Ep. 172: The "Four Rs" of Australian foreign policy

Australia in the world is a podcast produced with the support of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. The AWA wants Australians to know, understand and engage more in international affairs. All views expressed are solely those of the speakers themselves. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Australia in the World Podcast. As always you're with Darren Lim from the Australian National University. Today I have a very quick introduction. I'm going to say hello to our guest who is a long time returning guest. Richard Moore to Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Society Pulse Institute. Hello Richard. I don't. Nice to be back. We are recording this at the end of November 2025 and Richard on your last appearance on the podcast which was in mid-March of this year. You described the international environment that Australia faced as completely stuffed. Now, whereas my goal in that episode was focused on describing the world. Australia faced through the frame of the incoming government brief. I think today we can safely assume that all of our listeners are aware of the landscape Australia now faces. We are six months into Albanese's second term. We're 10 months into the Trump second term. So we have a bit of data now to say something about what Australia is doing with this landscape we face. Now, last week, Foreign Minister Penny Wong delivered a speech at the Australian Institute for International Affairs National Conference that I thought was very notable. So much so that with Hannah Nelson, who of course edits this podcast, hi Hannah, I wrote a commentary piece on it that we published in the AAA's Australian Outlook. You then texted me Richard saying you'd read both Wong's speech and our commentary with interest and so seizing an opening I said well Richard, we should do a podcast to discuss this. So I've successfully entrapped you and I thought well, say more, why did you find this so interesting? Well, first of all, Darren, I'm never going to text you again to talk about foreign policy. I learned my lesson there. Secondly, some months on from mid-March completely stuffed, that was a technical term. Indeed, it still looks pretty good to me and thirdly, more seriously, that was a great piece I think that you and Hannah wrote on Penny Wong's AAA speech that certainly encourage listeners to the podcast to have a look at it because I think it's an interesting contribution to where we are on Australian foreign policy. So you have already put a lot of thought into this question, in fact you did it first, so why don't you lead off? Okay, we will respond. Sure, sure. Well, the study point is that for my entire career in international affairs, as a PhD student and then as an academic, I have understood the foundational pillars of Australian foreign policy to be what Alan laid out in his book, Fear of Abandonment. They are one alliance, two region and three rules. He called them strands and said that every government since the end of World War II has weaved them together in different ways, but they were the through lines. And any time I heard someone complain that Australian foreign policy didn't have a coherent logic, I always replied with, "Well, it does, it's the three pillars in Alan's book." And as recently as April of last year in 2024, you got a similar line from the government with Penny Wong using Alan's old formula in a speech here at the ANU. So if you'd asked me even a month ago, I probably would have defaulted to these original three pillars or strands, even as we all can see that the US, the first pillar, was becoming increasingly unreliable. So the speech that one gave on Monday of last week was important to me because it crystallized a clear evolution from that old formula. Wong instead gave us four categories, four pillars, four strands, and they are region, relationships, rules and resilience. And of course the big differences there are alliance no longer gets its own category and we're adding in resilience as a fourth. Now in our piece, we labeled these the four Rs conveniently. And I think now with the benefit of hindsight and having thought through the speech, you can see the beginnings of these different logics throughout 2025. Of course, DFAT published a document in February, the foreign policy snapshot, helpfully entitled Australia in the world that uses some of the same categories and even Wong and some speeches across this year including Malaysia and Fiji, you see sprinkles of these ideas. And I think amid the chaos of the Trump presidency, I just wasn't paying sufficient attention. And I couldn't have pointed to one defining speech or document that set out a clear vision. And I think now we have one. And looking back, I can see the antecedents that have led us to this point. But I think the four Rs frame is going to be a useful loadstone for all of us going forward to understand what the environment that we face and what Australia is trying to do. So for that reason, I think the speech is both very positive and very important. That was what we said in the piece, Richard, what was your reaction? I thought your take on it was pretty smart and on the money with the caveat that I'm a fair way out of government these days. So like you, I just observe, with interest from the sidelines, I think the speech was the most rounded conceptualization of the government's foreign policy and approach to the risks and challenges that the nation faces that we've had to date. And more than three years in, the government's also in a position where it is racking up some significant outcomes. So if we're going to talk a bit about later on, it can fill in the framework with examples of how it's actually implementing foreign policy. I do think it's important to note though that there are lines of policy articulated in Penny Wong's speech, which she's been talking about for quite some time. In fact, since very early in the life of the government in its first term. So let me give you five quick examples. So we saw very early on this strong focus on the Indo-Pacific as the overwhelming priority for Australia. And we saw ministerial attention and policy and resourcing, i.e. money, following suit. We saw pretty early on a strong desire to invest more in bilateral partnerships, to really try and push more weight into relationships. We saw early on the idea that Australia security has to be anchored in the region that's a phrase the government started using and that middle powers can and should be active in shaping a favorable balance of power. And then beyond that idea of a balance of power, the government also talks about the character of the region as being important to Australia. So what we want as the government, and particularly Penny Wong has said over and over again, is a region in which the nation can navigate its own course and make decisions without being co-woost. And then the fifth one, the priority given to stabilisation of ties with China and this rejection that you noted in your piece with Hannah of the idea that economic relations with China must automatically somehow come at the expense of safeguarding other national interests, which Penny Wong says is a false binary. So they've been around for a while, but I do agree that in the second Trump administration, these initial concepts are assuming even greater importance. There's a sense of urgency, you really feel that when it comes, for example, to what the government calls