad mandate for change following eight years of a Peter O’Neill-led government.
 
The challenges facing the Marape government remain the same. The economy is struggling, and expectations are high for curbing corruption and improving service delivery. With 16 months until a vote of no confidence motion can resume, and three years until a new election, Mr Marape has limited time to deliver on the expectations of his people.
 
Join us for an address by the Hon James Marape, Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, to hear his vision for the new PNG government, and where the PNG–Australia relationship fits within it.
 
James Marape has served as a Member of Parliament representing the electorate of
Tari-Pori Open in Hela Province since 2007. He served as Education Minister from 2008 to 2011 and Finance Minister from 2012 to 2019.

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.

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.