Australia in the World
Australia’s return to must-win wars
It’s been a long time since Australia fought to win a war. Famed military historian David Horner has tied it down to a specific date: 1 October 1943. Horner writes that from…
Chinese aid to the Pacific: decreasing, but not disappearing
Chinese engagement in the Pacific regularly hit the headlines in 2022, sometimes with dire warnings. The recent China–Solomon Islands security agreement sent shock waves across…
Reality-checking the democracy agenda
Eight months into the Labor administration led by Anthony Albanese, Australia has begun to reinvoke, albeit cautiously, the idea of supporting democracy and a rules-based order in…
How will China’s punitive trade restrictions against Australia end?
Recent reports of an imminent meeting between Australia’s and China’s trade ministers have raised hopes of progress toward the removal of the trade restrictions that China imposed…
How an Australian freed an unfinished nation’s history
Book review: Indonesia out of Exile: How Pramoedya’s Buru Quartet Killed a Dictatorship, by Max Lane (Penguin, 2023)
Australia’s relationships with Indonesia are usually…
An enduring formula for Australian foreign policy
The Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade once described the formula for Australia’s foreign policy as “six + two + N”: six key bilateral relationships, two…
Weaving webs of statecraft in the Pacific Islands
The April 2022 news that China and Solomon Islands had entered into a security pact solidified perceptions that Australia and its partners were in a race with China for “influence…
Link start-ups ecosystems to build influence in Southeast Asia
In 2019, Indonesian President Joko Widodo surprised many when he appointed 35-year old Nadiem Makarim as Minister for Education and Culture. Makarim had risen to prominence as the…
Australia should have more public holidays – but make them civic and secular
The events that we choose to designate public holidays say a lot about who we are and what we believe in as Australians. So, as Osmond Chiu rightly argued last week in The…
Towards meaningful Quad cooperation on intelligence
The Quad has a lot on its plate. The informal grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States began modestly, but stepped up its ambition two years ago, with regular…