diversifying and upgrading bilateral relationships and in the government's investment in regionalism and what it describes as collective efforts to build sovereignty and resilience. And some of this is about seeking to offset China's power in the region to the extent that's possible, but that also now clearly framed as a hedge against a very transactional America that's redefining and narrowing its national interest and engagement with the world. The government still talks a lot about rules, I don't have a problem with that, and I think interestingly and happily, we don't hear the much abused phrase rules based order so much anymore. I think, I hope I'm right in this, you won't find it in Penny Wong's speech. What you will see or read is simply a discussion about why rules are important for middle powers, whether it's on trade or climate or security issues. Lastly, on resilience, I'm really glad to see the focus on resilience, but we can come back to this, I would say the need to invest in Australian resilience has been a feature of a great deal of foreign policy commentary for quite some time now. Okay, well, you did say that the government can point to a number of achievements, policy actions and outcomes that can fill in this overarching framework they've given us. And Wong does this in her speech, she'll quickly go through some of the examples she mentions. On region, she talks about building regional architecture and she describes Australia as an architect, and that's through new treaties, upgraded partnerships, and she focuses especially on the Pacific and Southeast Asia. On the relationships pillar, she talks about diversifying our ties and strengthening every relationship in the region. She made a point of saying that every relationship is in a better place under this government, of course, partly a political point, but also, I think, probably a true one. And it's not just, of course, the Pacific and Southeast Asia, but she mentions the US, Japan, India, Korea, and she also puts stabilizing China relations in this bucket as well. Then you have rules, as you mentioned, Richard, not a rules-based order, but defending and using rules. She mentions enforcing unclass, the law of the sea, protecting humanitarian workers, negotiating free trade agreements, and supporting WTO reform. And then finally, on resilience, quite interestingly, of course, she brings the focus to Australian domestic policy, and we'll come back to that more later, but the example she gives in terms of hardening society and the economy include countering interference, cyber security, AI regulation, social cohesion, diversifying the economy, and, of course, strengthening democratic institutions. So I guess she's given us a lot of examples that we can assess how the government is doing. What's your sense of these outcomes? Well, there are a lot of strengths, and I think a few weaknesses, perhaps inevitably, in the government's approach to this new era, but overall, I do think you have to give credit where it's due. I can't think of any major foreign policy disasters. That may seem like an odd place to start, but this is an era where they're entirely possible. Our major relationships are all in good shape. As you said, Labour and the coalition each like to argue they have the best record in the Indo-Pacific, and I think in reality, many of our partnerships in the region weren't in quite as bad shape as the government now likes to make out in hindsight. But even so, when you look at the list of partnerships that have been upgraded either politically or economically or in security terms over the term and a bit of the current government, then it's an impressive list. It really is, and foreign policy is often about these building walks are just trying to put another brick in the wall, and so it's an impressive list, not everything's landed, but we shouldn't be surprised or disheartened by that, especially on security treaties, agenda is quite ambitious, and we're always going to have to go after way at that. I think some of us lament the Prime Minister's difficulty in talking about the world and Australia's place in it with any particular fluency and depth, but on the other hand, he's spent an awful lot of time overseas this year. He's been prepared to do the air miles, to sacrifice the time in Australia to manage the domestic agenda. He seems quite comfortable in his own skin overseas, and he does seem to get on with his fellow leaders, so all of that works for Australia, despite all the hoopla, even the much anticipated bilateral visit to Washington as one could possibly hope for. I mean, it went so well, the Prime Minister even got a three pass from the President on defence spending, which probably made the rest of Trump's cabinet grind their teeth, but the alliance is in reasonable shape, and indeed, I joke to a few people afterwards, it went so well, I hope the Prime Minister bought a lottery ticket when he got off the plane. So look, I think given how tough the external environment is, you should approach any critiques of Australian foreign policy in the broad, not just recognising these successes, but also with a degree of humility, it's quite easy to argue issues from the sidelines. It's much harder when you're in government. Perhaps reflecting the Prime Minister's own sensibilities, policy generally is careful and prudent. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that in the current year, but I must admit at times I can't help itching sometimes, perhaps for a bit more ambition, a bit more risk appetite. And if I were to play the role of a hopefully constructive armchair critic, you know, I might wonder if Australia was at risk of becoming perhaps monofocused on Southeast Asia and the Pacific because they're near and safe ground for us. I mean, perhaps that's unfair, but I think it's at least reasonable to ask if we're placing too much weight on Southeast Asia, a Southeast Asia-centred collective security. Could we be doing more to lead alliance coordination in the Pacific? Could we be working even more directly with Europe in supporting Ukraine on peace negotiations, given the precedent that Russia's aggression sets for middle powers? Are we coasting on national preparedness, including on defence spending? So if I was to sort of grumble, there are some of the grumbles that I would offer up to you down. Well, come back to the grumbles in a moment. I just want to say I think from the outset, and I probably made this point back in 2022, but it bears repeating three years later, is to observe just that the hallmark of the foreign policy of this government has been its energy, in long visiting every South Pacific country. I mean, they're both getting on the plane just after they won the 2022 election. There's just been so much content created if I'm going to use that frame. And I remember back to the early days of the podcast with Alan, and it was just a much rarer thing that a foreign minister would give a speech, a prime minister, it didn't happen very often, and so we could devote entire episodes to discussing these. This is the first time I've had an episode on a speech for a very, very long time, and of course, a big reason for that is Alan's absence, but also there's just been so much content, and so many visits, so many outcomes, and I can't keep on top of it all, but that speaks to the energy. They're just doing a lot more than at least I observed has been done previously. Now, I think flowing from that, regional diplomacy and relationships