Australia is home to 1.4 million people with Chinese ancestry. At a time of heightened concern about national security and foreign interference, how do Chinese-Australians see Australia and their place in it? How do Chinese-Australians consume news and information? And how do they view the wider world, including the growing geopolitical tensions in the region? On 2 May the panel unpacked the findings of the 2023 Being Chinese in Australia: Public Opinion in Chinese Communities survey report with author and Lowy Institute Research Fellow Dr Jennifer Hsu, Jieh-Yung Lo and Yun Jiang. The event was chaired by Pablo Viñales. Jennifer Hsu is a Research Fellow and the Project Director of the Multiculturalism, Identity and Influence Project at the Lowy Institute. Jennifer is also a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Social Policy and Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. Her research expertise broadly covers state-society relations, state-NGO relations, the internationalisation of Chinese NGOs, civil society and the Chinese diaspora. Jieh-Yung Lo is Founding Director of the Centre for Asian-Australian Leadership (CAAL) at the Australian National University. Jieh-Yung has worked in various public policy and project management roles and served in leadership positions across not-for-profit, entrepreneurship and government. He served two terms as a Councillor with the City of Monash including two years as Deputy Mayor. Yun Jiang is the Australian Institute of International Affairs China Matters Fellow. She is formerly the co-founder and editor of China Neican, as well as a managing editor of the China Story blog at the Australian National University. She has published widely on China-related topics. She was previously a policy adviser in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Treasury and the Department of Defence.  Pablo Viñales is the Political Correspondent at SBS World News. Aside from federal politics, much of his work focuses on the changing geopolitical landscape in the Indo-Pacific and the China–Australia relationship. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australia’s strategic outlook on the Indo-Pacific is changing rapidly, as reflected by the recent AUKUS announcement, forthcoming Defence Strategic Review and membership of new regional minilateral groupings such as the Quad. These changes will have important implications for Australia’s relations with neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia, and especially Indonesia, highlighted by Jakarta’s mixed response to the AUKUS announcement in 2021. How widespread are concerns about AUKUS and Australian strategic policy more generally within Indonesia? Are the two countries experiencing a divergence in their strategic outlooks? And how should the two sides manage the risk of such a divergence in the years ahead?  On Wednesday 26 April 2023, the Lowy Institute hosted an event at Old Parliament House, Canberra featuring Dr Evan A. Laksmana, Senior Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore, in conversation with Richard Maude of the Asia Society Policy Institute. The event was moderated by Susannah Patton, Southeast Asia Program Director at the Lowy Institute.  Dr Evan A. Laksmana is a Senior Research Fellow with the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He is also a Lowy Institute Nonresident Fellow. Richard Maude is Executive Director, Policy, and Senior Fellow of the Asia Society Policy Institute. He is a former Director-General of the Office of National Assessments and head of the whole-of-government taskforce which prepared the Australian Government’s 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Monday 24 April 2023, Australia’s government published the public version of its Defence Strategic Review, a report it commissioned on coming to office to set the agenda for reforms to the posture and structure of the Australian Defence Force. Positioned alongside the government’s commitment to the AUKUS security agreement, the Review and the government’s response to it have signalled major changes to how Australia intends to invest in military technology, hardware and personnel over the next two decades. In this new episode of Lowy Institute Conversations, military strategist Mick Ryan discusses the Review with the Institute’s International Security Program Director Sam Roggeveen. They discuss what the report reveals about Australia’s plans for its military, but also what is missing. They also talk about defence bureaucracy, the role of the Ukraine war in Australia’s strategic thinking, and challenges for the future leadership of Australia’s armed forces. Major General (Ret’d) Mick Ryan is a Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute. He spent 35 years in the Australian Army. His operational service includes deployments to East Timor, Iraq and southern Afghanistan. His book, War Transformed: The Future of Twenty-First-Century Great Power Competition and Conflict, was published in 2022.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Pacific Change Makers, Dr Meg Keen speaks with Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls in Suva, Fiji about social activism in the Pacific. Sharon is the Regional Representative of the Shifting the Power Coalition, a Pacific Island feminist coalition working on challenges affecting the region's future including climate change, social justice, and gender and community equality. She speaks with Meg about how her family and faith have motivated her to make a difference. They discuss how women and marginalised groups can be more prominent voices in society - in political settings but also in media, community and key social groups. Sharon works in professional and community networks to hold power accountable, deliver local solutions, and promote appropriate technology to build resilience. Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls is a Pacific Island feminist working on the intersection of gender, media, climate change and peace. From Fiji, she serves as the regional representative of the Shifting the Power Coalition, a team of women leaders and networks across Pacific Island Forum countries: Australia, Bougainville, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tonga, and Vanuatu – with a network of close to 100,000 grassroots members. In 2000, she co-founded FemLINKpacific and developed it into a leading community organisation supporting women's networking, media and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On 19 April, the Lowy Institute hosted the launch of the 2023 Being Chinese in Australia: Public Opinion in Chinese Communities survey report with author and Lowy Institute Research Fellow Dr Jennifer Hsu, along with guests Samuel Yang and Lucy Du. The event was chaired by the Director of the Institute's Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program, Ryan Neelam. Dr Jennifer Hsu is a Research Fellow and the Project Director of the Multiculturalism, Identity and Influence Project at the Lowy Institute. After completing her PhD in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge, she researched and taught development studies, political science and sociology in universities in North America and the United Kingdom. Jennifer is also a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Social Policy and Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. Her research expertise covers state-society relations, state-NGO relations, the internationalisation of Chinese NGOs, civil society and the Chinese diaspora and she has published widely in these areas. Samuel Yang is a Chinese-Australian bilingual journalist and presenter. He is currently a co-host of China Tonight on ABC TV. He joined the ABC in 2018 and has previously worked as a business reporter and presenter in Sydney, and a bilingual reporter and producer in Melbourne. He has lived across the Asia-Pacific including in China, Singapore and New Zealand. His work has won the NSW Premier’s Multicultural Communications Public Interest Award and he was nominated for Young Journalist of the Year in 2020. Lucy Du is the CEO of the Australia-China Young Professionals Initiative (ACYPI), the single largest young professionals organisation in the Australia-China space. She began her career in Canberra and then went on to work in China for one of Australia’s big four banks and later for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Shanghai. She is currently Head of Community at Belz Family & Associates, a global private assets investment platform for Asian and Australian investors. Lucy is bilingual in English and Chinese and has completed studies at the University of Melbourne, Australian National University and Tsinghua University. Ryan Neelam is Director of the Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program and is Project Lead on the annual flagship publication, the Lowy Institute Poll. Before joining the Institute, Ryan spent 14 years as an Australian diplomat including as Deputy Consul-General in Hong Kong, and at the Australian Mission to the UN. Ryan has contributed to policy development and international agreements on economic, climate change, human rights and security issues.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With the announcement of Australia’s pathway towards nuclear-powered submarines, and the forthcoming release of the Government’s response to the Defence Strategic Review, this event offered the rare opportunity to hear from Australia’s most senior military officer about the international security environment and how Australia is responding to it. After his remarks, General Angus Campbell AO DSC spoke in conversation with the Lowy Institute's Executive Director Dr Michael Fullilove AM. General Campbell joined the Australian Army in 1981, graduating from the Royal Military College, Duntroon in 1984. In 2005, he joined the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet as a First Assistant Secretary to head the Office of National Security and was subsequently promoted to Deputy Secretary and appointed to the position of Deputy National Security Adviser. Upon his return to the Australian Defence Force in early 2010, he was appointed to the rank of Major General. In 2015, he was appointed Chief of the Australian Army, and in 2018 appointed to command of the Australian Defence Force.