Lowy Institute

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lowy Institute Research Fellow Ben Bland and Financial Times journalist Primrose Riordan talk about the roots of the ongoing political unrest in Hong Kong, and where it might end. The semi-autonomous Chinese territory is being squeezed by an increasingly authoritarian Beijing, putting pressure on its autonomy and rule of law. The city has been convulsed for over two months by mass protests, including violent clashes between police and demonstrators and indiscriminate beatings by organised pro-Beijing mobs. After the peaceful Umbrella movement of 2014 ended without concession from the government, its leaders barred from political office and jailed, where does the cycle of repression and resistance end, and will Beijing step in? Ben Bland is the Director of the Southeast Asia program at the Lowy Institute, and the author of the 2017 book Generation HK: Seeking Identity in China’s Shadow. Primrose Riordan is a Hong Kong based journalist for the Financial Times.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With a Brexit-obsessed new Prime Minister in the UK and an unpredictable President in the White House, are Australia's "great and powerful friends", in Menzies' famous phrase, looking quite as close or reliable as they once did? Lowy Institute Executive Director Dr Michael Fullilove analyses the state of play in Canberra, Washington and London.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.