do, therefore, look very serious and sustained in terms of the government's commitment. You've got the Fala Pillar Union, the new tree within Indonesia this past few weeks, PNG, Nauru, upgraded ties across South East Asia, and this does see more than just businesses usual, like they're putting in the effort, showing that Australia can still shape its environment and it moves with energy it works with partners. In rules and resilience, I see a similar picture. We are trying to use institutions, to use law, trade tools, and new instruments, like on cyber, artificial intelligence, economic security, to push back against some of the more challenging features, these measures short of war, it's not open conflict, but pressure, leverage can be wielded in lots of different ways, and we are trying to use the rules and resilience policies to push back against that. Again, I think that's good. And I think to echo your point about the need for humility when engaging in critique. My theoretical starting point, my model on this, is that there are certainly hard limits on what a country like Australia can do, given its size. The work of a middle power is more often not going to be slow and incremental, thickening networks and raising the costs of unacceptable behaviour over time, rather than these big transformative breakthroughs, and I still think we've had a couple of big transformative breakthroughs like the Fallopilla Union, but ultimately size does matter in foreign policy and grand strategy and Australia is not going to be determining outcomes on the biggest questions of regional stability, like Great Power Rivalry, like arms races, like the future of Taiwan. How efforts are going to be marginal there, and we need, therefore, to be cautious in how we assess Australia's efforts in those spaces. But let's come back to some of the grumbles, Richard. I want to come back or start this part of the conversation with a query you raised back in March. For all the talk of achieving a strategic equilibrium or a favourable balance where no country dominates and no country is dominated to use the language of the government, the question was what do we need from Washington to achieve that, and is it possible for us to get it? And you described a plan A, where Washington does these things, and you described a plan A minus, a scaled back sense of ambition. So a plan A was achieving an overall strategic equilibrium, plan A minus was a narrower military balance of power, which was there to deter Beijing. What's your thinking on this at this point in time? Well, I should start by admitting or confessing, perhaps, that, you know, I've been heavily invested professionally in the idea of Australia trying to encourage a strategic equilibrium or a big favourable balance of power in the region, if you like, as one answer, not the only answer, but one answer to China's growing power. But clearly, getting there now, I think, is much, much harder. My sense is that the grand idea of strategic equilibrium, which in my kind of reading of it would require the United States to maximise not just its military influence in the region, but its political and economic influence, that now can't be achieved. US policy is too inconsistent, and China had just has too many advantages in its backyard. Now that doesn't necessarily mean China would be able to dominate the region at will, but it does mean that China will probably, almost certainly, I think, continue to grow and influence and power in Asia relative to the rest of us. So what does that leave us with? Well, a military balance of power that deters China might still be possible, but as with anything with the Trump administration, much is uncertain, we're still waiting on a new US national defence strategy. In the little that's been said about this so far, we have been told will prioritise deterring China along with defence of the US homeland. In theory, the president believes in peace through strength, he certainly talks about that, he does appear to recognise the need for strong Indo-Pacific alliances, even as he wants more burden-sharing. So the ingredients could be there, but the challenge for us all is the sheer scale and growing sophistication of China's military and the very mixed signals that come from Washington on the US-China relationship in the broad and also in defending Taiwan as a first-order US national interest. So there's just, I think, much more uncertainty now. I think it's also worth adding here because we sometimes see these claims in the West including in Australia that there's very little evidence to my mind that a military balance of power would much caution China when it comes to the use of grey zone tactics. So economic coercion or cyber attacks or foreign interference and so on. What we're really talking about here, let's be honest, is it possible to deter Chinese push on Taiwan and to some extent China trying to achieve complete control in the South China Sea? Yet, I quite like the pivot, so to speak, from a broader concept of strategic equilibrium to a now-military balance of power or the idea of deterrence. And I see it as maybe Australia's best chance of exercising a different kind of leadership in the region, not because we are overcoming the material challenges, we don't have the size to do that, not because we are able to persuade or somehow get the US to return to its former role, we're not going to be able to do that. But by shaping ideas that the region, including the US, uses to think about what is possible and what order ought to look like. So I think about this as proposing principles that are both meaningful but also realistic. So the idea of strategic equilibrium sounds attractive, but it's broad, it's amorphous, it asks too much of the US, it's not going to be delivered. But the idea of a military balance of power and narrower concept is a clear organizing principle where no state believes it can use force without prohibitive cost and aggression is credibly deterred, like that's the objective. And I like this because it's concrete, in theory governments can plan around it, plan for it and it is also flexible enough to accommodate different political systems and alignments. And therefore could command the support of a wide range of regional actors, including the Trump administration or administration's like it. And so you're trying to lead through creating a vision, a hard-headed vision, but ideally a shared vision of what stability can look like rather than overpromising with a broad a sense of strategic equilibrium. So I see potential there, it doesn't not to minimise the immense challenges of achieving even that, but to me it is an interesting way of shaping the order. Now I want to come to something you mentioned earlier, Richard, which was this emphasis on Southeast Asia and the Pacific. You describe this perhaps as safe territory for Australia, possibly coming with some trade-offs in terms of what we might be doing in terms of leading on alliances and other like-minded states, perhaps Japan, South Korea, even India. Can you say a bit more about what you mean? Well, it's not that the government ignores key partners like Japan and India, indeed far from it, the government is very active in trying to push more weight into those relationships too. But I do think one of the contradictions, if you like, in the government's foreign policy narrative is this very heavy emphasis that's placed on working with the region and especially with Southeast Asia too, in the words of