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Policy

Foreign Affairs & Security

Today

Kamala Harris speaks at the Munich Security Conference in 2023.

Harris sees a different world from Biden

Joe Biden was a foreign policy veteran, and Kamala Harris is a novice who has impressed quickly. But in age and instinct, her view of the world will be different.

  • Ian Bremmer

Yesterday

Japanese and Australian troops now co-operate more closely.

Japan and Australia face a turning point in world history

Tokyo and Canberra back a free and open international order against unilateral attempts to coerce, says a contender in Japan’s prime ministerial race.

  • Yoko Kamikawa

This Month

Andres Centino.

Why the Philippines is the new China flashpoint

Most people have never heard of the Sabina Shoal, but it’s become the latest global testing ground for confrontation with China. Will it trigger broader conflict?

  • Jennifer Hewett
Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong, right, is questioned by Australian Financial Review editor Cosima Marriner.

It’s up to business to take the Asian opportunity

While the government’s initiatives are designed to make it easier for Australian business to get established in new markets, it is up to business to take the opportunities we have created.

  • Penny Wong
Penny Wong has raised the alarm on the decline in the study of Asian languages in Australia.

Why has a long-term understanding with Asia eluded us?

Even as Australia has become more multicultural, the best we can manage is a pragmatic relationship punctuated with fits of enthusiasm.

  • James Curran
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Eric Schmidt, former CEO and chairman of Google.

Why ex-Google chief Eric Schmidt warns we may have to pull plug on AI

The former Google chief executive and chairman said Western democracies had to regain lost ground in industrial policy to counter China.

  • Sam Buckingham-Jones

August

Austal chief executive Paddy Gregg in Sydney with one of ships his company has built.

Austal heads to debt markets to fund $440m US expansion plans

The only ASX-listed defence shipbuilder needs to finance big growth in Alabama shipyards, where it has a multi-billion dollar order from the US Navy.

  • Brad Thompson
The Austal-built USS Canberra at its shipyards in Mobile, Alabama.

Austal fights to keep US Navy work after $35m fraud penalty

The Australian defence contractor accepted a $US24 million fine in a plea deal to avoid criminal prosecution after a long-running American investigation.

  • Brad Thompson
Indonesia President-elect Prabowo Subianto, Richard Marles and Anthony Albanese  at Parliament House last week.

Government hasn’t matched Keating’s Indonesia pact

The new defence agreement with Jakarta is a welcome development, but the government claims too much too soon about its place in history.

  • James Curran
Palestinians evacuate Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, as part of a mass evacuation ordered by the Israeli military ahead of an operation, Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024.

Why Gaza visa attacks could backfire on the Coalition

The opposition is focusing on Gazan visas to chip away at Labor’s national security credentials – but do voters even care while hip pocket pain remains acute?

  • Andrew Tillett
Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut leader of the People’s Party.

Thailand’s democracy is on shaky ground

Since 1932, Thailand has been through 12 successful coups (as well as many more attempted ones), and multiple constitutions.

  • Karishma Vaswani

How the autocrats’ club keeps dictators in power

In place of global revolution, today’s autocrats’ prime objectives are the accumulation and preservation of power – and their own enrichment.

  • Jonathan Tepperman
Former president Barack Obama with wife and former first lady Michelle.

Obamas light up the convention, and the campaign

Kamala Harris’ fight for the White House is working better than Democrats dared hope. Michelle and Barack Obama have added their star power – can the dream run last?

  • Jennifer Hewett
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Democrats now the American dreamers

Democrats have become the true believers in the American mission. Republicans will be more prudential in assessing foreign policy capacities.

  • James Curran
Peter Khalil

How Labor’s Peter Khalil got caught in the crossfire

The government’s new special envoy for social cohesion is the target of pro-Palestine protesters and the Greens.

  • Myriam Robin
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And all this means a more sovereign Australia, with more jobs in Australia, and a future made in Australia.

AUKUS partners are unlocking a future made in Australia

The UK and the US have finalised the establishment of an export licence-free environment, unlocking billions of dollars of investment and cutting red tape for Australian industry.

  • Richard Marles
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‘Defies parody’: Evans lashes Marles, Albanese over AUKUS

The former Labor foreign minister has offered a withering critique of the Albanese government’s embrace of the defence agreement.

  • James Curran
Australia can start marketing wine in China again after tariffs were removed this year.

High-level dialogue shows China chill is ending

The resumed annual face-to-face meeting of government and industry has been crucial to stabilising the relationship.

  • Craig Emerson
Then-prime minister Paul Keating’s principal adviser Don Russell and Robert Zoellick, a senior US president George HW Bush’s White House, sparred by correspondence.

When Keating went to war with the White House

Secret cables reveal for the first time how Keating’s right-hand man and a senior White House official engaged in an extraordinary war of words in 1992, sometimes in personal terms.

  • James Curran
Then-prime minister Paul Keating’s principal adviser Don Russell and Robert Zoellick, a senior US president George HW Bush’s White House, sparred by correspondence.

Washington can be a prickly and insecure great power ally

The Russell-Zoellick correspondence reveals an Australian government not afraid to talk truth to American power, an art largely lost over recent years.

  • James Curran