Lowy Institute: Live Events

Whether in terms of denuclearisation talks with North Korea, an escalating trade war with China, or the promotion of a concept and strategy for a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’, the pace of US statecraft in Asia has been frenetic in recent months. Has the United States reclaimed the initiative in great power competition in the region? Are bold but often contradictory US initiatives unpicking or strengthening America’s position in Asia? Will a ‘new era in US economic commitment’ to the region prove more meaningful than the last, which ended with US withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership? And how do regional partners and adversaries interpret recent developments? Alex Oliver, Director of Research at the Lowy Institute, chaired a panel discussion with Gordon Flake, CEO of the Perth USAsia Centre, together with Lowy Institute Senior Fellows Dr Euan Graham and Richard McGregor.

Australia now has its fifth prime minister in five years. What does this mean for Australia’s place in the world? Does our reputation as the ‘coup capital of the democratic world’ damage Australia’s international standing? How does it affect our ability to run a coherent foreign policy? And what might we expect from the Morrison government? Four Lowy Institute experts discussed the global implications of Australia’s political crisis. Executive Director Dr Michael Fullilove chaired a discussion with Director of Research Alex Oliver, Senior Fellow Richard McGregor, and Director of the International Security Program Sam Roggeveen.

The future of the Middle East peace process under US President Donald Trump, the use of chemical weapons in Syrian conflict, the implications for the United Nations’ role and its duties – these topics are politically, culturally, and ethically complex and are not easily navigated. The Lowy Institute hosted Mr Nick Kaldas APM, former Director of Internal Oversight Services in the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), to hear his views on these issues, followed by a question-and-answer session. Mr Kaldas was a former deputy commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force. He has recently returned from two years with the UNRWA based in Jordan, during which time he was seconded as Chief Investigator into the use of chemical weapons in Syria by the UN/OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons).

China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea have emerged as the testing ground for great power competition between the US and China, and as a lightning rod for rival claimants in the region, as well as Australia and Japan, to assert their own maritime rights. Lowy Institute Senior Fellow Richard McGregor moderated a panel with other pre-eminent experts on the South China Sea – Wu Shicun, of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Linda Jakobson, of China Matters, and Professor Benjamin Schreer of Macquarie University – where they discussed the controversy.

Foreign aid is an important resource for the Pacific Islands, and for many countries is a major point of engagement with the region. Yet public information at the project level is sparse, often lacks detail, and is difficult to access. This lack of transparency reduces the effectiveness of aid. It makes it difficult to coordinate aid efforts across multiple stakeholders. It makes it challenging for countries in the Pacific to align aid with their own investment priorities. It makes it harder for donors to learn from each other and from the past. It also reduces the accountability of aid, on both the sending and receiving sides, that flows in to Australia’s immediate region. The Lowy Institute Pacific Aid Map helps address this situation. The Pacific Aid Map is an analytical tool designed to enhance aid effectiveness in the Pacific by improving coordination, alignment, and accountability of foreign aid through enhanced transparency of aid flows. The resource has collected data on close to 13,000 projects in 14 countries from 62 donors from 2011 onwards. This raw data has been made freely available on an interactive multifaceted platform, allowing users to interrogate and manipulate the information in a variety of ways. Lowy Institute Director of Research, Alex Oliver, moderated a panel with principal researchers Alexandre Dayant and Jonathan Pryke, for a discussion on the method and findings of the most comprehensive assessment of aid flows in the Pacific ever undertaken.

At the end of 2017, China announced it had been a year of “remarkable progress” on human rights. However, activists draw attention to an increasingly repressive environment in China, including restrictions on academic freedom; domestic human rights deteriorations in law, policing, and terrorism; the surveillance apparatus; and repression in Tibet and Xinjiang. Behind closed doors, Australia has raised human rights issues with China in annual high-level dialogues, and continues to work on human rights capacity-building projects with Chinese President Xi Jinping. What is the current state of human rights in China, and has the Chinese Communist Party been trying to improve the situation? How have different Australian governments (and others) engaged China on human rights, and how effective have those efforts been? Dr Merriden Varrall, Director of the Lowy Institute’s East Asia Program, moderated a panel with Dr Sophie Richardson, China Director at Human Rights Watch, and Natasha de Silva, Director International Engagement and Partnerships at the Australian Human Rights Commission, for an in-depth discussion of these issues.