Penny Wong, ensure that the stability of the region is secured through collective responsibility. Now this is work that does serve Australian national interests, working with Southeast Asia does help strengthen collective security, but at the end of the day a strategic equilibrium or a military balance of power, it's a brutal power equation. And the countries that matter are the United States and its Indo-Pacific allies, not Southeast Asia, and certainly not the Pacific. And the government likes to smooth this over with immolient language, but it only gets one so far. And I do think this contradiction is evident to others. For example, the host of the insiders program David Spears put his finger very precisely on this in a recent interview with the foreign minister, in which he wondered why if we're so focused on anchoring our security in the region, are we giving the US greater access to our bases in Australia and spending a fortune on nuclear submarines? Well, very good question, David, and one answer to that, not the answer, but the minister gave, is that China's power makes it quite hard to anchor one security in the region without the United States. Another answer is that the alliance and everything that comes with it, like nuclear submarines and a force-poster cooperation, are in reality the frontline of deterrence policy for Australia. And there are days when you just, you would not know this. So I think the government could do a better job of tying these various strands of policy together. And in explaining to the Australian public how we sustain sovereign decision-making as alliance cooperation gets ever deeper. And then, you know, I mentioned some days I hitch for a bit more ambition and a bit more risk-taking. I think, you know, we could be doing more high-level coordination with Japan and the UK when it comes to managing the alliance structure and the Indo-Pacific in the way I think Europe now does. And perhaps it's there, but it's certainly not very visible if it is, and it doesn't look to me like it's leader led. Look, I guess I could very gently push back or play devil's advocate to say, well, maybe the rhetorical focus on Southeast Asia is not just the moly at language that probably is, but a necessary way of managing regional politics and sensitivities. Of course, you're right that when it comes to the hard military balance, the decisive players are not in the region. But perhaps precisely because Southeast Asian states are using hedging strategies and are deeply wary of being dragged into an overt balancing coalition. Too much emphasis on hard power and alliance posture in our public narrative could spook them and close doors. They're not going to be the ones who create the military balance, but they could make it much harder to sustain by distancing themselves from our broader strategic project. So perhaps keeping the Southeast Asians and the South Pacific rhetorically at the centre while we let the nuts and bolts of deterrence and alliance integration sit to the side and truck along quietly may just give us the political space to be open in our vision of regional order. So it's not that I disagree with you about the virtues of doing deeper, maybe even more visible coordination with Japan or South Korea on alliance management issues, but maybe the current rhetorical balance could be the least bad way of holding together a coalition in a region full of nervous hedges. Are my big two charitable with that characterization? Well, in part, I think you are. There is no doubt it plays well in the region. And I'm not saying that what we're trying to do in Southeast Asia is bad policy. It's not. It's good policy. This is our regional credentials and the more we can give Southeast Asia options for partnerships that don't mean they go to China first for everything, then the more we can build ballast in the region. So I'm all for it. What I'm quibbling with is the idea that if we get into a conflict, ASEAN is going to do anything much other than run for cover, collect the idea of collective security and collective responsibility will evaporate faster than the small amount of rain we've had today in Canberra on a hot day on my back deck. And I'm pretty sure the government doesn't really believe it's talking points on this, but I'm just saying I hope they don't because if we do, we're deluding ourselves. And I just make two other final points on that. Only is that Southeast Asia for most parts sees through it anyway. They can see what we're doing on August. They can look at the defence strategic review and the new national defence strategy and see what we are up to. So they know, and by the way, so does China because China is back to complaining that Australia is trying to have its cake and eat it too. So we may as well just be slightly more honest about it. Yeah, the fact that everyone can see what's going on still, it doesn't explode the necessary fiction or maybe face saving of the delicate diplomacy. On some level, perhaps as Southeast Asians, are glad that we're trying to keep the US engaged. I don't think they want to see a region that's totally dominated by China, but they also don't want to war and have to make any choices. So anyway, we come at this, there's only a slight disagreement between the two of us here. I think we agree that the policy settings are largely pretty good, but I want to then pick up another thing you said about how the government talks to Australians and the distinction between strategic balance or a narrower military balance does raise the critique about whether or not the government is sufficiently leading a national conversation about the challenges facing Australia. And such a conversation presumably would lie upstream of the difficult policy trade-offs, like substantially increasing our defense spending or resilience measures and will come to those shortly. So the question is should a government, the government be actively trying to elevate? Public awareness of the risks, public anxieties of what could happen, how far do you think Canberra ought to be going to spelling out these dangers? And do you think the public wants this, you know, are they prepared to engage with this kind of conversation? Yeah, all good questions and interesting ones on a day where we're talking generally in favourable terms about the speech that a foreign minister has given, which is clearly an effort to talk not just to the chattering classes, but this is a critique that is that the government is not leading a broad enough national conversation on our circumstances and how we need to deal with them, that you hear quite a lot, albeit mostly broadly from inside the foreign policy community. I mean, indeed it came recently from none other than my very distinguished friend and colleague Heather Smith in her opening address to the Australian Institute for International Affairs National Conference, which was just last week. And at the end of that speech, in which you can find on the web, Heather appealed for a national conversation on how best to position Australia, but concluded right at the end that, and I'm quoting her here today, all we are hearing today is the sounds of crickets. So that's a pretty strong statement, I think from someone who's very thoughtful about Australia's position in the world. I also think you answered your own question, which is that if you want people to think seriously about national security and to support hard policy decisions, then you have to at least set out a very clear rationale