Lowy Institute: Live Events

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. The Indonesia Update has been an annual event held by the Australian National University in Canberra since 1983; this panel discussion was part of the 14th abbreviated Sydney edition held by the Lowy Institute. Edward Aspinall is a professor in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National University. He is a specialist in the politics of Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia. Nava Nuraniyah has been an analyst the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) since 2015, and her research interests include political Islam as well as the evolution of extremism in South East Asia, including the role of women. The discussion was chaired by Ben Bland, the Director of the Lowy Institute's Southeast Asia Project.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) is charged with protecting Australia and its citizens from terrorism, foreign interference, espionage, sabotage, and politically motivated violence. ASIO Director-General Duncan Lewis gave a public address 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, had a conversation with Richard McGregor, a Lowy Institute Senior Fellow.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Bobo Lo and Lowy Institute Executive Director Michael Fullilove discussed 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. Dr Bobo Lo is a Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute. He is an independent analyst and an Associate Research Fellow with the Russia/NIS Center at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI). He was previously Head of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House and Deputy Head of Mission at the Australian Embassy in Moscow. Dr Lo’s most recent book, A Wary Embrace: What the China-Russia Relationship Means for the World, was published as a Lowy Institute Paper by Penguin in 2017. His book Russia and the New World Disorder (2015) was described by The Economist as ‘the best attempt yet to explain Russia’s unhappy relationship with the rest of the world’.

The Lowy Institute hosted 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 chaired this conversation on the patterns of history and what they reveal about the future. Ian Morris is Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor of Classics and a Senior Fellow of the Archaeology Center at Stanford University. He has published 13 books, including Why the West Rules – For Now (2010), War! What Is It Good For? (2014), and most recently Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve (2015). He is currently writing a book about Britain’s relations with Europe and the wider world across the last 8000 years. His books have been translated into 16 languages.

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. Ben Bohane is a photojournalist who has covered Asia and the Pacific for the past 30 years. He reported on Bougainville throughout the conflict and in the years since. He travelled to the Autonomous Region for a forthcoming Lowy Institute research paper to find out how the people of Bougainville are preparing for the coming referendum. The Lowy Institute hosted Ben Bohane for a conversation with Lowy Institute Research Fellow Shane McLeod, to discuss 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 hosted a panel 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. The Lowy Institute hosted a panel discussion about the causes of this crisis, the implications for this global financial centre, and the impact on China’s place in the world. Lai-Ha Chan is a Senior Lecturer in the Social and Political Sciences Program at the School of Communication at the University of Technology Sydney. She studies China’s international relations and its place in the global order. Before coming to Australia to conduct her PhD research, she worked for the Hong Kong Government. Jared Fu is a university student and democracy activist from Hong Kong who helped organise the recent protest in Sydney against the extradition bill. Ben Bland is the Director of the Southeast Asia Project at the Lowy Institute and a former correspondent for the Financial Times in Hong Kong. He is the author of Generation HK: Seeking Identity in China’s Shadow, which tells the stories of the young Hong Kongers on the frontlines of the city’s struggle for freedom. The discussion was chaired by Richard McGregor, Lowy Institute Senior Fellow and 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.

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. Lowy Institute Research Fellow Dr Rodger Shanahan had 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. Christine Fair is a Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor in the Security Studies Program within Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. She previously served as a senior political scientist with the RAND Corporation, a political officer with the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan in Kabul, and a senior research associate at the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention at the United States Institute of Peace.

On August 8, the Lowy Institute held the Sydney 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 outlined 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 Lowy Institute Paper launch and in-conversation was with Richard McGregor and Dr Michael Fullilove, Executive Director of the Lowy Institute, followed by a Q&A.

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gave a public address at the Lowy Institute on 7 August 2019. 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.

On August 5, the Lowy Institute held the Melbourne 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 outlined 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 Lowy Institute Paper launch and in-conversation was with Richard McGregor and Research Fellow Lydia Khalil and was followed by a Q&A. This event was presented by Lowy Institute at the NGV. All Lowy Institute public events are on the record and open for media attendance.

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. The Hon James Marape, Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, gave an address on 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. Lowy Institute Program Director Hervé Lemahieu, the principal researcher behind the Asia Power Index, and Bonnie Bley, Research Fellow, gave a visual and analytical presentation of the changing distribution of power in Asia. The event marked 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 was followed by a discussion of the Index’s findings and their implications for the changing political economy, military balance, and diplomatic networks of Asia. About the 2019 Asia Power Index: The annual Lowy Institute Asia Power Index evaluates 25 countries and territories across 126 indicators divided into eight thematic measures of power: military capability and defence networks, economic resources and relationships, diplomatic and cultural influence, as well as resilience and future resources. The Index is made available through a specially designed digital platform, at power.lowyinstitute.org. Hervé Lemahieu is Director of the Asian Power and Diplomacy Program at the Lowy Institute. Hervé leads the research for the annual Asia Power Index – launched by the Institute in 2018 – and developed the project methodology to map the changing distribution of power in the region. Hervé joined Lowy from the International Institute for Strategic Studies and was previously a consultant at Oxford Analytica. Hervé has an MSc in Global Governance and Diplomacy from the University of Oxford, and an MA with first-class honours in International Relations and Modern History from the University of St Andrews. Bonnie Bley is a Research Fellow for the Asian Power and Diplomacy Program at the Lowy Institute and one of the principal researchers behind the Asia Power Index. Bonnie also leads the research on the Global Diplomacy Index, a digital project which maps the diplomatic networks of 60 countries. Bonnie joined the Institute from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), and studied at University College London (UCL) and the University of Bologna.