How are human rights in North Korea and broader regional security through North Korean denuclearisation connected, and can one be achieved without the other? Kim Jong-un’s successful pursuit of his nuclear agenda has arguably only been possible because of his ruthless wielding of power and control, and the surveillance and oppression of the North Korean people. The US and its allies want North Korea to denuclearise in the interests of regional and global security. Following the recent meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump, we have focused on if and how genuine denuclearisation can be achieved. But does the lack of any real public accountability that arises from the human rights situation in North Korea mean Kim’s promises at the Singapore summit are just empty rhetoric? Should human rights be a part of the denuclearisation discussion, and if not, what are the implications, both for the North Korean people and broader security? To explore these questions, Dr Merriden Varrall, Director of the Lowy Institute’s East Asia Program, moderated a panel with the Hon. Michael Kirby, Chair of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea, and Dr Beomchul Shin, Director of the Division of North Korean Military Studies at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.

When French President Emmanuel Macron recently visited Australia, the Australian government welcomed France as a stable partner in the Pacific region. Much of this stability relies upon the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, which will hold a referendum on self-determination in November this year. The independence movement Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) has been campaigning for independence from France for more than three decades. Leading Kanak politician and official FLNKS independence spokesperson Daniel Goa spoke about the lead-up to the referendum, the FLNKS proposal for a Kanaky-New Caledonia republic, and economic options for an independent and sovereign state. At a time when the Australian Government is stepping up engagement in the Pacific region, he discussed implications of the referendum for ties between Australia and one of its closest Pacific neighbours. Daniel Goa is President of Union Calédonienne (UC), the largest member of the FLNKS independence coalition. He was born at the Haut-Coulna tribe, near Hienghène, New Caledonia. Goa was elected to New Caledonia’s Northern Provincial Assembly in 2002, and to the Congress of New Caledonia in 2009. In 2012 he was elected UC President, and today serves as official spokesperson for the FLNKS independence coalition in the lead-up to November’s referendum on self-determination.

Global wealth and power are shifting eastwards. Three of the world’s four largest economies are in Asia, and the fourth, the United States, is a Pacific power. By 2025, two thirds of the world’s population will live in Asia, and only around a tenth in the West. This transformation is reshaping the global distribution of power, with profound implications for war and peace in the twenty-first century. The Lowy Institute Asia Power Index is an analytical tool for tracking changes in the distribution of power in the region. It aims to sharpen the debate on geopolitics in Asia. The Index ranks 25 countries and territories in terms of their capacity to influence regional events, using 114 indicators across eight thematic measures of power: economic resources and relationships, military capability and defence networks, diplomatic and cultural influence, as well as resilience and future trends. The expert panel of Hervé Lemahieu, Director of the Asian Power and Diplomacy Program; Bonnie Bley, Research Fellow, and Daniel Flitton, Managing Editor, The Interpreter, Lowy Institute, discussed the method and findings of the largest comparative assessment of power in the region ever undertaken, followed by a Q&A.

The Lowy Institute hosted a conversation with Executive Director Dr Michael Fullilove and Jessica Tuchman Mathews, former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, about the international role of the United States in the era of President Trump. Ms Mathews was president of the Carnegie Endowment for 18 years, and has also worked in the executive and legislative branches of government, in the non-profit arena, in the media, and science policymaking. She is a former director of the Office of Global Issues at the National Security Council, and has covered arms control, energy, environment, science, and technology issues as a member of the Washington Post’s editorial board.