for doing so. A journalist minister might not unreasonably respond that the government can talk until the cows come home, but most people don't listen, they just want to go to the beach. And that's fair enough, and probably true, but in a democracy, you have to try. And I do think it's just a little patronising to say we shouldn't have a more open and honest, national conversation about our circumstances because it might frighten people. I think we should give our community more credit than that. National polling like that done by Lowy, I think, shows that many Australians have a pretty good gut sense about the world. We're now navigating and watching risky for us. Another country's managed to do this, especially in Europe, they do seem to be able to communicate in, I think, a clearer and frank away about the world that we're all inhabiting and what it means, and in a way that's quite digestible for people who don't live in pretty foreign policy. And I don't quite know why, but we've seen to slip, especially into a style of speech writing that sort of elegantly alludes to the issues with a series of polite, boilerplate generalities, but then moves promptly on. I think leaving, at least people like me, looking for a bit more, I'm reminded of a disagreement that Alan and I had in our time together about whether the Prime Minister, probably, should be giving a major speech about China. And like then, I err on the side of saying less rather than more. And I think there are two reasons. One, when I do see commentary, of course, not coming from the government, but from other segments of society that really does lean into spelling out the dangers. It often does so with claims that make me roll my eyes, sweeping assertions about the inevitability of war, cartoonish, just depictions of Beijing's intentions. And look, I can't recall any examples off the top of my head now, and I'm not here to call people out. But my point, I guess, is that this is a very tricky space analytically. The risk of going too far, of overstating threats in ways that corrode trust or box governments in, I think, is a real one. And second, I think my mental model of politics here in Australia is not so much that Australians just want to go to the beach, though, we all do. It's persuading them to pay those material costs now for the explicit reason that it would reduce uncertain risks later. It's just a very hard thing to do and look at climate policy or tax reform as other areas. And if we go to Europe, I agree that they're much more explicit, but have they really been able to coordinate on Ukraine any more effectively and get their publics to pay those prices when they face that threat now? I think they could be doing much more. So that communication may not have been as effective as we would like. Look, I can see, though, perhaps my expectations of democratic politics are too low and you're right that we owe the public a more forthright story about the world we live in, but I just I don't get as excited about this or as excised about this, this sort of missing public narrative. I'm open to being persuaded, but no one's changed my mind. Well, this year, I mean, you know, I get that. And yes, you're absolutely right that there are risks in over-egging things, but I don't think it's actually that hard to get it right or close to right. And let me give you just a couple of tiny quick reposts. Why is that? I wish I had a dollar for every person that said to me over the past year, if things are so good with China, why are we spending all this money on these dam submarines? So I think there is a need, or you know, desirably the government would be out there making a strong clear case, not a kind of caveat, a very cautious, censored case about why we need these types of things. And then secondly, it's not just that we might owe the public, but I think we owe ourselves to be honest about the environment we face. Well, let's talk about China directly. The foreign minister, as I said at the outset, kind of neatly bracketed the China issue in her speech, saying that the stabilisation of the bilateral relationship is another piece of this broader relationship's pillar, which over the four hours, their relationship's pillar. And otherwise, she said that yes, the relationship is complex, as you referred to Richard, she sort of rejected that false binary between security and economics, and she emphasised that of course a China is a major power, a major player in shaping our region. What's your view of the government's management of the China relationship so far this year, at least? Well, I think there's no doubt that stabilisation serves Australian national interests. I mean, a relationship with China in which political engagement is frozen, which it was, and a large chunk of valuable trade is just killed off, which it was, is simply not sustainable. And I think that looks especially through these days when you look at Trump's own evident desire for a relationship of peer with China and some kind of deal, whether it's narrow on trade or larger than that, the argument that you sometimes hear that we're out of alignment with Washington on China, well, that really just seems a real stretch to me right now. So I think the government deserves credit for sensible management of our most challenging bilateral relationship. Now not surprisingly, where we go from here is of very considerable interest across the government, the business community, the security community, I mean, there are so many people that have, you know, a strong interest in China and the relationship. And China itself clearly wants something beyond the stabilisation and that carries some risks for us. So where are the rub points? Well, one critique, I suppose this goes back to the conversation we've just had about communication. One critique is the government pulls its punches too often in public commentary, one it just seems to tie itself in knots about being not naming China or being directing criticism. Other times it's just having to come out and far away. I think that the government can afford to be less anxious and more direct. I think there's been a concern particularly on the hill in the PM's office that if we go to hard then stabilisation like collapse, I think that's a misreading of the current environment. Beijing's quite invested in stabilisation. This government is generally, you know, sensible in what it says. So I think it could afford to be less anxious and we wouldn't plunge back into some kind of major instability in the relationship. That's one critique. A second is that having got all the trade back, we've forgotten about diversification and that makes it vulnerable. That's a conundrum but it's hard to get new one and successive governments on both sides of politics have tried to encourage diversification really without much luck. I mean there are just iron laws of economics here and that's the immense complementarity of the Chinese and Australian economies and the price margin that Australian exporters can win in the Chinese market. I mean the best example of this is how barley, you know, how the barley traders grow as having swore they wouldn't have rushed back into the Chinese market because, you know, they get a good dollar for it and there's nothing in any government trying to sort of stop that. It's just a reality that if the exporters are prepared to carry the risk, governments should stand in the way. I think not all dependencies are equal. So one task for Australia is to keep working