Lowy Institute Conversations

As the 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders' Meeting opens in Palau, the region faces a series of major challenges. These include a Chinese missile test that the Forum couldn’t agree to condemn, a contested region-wide security treaty, Taiwan's return to the Forum, an El Niño event, and a global fuel crisis. In this episode of Lowy Institute Conversations, Oliver Nobetau is joined by Dr Connor Graham and Sarah Thompson to examine what these developments mean for Pacific security, regional unity, and economic resilience.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As great powers race for the critical minerals scattered on the ocean floor, the Pacific is splitting into two camps — those betting on deep-sea mining as an economic lifeline, and those warning the environmental risks are too great. In this episode of Lowy Institute Conversations, Dr Connor Graham speaks with Dr Philippa Louey, Senior Research Associate at the Lancaster Environment Centre, about what's driving the rush, where Australia fits in, and whether the region can find common ground before mining starts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

China blocked trade, froze out ministers, and left lobsters rotting on the tarmac, and still couldn't force Australia to budge. In this episode of Lowy Institute Conversations, former Australian ambassador to Beijing Graham Fletcher joins Research Director Mihai Sora to discuss what "stabilisation" really means for the Australia–China relationship — from rare earths and the Port of Darwin to Taiwan and the ever-present shadow cast from Washington. Fletcher argues the current "sweet spot" is harder won — and more fragile — than it looks.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The way authoritarian and illiberal states interact has changed. China, Russia, Iran and North Korea have gone from defending themselves against perceived liberal pressure to actively building the institutions of an alternative order. In this episode of Lowy Institute Conversations, Nick Bisley, the author of a new Lowy Institute paper analysing this cooperation, speaks with the Institute's Sam Roggeveen about the boot camps teaching authoritarian states how to control information, the improbable rise of BRICS, and why this messy, opportunistic coalition might be harder to counter than a formal alliance ever was.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australia calls itself the Pacific's partner of choice. But is the relationship built on mutual understanding, or is it driven by Canberra’s anxiety about China?  Professor Joanne Wallis, the author of a new book with Jack Corbett, Neighbours, joins the Lowy Institute’s Serena Sasingian to discuss Australia's uneasy colonial history in the region, the gap between its "Pacific family" rhetoric and its strategy of denial, and why aid hasn't bought the influence Canberra hoped for.  Wallis makes the case for a different frame altogether: not family, not chessboard, but neighbours.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.