Over the course of nearly 60 years’ engagement with Southeast Asia, Milton Osborne has become one of Australia’s leading authorities on the region. His Southeast Asia: An Introductory History, first published in 1979, is now in its 12th edition and has been translated into five Asian languages. Osborne’s latest work, Pol Pot Solved the Leprosy Problem: Remembering Colonial and Post-Colonial Worlds, 1956–1981, is a memoir of his career as a young diplomat in Phnom Penh, from 1959–61, and later as an academic and consultant to UNHCR, when he worked in Vietnam and along the Thai–Cambodian border. Following remarks on his experience of these early postcolonial years in Southeast Asia, Dr Osborne was joined in conversation by Aaron Connelly, Director of the Southeast Asia Project at the Lowy Institute. Dr Milton Osborne has held various academic appointments, including as a nonresident fellow of the Lowy Institute. From 1982 to 1993, he returned to government service as head of the Asia Branch of the Office of National Assessments. In 2013, the French Government honoured him with an appointment as Commandeur de l’Ordre National du Mérite for his writing on France in Asia and his role in liaison with French officials.

Papua New Guinea is about to step onto the global stage. In November, leaders representing half of the world’s GDP will descend on Port Moresby for the APEC Leaders’ Summit. This will be the largest event the country has ever hosted. In the context of a struggling economy and development challenges, what benefits will APEC have for the people of PNG? What are the major opportunities and difficulties in hosting such an event? How will the links forged by the summit help bolster and diversify the country’s economy? The Hon. Charles Abel, Deputy Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, delivered an address at the Lowy Institute. Charles Abel has served as a Member of Parliament representing the Alotau Open Electorate since 2007. He has served as Minister for Culture and Tourism; Minister for Trade, Commerce and Industry; and Minister for National Planning. In July 2017 he was appointed Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea.

The defeat of Malaysia’s ruling party on 9 May was unlike any election result the region has ever seen. No party in Southeast Asia has held power for so long, only to lose it at the polls. In its place, a broad coalition led by 92-year-old former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has formed a new government. Can such a diverse coalition remain united as it addresses fundamental questions of the Malaysian social contract, including racial preferences? Mahathir once jailed Anwar Ibrahim, but has now freed him: how will their relationship develop as they seek to govern together? Will former Prime Minister Najib Razak be held to account for the 1MDB scandal, and how will the United Malays National Organisation react to its first experience in opposition? What will the change in government mean for Malaysia’s relationship with Australia, given Mahathir’s difficult history with earlier Australian prime ministers? The Lowy Institute’s Director of the Southeast Asia Project, Aaron Connelly, hosted a panel discussion with Amrita Malhi, Visiting Fellow in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University; James Chin, Director of the Asia Institute Tasmania; and Kean Wong, contributing editor at New Mandala, as they discussed these questions.

The latest Lowy Institute Paper published by Penguin Random House, Remaking the Middle East: How a Troubled Region May Save Itself by Anthony Bubalo, was launched in Sydney on 31 May. The Middle East is experiencing a period of concentrated turmoil unlike anything since the end of the Second World War. Uprisings, coups, and wars have seen governments overthrown, hundreds of thousands killed, and millions displaced. Anthony Bubalo argues that the current tumult is the result of the irrevocable decay of the nizam – the system under which most states in the region are ruled. But amid the ferment there are also “green shoots” of change which could remake the Middle East in ways that are more inclusive, more democratic, less corrupt, and less violent. Anthony Bubalo has worked on the Middle East for more than 25 years as a diplomat, intelligence analyst, and researcher. He has lived in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. He led the Lowy Institute’s Middle East research for 14 years, and regularly comments on the region’s politics in the Australian and international media.

The latest Lowy Institute Paper published by Penguin Random House, Remaking the Middle East: How a Troubled Region May Save Itself by Anthony Bubalo, was launched in Canberra on 29 May. The Middle East is experiencing a period of concentrated turmoil unlike anything since the end of the Second World War. Uprisings, coups, and wars have seen governments overthrown, hundreds of thousands killed, and millions displaced. Anthony Bubalo argues that the current tumult is the result of the irrevocable decay of the nizam – the system under which most states in the region are ruled. But amid the ferment there are also “green shoots” of change which could remake the Middle East in ways that are more inclusive, more democratic, less corrupt, and less violent. Anthony Bubalo has worked on the Middle East for more than 25 years as a diplomat, intelligence analyst, and researcher. He has lived in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. He led the Lowy Institute’s Middle East research for 14 years, and regularly comments on the region’s politics in the Australian and international media.