Global Issues

This month, Australia signed a partnership with AstraZeneca, the pharmaceutical company behind the University of Oxford’s proposed Covid-19 vaccine, securing the rights to locally manufacture the vaccine, should it meet safety and efficacy requirements. The Oxford vaccine group has been one of the

The facts are undeniable. The United States has completely botched its response to the Covid-19 outbreak. As of 15 September, America has recorded more than 6.6 million cases of the disease and nearly 200,000 deaths. That means that a country with less than 5% of the world’s population – and

Homeward bound While Australia’s embrace of economic sovereignty has so far involved more rhetoric than real financial resources, cash incentives for reshoring manufacturing are gathering pace in other countries. Last week’s €100 billion (A$162 billion) economic stimulus program from French

How will Covid-19 affect electoral democracy in Australia and around the world? The pandemic has starkly revealed two fundamental aspects of successful democracy: the extent of a given society’s trust between its citizens and their government, and the capacity of those same governments to

Book review: Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism (Doubleday 2020) If democracy is the guiding light of a civilised world, wherefore that world if the light is flickering? This is the premise of Anne Applebaum’s Twilight of Democracy. And as the title

Indonesia last month assumed the presidency of the UN Security Council for the second time during its 2019-2020 tenure as a non-permanent member. Consistent with the country’s campaign for the Security Council seat, which focused on “Investing in Peace”, in its first presidency in May 2019

After the United States experienced a rebuff at the United Nations last week – with almost the entire membership of the Security Council rejecting its attempt to re-impose UN sanctions on Iran – US officials warned that the dispute could lead to a major crisis in the Council, damaging the

Taking one for the team Spare a thought for Japanese company Kirin, which entered Australia in the vanguard of new ambitions for Asian economic engagement but is now a victim of an undeclared trade war with China. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s move to prevent Kirin selling its unsuccessful Lion

Earlier this month, days after Manila went back into a hard lockdown due to a sharp rise in Covid-19 infections, unidentified assailants slipped past the Philippine capital’s strict quarantine measures and approached the home of Randall Echanis, a left-wing party leader and longtime activist. When

Pakistan­–Saudi Arabia relations are at a historically low ebb. In November 2018, Saudi Arabia announced a US$6.2 billion loan package for cash-strapped Pakistan. The package included a total of $3 billion in loans and an oil credit facility amounting to $3.2 billion. Then, however, Riyad

Book review: Patrick Porter, The False Promise of Liberal Order: Nostalgia, Delusion and the Rise of Trump (Polity Press, 2020) A familiar response to the growing global disorder has been to lament the demise of the liberal or “rules–based” international order and to call for its restoration

In 2018, when Australia shared security concerns about Chinese tech giant Huawei with allies and later banned the company from supplying equipment for the development of its fifth generation (5G) telecommunications network, it escalated a simmering row about Huawei’s presence in telecoms systems

With Covid-19, Japan has an opportunity to help accelerate the world’s digital transformation and, simultaneously, to revitalise its fragile domestic economy. In an encouraging sign that Tokyo is responding to this challenge, Japan’s cabinet passed sweeping economic guidelines last month to

Persistent debates over the meaning of the “liberal” or “rules-based” international order demonstrate a point of agreement among scholars and policymakers: the real power of the concept when employed as a metaphor for a disrupted global order. Less well understood in comparison is the

The latest reports from the Lower Mekong Basin are cause for growing concern that another period of drought will succeed that of 2019, affecting Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Expected rainfall from late May through June and July has not arrived, and the level of water flowing in the river is

The Galapagos Marine Reserve (GMR) covers 133,000 square kilometres and was established in 1998 to protect the remarkable biodiversity of the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador. Last month, Ecuadorian authorities in Guayaquil spotted a fleet of 260 Chinese boats fishing in the area around

When you have the privilege of working in international relations, there are some experiences that stay with you for life. There are the places you go and the people you meet. Conversations that start at the roundtable, continue into dinner, and often go late into the night. At airports and hotels,

Australia plans to spend a lot more on defence to confront what Prime Minister Scott Morrison says will be “a post-COVID world that is poorer, that is more dangerous, and that is more disorderly”. A chorus of voices have responded that Australian foreign policy risks becoming unbalanced, with

The recently announced $270 billion commitment to expand Australia’s military capability sets the tone for a deteriorating strategic environment. The 2020 Defence Strategic Update and Force Structure Plan are only part of the answer in aligning Australia’s response to this challenging future. It

Celebrity sells – it always has. But in the digital age, the boundaries of celebrity have changed. Once it was the prerogative of movie, sports or music stars to front a fashion label or promote perfume. But nowadays the marketplace is saturated with any number of online lifestyle and wellness “

In this episode of COVIDcast, Lowy Institute senior fellow Richard McGregor sat down with Dexter Roberts to discuss his new book, The Myth of Chinese Capitalism: The Worker, The Factory and the Future of the World. Roberts was based in China for more than two decades reporting for Bloomberg