domestically and we've partners like America on those dependencies where we might see real risk and of course the agreement with the Trump administration on critical minorities and example, even if that's going to take years to mature and probably only chips away at the problem. A third critique that you sometimes hear is that the government's interest in stabilising ties with China is somehow blinding it to the broader risk China poses to Australia's security and also to a regional peace. This is probably not the time to get into a long debate about defence spending but that comes up how much more do we need on national security that comes up. I think they're legitimate debates but I think perhaps beyond that if you look at government decision making on China and particularly on where to take the bilateral relationship it does remain pretty cautious. A lot of what Beijing wants for us is quietly kicked into touch whether that's cooperation on science or an AI or on critical minerals or Chinese investment in Australia. So those inside government say not unreasonably watch what we do around what we say or don't say as the case may be. Yeah. That last point I think is very important that the caution or maybe the anxiety goes both ways. It both limits what the government is willing to do in terms of pushing back and being critical but it also limits the embrace where China is looking to do more. I mean look I haven't found these critiques that persuasive. Of course we should be speaking up when important interests are at stake but the question then is what counts as an important interest and what are we trying to achieve by speaking up and I haven't myself seen a case during this government's time in office where caution in public language on China has in my assessment at least harm to Australia's interests on net. I mean the PM talks about being respectful with China and you know I think that is a template that can be used generally right. It's not that we're just displaying respect for a country who we have a lot of disagreements with in the China case. It's one that applies as much in the Trump case as well. You see plenty of governments tip-toeing, being anxious in many ways around Trump you know sometimes even being a sequest in their treatment of him even though in private they are that don't feel that way right and they're doing this because the U.S. is powerful and being more forward leaning speaking up more is just not in their interest because Trump will retaliate. Now this is not always the case and in just the past week we've seen Brazil right have a major success Trump has rolled back those 50% tariffs on key consumer imports like coffee that were fueling inflation without Brazilian budging on the underlying grievance behind those tariffs which was the prosecution of Bolsonaro and look this was a clear intrusion into Brazil's sovereign judicial processes and that kind of scenario I would absolutely expect Australia to push back hard if we were in Brazil's shoes. And so I think connected to that I don't think the government is blinded to the security risks by China and I'm not saying you are saying that Richard I know you're just identifying a critique. It's more that it's judging that dramatic and visible efforts to mitigate those risks would be more do more harm than good impose higher costs than benefits. I think that there is a larger point that I want to make here and this is an interesting one for me which is there are risks in both directions you can get it wrong in both directions and so one way of asking this on where is the balance lie in managing the China relationship is which mistake would you rather make. I think of course the Morrison government overreacted in 2020 with the call for an inquiry into COVID and I think we've seen that the costs of that overreaction were much larger than the benefits but in a world where Trump is back in the White House as you say wants to do his own deal and stabilize the relationship with China we have to ask ourselves are the risks of overreacting to the threat posed by China greater than the risks of underreacting which mistake would we rather make again this is not an argument for never standing up for ourselves but on those 50/50 calls or calls that are close to that I lean towards caution towards assessing the risk of overreaction to be relatively greater and so I maybe it's my personality but I tend to agree with the Prime Minister's cautious prudent approach. Finally on the diversification point of course I'm going to echo here this is a cost-benefit problem you know building and maintaining alternative markets is expensive then unless you're willing to pay for it yourself through subsidies or force companies to diversify both of which would be very politically controversial as you say Richard the iron laws of economics are going to pull our exporters back towards China. Anyway it's an interesting question I wrote a paper a few years ago that we was trying to sort of pass out or separate different viewpoints in Australia about management of the China but I actually I've mentioned it on the podcast before I co-authored it with Nathan Attrill who's now at ASPE but one of the points of disagreement is is the risk of overreaction versus the risk of underreaction greater. I think that's an interesting way of separating out different views but for me in an era of Trump back in the White House I have moved more towards the risk of overreacting to China being greater than the risk of underreacting. Lots of ways you can cut this up and debate it though but I've always found that an interesting frame. I want to move now to resilience and what was so interesting about the explicit incorporation it gets its own R in the 4R's framework is it is a domestic policy domain. The foreign minister was mentioning a range of things that her ministry the DFAD is not doing itself but are being done by other parts of government focused on domestic policy. So what did you make of so explicitly incorporating domestic policy domains into a foreign policy speech? Well before I get to resilience you've triggered me a bit by referencing the prime minister's repeated discussion of respect as a framework. Does he amble through China on his last visit? So let me just say this in China we're dealing with a vanguard lennonist party a nation that wants to be a regional hegemon and one that has a strong track record of coercion and in my experience of dealing with China which I have done very directly in robustly at times, Beijing respects us when we agree with them and when we don't not so much but let's move on before I go on about that to talk about resilience. So important that it is incorporated in foreign policy if not essential I'm very glad to see it more power to the ministers. I can't help cheekily pointing out that the importance of domestic resilience was the feature of chapter 1 of the 2017 foreign policy. Why pay by interest? Ancient history as that now is. Two years ago it was a feature of the Defence Strategic Review. Institutes like ASP and the National Security College have done quite a lot of good work on resilience in recent years and so on I could unhelpfully go. So it is a concept that we've been trying to push for quite some time and the Minister's speech did collect together an existing set of initiatives, good initiatives on resilience across various policy areas but there there are some gaps there and it perhaps was made to look more like a coherent national framework