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The announcement of Australia’s preferred technology pathway for the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines has been described as the most significant shift in the country’s strategic outlook since the Second World War. Coupled with the forthcoming publication of the Defence Strategic Review, Australia’s national security environment is set for significant change. What is the future of Australian defence policy, Australia’s place in the region, and its relations with the United States and the United Kingdom? For this panel discussion, Sam Roggeveen, Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program, spoke with Dr Charles Edel, Dr Lavina Lee and Justin Burke about the big decisions shaping Australia’s national security policy. Dr Charles Edel is the inaugural Australia Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC. He previously taught at the University of Sydney, where he was also a senior fellow at the United States Studies Centre. Prior to that, he was a professor of strategy and policy at the US Naval War College and served on the US Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff from 2015 to 2017. Dr Lavina Lee is a senior lecturer in the Department of Security Studies and Criminology at Macquarie University in Sydney. She is a member of the Council of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and a nonresident fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. Justin Burke is the 2022 Thawley Scholar in International Relations at the Lowy Institute and Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He is a nonresident fellow with the Institute for Security Policy at the University of Kiel in Germany. Justin is a PhD candidate in naval power at Macquarie University and was previously a journalist with The Australian and Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this new episode of Pacific Change Makers, Dr Meg Keen, Director of the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands Program discusses politics, priorities and problems with the Chief Secretary to PNG’s Government, Ivan Pomaleu. Drawing on his deep and long experience in government and unparalleled knowledge of PNG politics and policies, Mr Pomaleu shares his thoughts on the big issues facing PNG, the outcomes of recent ministerial talks with Australia, and details some of the challenges ahead including finding agreement on the future of Bougainville, and how the region is responding to geopolitical contest. Ivan Pomaleu is the is the Chief Secretary to the government of Papua New Guinea and heads the Department of Prime Minister and National Executive Council. Prior to his appointment as the country’s most senior bureaucrat, he served as PNG’s Ambassador to APEC and was managing director of the PNG Investment Promotion Authority. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The inaugural FDC Pacific Lecture was given by the Prime Minister of Samoa, Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa at Old Parliament House, Canberra on Monday 20 March 2023. The Hon Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa is Samoa’s seventh prime minister and the first woman to be elected to the role. She was also the country’s first female cabinet minister and deputy prime minister. As the leader of the Faʻatuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) party, she became prime minister after elections in 2021. Prime Minister Fiamē was first elected to parliament in 1985 and was appointed to her first cabinet ministry in 1991, going on to serve in a range of portfolios including Education, Justice and Environment. From 2006 to 2012, she was the chair and pro-chancellor of the University of the South Pacific.  The FDC Pacific Lecture has been established with the support of the Foundation for Development Cooperation, which has also established the FDC Pacific Fellowship in conjunction with the Lowy Institute. The Prime Minister was introduced by the Australian Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Hon Pat Conroy MP. After her remarks, Prime Minister Fiamē spoke in conversation with the Lowy Institute's Executive Director, Dr Michael Fullilove AM.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On 14 March 2023, Australian foreign policy expert and former Lowy Institute Executive Director Professor Michael Wesley launched his new book Helpem Fren: Australia and the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (MUP 2023). The book is the first comprehensive history of Australia’s RAMSI intervention, which was aimed at preventing the collapse of the Pacific Island state. Helpem Fren draws on still-classified official documents and more than 30 interviews to explore the motivations and dynamics behind the 14-year Pacific-wide mission — a project that cost more than $2 billion and involved thousands of soldiers, police and public servants from Australia and across the Pacific. RAMSI was remarkably successful in an age of disastrous interventions, yet its legacy has largely vanished from Australia’s public consciousness. Professor Wesley joined the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands Program Director Meg Keen, to discuss the challenges of interventions and development assistance in a Pacific that is more geopolitically contested than it has been for 70 years.  Michael Wesley is Deputy Vice-Chancellor International and Professor of Politics at the University of Melbourne. His research and writing focus on Australian foreign policy and the international affairs of Asia and the Pacific. Previously, he was Dean of the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. He has also held positions as Executive Director of the Lowy Institute, Director of the Griffith Asia Institute at Griffith University, and Assistant Director-General for Transnational Issues at the Office of National Assessments. He has a PhD in International Relations from the University of St Andrews.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.