than we actually have. Indeed there appears to be a commitment to develop a national resilience framework but I tried to find a bit more about it yesterday that I must have been on a admittedly quick search I couldn't find much other than the commitment to do it. So if we are serious about resilience the question to pose to government is whether what we're doing at the moment as necessary as it is is sufficient and Australia may or may not need or want to approach national resilience in the very deep way for example that Finland does but we really haven't had that conversation. For me if you are incorporating domestic policy explicitly into foreign policy I think there's a clear upside and a clear downside. The upside is that it gives governments a way to justify some of these tough choices rather than about some future scenario that may or may not be very scary but more in the moment so for things like industrial policy, stockpiling and critical minerals you can tie domestic spending domestic policy to these international events to alliance management rather than just having to pretend there's some job program it's another justification that creates some political space. The downside is that you can't have your cake and eat it too if you're doing something for narrow security reasons especially in small strategically exposed markets like critical minerals you really can't be overselling it as an economic bananza at the same time and I wrote a short piece on this for the Lawy interpreter with Eli Hayes that I'll post in the show notes making this argument if there's anyone who's interested. So I think resilience is a good political frame to explain why we would overpay why we would duplicate capacity why we would limit or constrain markets it's language that makes those trade-offs politically intelligible but it only works if governments are very selective and honest about what you're trying to achieve that this is a national security policy this is a defense policy rather than a growth policy. Now look I think your point about a deeper conversation on resilience is fair but I just can't get past the challenges posed by political economy yeah resilience usually means the state is intervening it's it's dulling the benefits of open markets it's spending a lot of money on making risky bets firms are lining up you know snouts in the trough to get some to get in on these benefits and so you've got to sort of manage the politics of this even as you're trying to achieve these security outcomes yeah these foreign policy outcomes if we're using the four Rs frame so I worry that a need to coherent resilience framework a national framework is it's just not possible you know what we're really doing here is using foreign policy a national security to carve out this small political space to do some domestic spending in the national interest rather than presenting it as part of a larger platform again I maybe I've displayed a lack of ambition rich and in several several times in this podcast but that to me seems like the least bad way to proceed but it does mean you're not going to have that larger conversation that you not un reasonably are calling for yeah I think they're all good points and here I you know I don't think you're you're being unambitioned but you are being realistic because to go deep on resilience absolutely undeniably is very expensive and the government would say that either doesn't have the money at the moment all there are other things that it really wants to spend limited money on so I think my point is you know not so much to heavily critique the government here but to say if you are choosing to open up the conversation on resilience and to make the point that domestic resilience is an integral part of Australia's national strength and how we operate overseas then you probably need to do a bit more than just a package up a series of things you're already doing fair okay well let's rub up and head for home by looking forward it's 26th November right now we can start to get into the prognostications about what could happen in 2026 game right of course our predictions will definitely come true so with that said Richard what big things are you watching for that are coming down the highway in 2026 well at the moment it seems like everything everywhere all the time okay I'll pick three the first one is where will the US-China relationship go the answer to that question is I don't know it's impossible to know but this is I think probably the most consequential known unknown for Australian national interest it's hard to avoid the conclusion that China has run rings around the Trump administration this year instead of negotiating on tariff they just clobbered America back and when the administration kept squeezing China showed in dramatic terms the leverage it's now built through its industrialisation both notably of course in the form of control of rare earth magnets and other critical mineral products so Beijing is telling Washington that anything you can do I can do better and if there's a Chinese version of Shadon Freud they're probably not feeling it now so in effect Washington is right now suing for peace the two sides are working to codify agreements that apparently leaders reached at Busan are they're going to wind back some of these punitive measures we've just seen in the news that Trump will go to China in April and he's invited she to make a reciprocal visit to Washington I've read an awful lot of hot takes on these events and it's striking how widespread the view including in America is that what we're seeing is a temporary truce and that quote structure trumps agency to quote one analyst that is that competition will inevitably resurface if not intensify and when you look on you look at China's intent which remains to try and capture more of the technological high ground from America to break more of its dependence on America it's a likely extreme disinterest in any kind of grand deal that you know that kind of analysis doesn't seem unreasonable on the other hand Trump seems very willing to give China a lot of leeway in his second term he wants a deal he's prepared to downplay competitive elements he's prepared to make concessions for China at least for the time being he clearly admires she and perhaps just perhaps he senses America no longer has the economic firepower to coerce China into concessions so we're our interest in all of this well a truce even if it doesn't last is not necessarily a bad outcome if it lowers the heat of the relationship and provides the region with some breathing space but there are obvious risks here the US doesn't have a coherent China strategy right now and what we wouldn't want is even a limited US China conqueror that might prejudice Australia's interests for example on trade or our broader interests in regional stability and and some check on China's power so that's one thing that I think is going to be fascinating to watch play out next year second one for me is can Ukraine be saved your cranes on the back foot militarily at the moment Russia's making small but steady grinding games in the Donbass you have to worry about a military tipping point then there's the corruption scandal it's weakened Zelensky and now of course another threat of US retrenchment and a peace plan that at least at the outset heavily favoured Russia now Ukraine really does need a peace deal it is bleeding slowly to death but not one of course that gives Russia everything at once Trump has a record of pulling back from the very worst of the administrations thought bubbles on Ukraine that seems to be happening even as we record this podcast so we just have to see where this goes but you know I suppose my real interest here is that even though it's far away the war in Ukraine and whether and how it is settled is an absolute first order national interest for Australia because it is not in our interest for a deal or a peace settlement that legitimizes let alone rewards by some kind of rehabilitation a larger country that's invaded a small along with that you know without any justification at all it's just so important to us my third point this is a bit of a personal passion so you're going to you and the listeners are going to have to forgive me on it is there anything left of the liberal project either internationally or domestically to fight for I probably sound like an aging hipster party for the 70s here it's a quaint if not naive question when you look at the global surge of populism and nationalism and liberal democracy across the west not least in America itself liberalism in its economic and political and social terms has been damaged and discredited by excesses and mistakes on the right and on the left it's struggled to do with the forces unleashed by social media so it needs some rescuing and renovation but as a political philosophy I still think that liberalism is the best system for managing competing demands in pluralistic societies and Australia is nothing if not plural on these days and perhaps in time even America will relearn that lesson so yes domestically we do need to fight to protect the liberal foundations of our democracy to try to wind back some of the polarization we see even here to protect our institutions to quote Francis Fukuyama we what we need is our political leaders across the parties to guard against excess and to recover what Fukuyama calls a sense of individual and communal moderation and then outside our borders globally the liberal order has faded into history but it still makes sense for us to see if any of the furniture can be saved it remains in our interest to do what we can to keep trade relatively open for example we should keep promoting as hopeless as it might sometimes seems liberal human rights it remains in our interest to do what we can to encourage a global order that guards against tyranny well said Richard I've got three things as well also dominated by my passion projects so forgive me listeners but I can't help but focus on questions of economic security geoeconomics so the first one with an Australian focus I'm really curious to see how all this critical mineral stuff is going to shake out I had all these big announcements billions of dollars pledged are we actually going to get viable projects do you mention the critical minerals deal with with the US but you've got interest from across you know our partners Japan Korea Europe and of course China but with the US deal right the sector has now been elevated into the heart of Alliance politics so it's just a very interesting mix but at the end of the day are we going to get bankable projects or are the iron laws of economics that we've been discussing where China has got immense cost advantages going to limit our geoeconomic our strategic ambitions second I this same question but applied to Europe in particular how are they going to manage their own geoeconomic dilemmas the rare earth export controls you mentioned are Richard the next period chip saga is another recent example of showing how European industry is really dependent on Chinese inputs in in vehicles in defense and in green tech even as Brussels faces an existential risk to its own car industry from China and then you have this Dutch move to take control of this semiconductor company next period on security grounds which then triggered retaliation from Beijing that banned the sort of the the rare export of the package chips made by next period in Europe but then packaged in China that go into European cars and that was a very crippling move and really highlighted after the Dutch kind of seem to have backed down and suspended the take over really highlighted how difficult the idea of tech sovereignty is given globalized supply chain so the second point I'm just interested in whether Europe is going to be able to progress the de-risking economic security project whether it's just going to have to rush back into China's arms and accommodate on a range of policy issues to keep those economic ties whole finally I guess my equivalent to your third point on the future of liberalism and democracy is to wonder about the political fortunes of Donald Trump in 2026 of course the midterms are less than a year away now as discussed recently on the pod we saw the off-year elections this year go badly for the Republicans and then in the last week we've had this remarkable schism one of the leading figures of the Maggar movement Marjorie Taylor Greene a congresswoman from Georgia has announced she'll resign from congress after a very ugly very public split with Trump and she would really have been one of the last people I would have expected to break with Trump and the fact she did shows how much power he maintains but also in her defiant video sort of of her resignation I think pointed to a lot of risks that he faces in keeping the movement together so the house is is at risk in the midterms and I just wonder will parts will a large part of the Republican party starts look beyond Trump and towards 2028 and does that mean he becomes increasingly a lame duck president and does it mean that maybe some of us could be a slightly more confident in the resilience of U.S. democracy like is this the system working I read an interesting piece I'll try and find it and post it on on on the show notes in the show notes about sort of the the virtue of U.S. democracy is that they just air their grievances and their contestations so visibly right it looks very bad but it's better than silence and and look we can observe the threats to to liberal institutions that Trump and and the mag and bourbon have posed but maybe this is what the Americans do they they they fight it out it looks extremely hair raising but it is a necessary part of continuing the viability of the political system I don't know and of course a lame duck Trump could be even more dangerous for the world where he looks for ways to stay relevant and maintain his influence so you know the trajectory of U.S. democracy as ever you know a focus around the world but 2026 will be another important important year Richard look I'm happy to move to to recommendations reading listening watching less than any last reaction from you on any of that where your last point there is really interesting Trump did have a bad november on many many fronts so many fronts that the American newspapers have helpfully tabled them all up if you're interested in Trump's awful november and it's striking how quickly the have we seen peak Trump article started to appear so I think you put your finger on a very fascinating question and I myself had wondered about your very last thought you know is Trump better or worse for the rest of us as he goes into lame don't lame duck period which of course the U.S. system remorcesly imposes on any second term president and it really does look like even Trump's not going to be immune to that by the way on the broader challenge to the American system and speaking of things to read there's an absolutely terrific article I'm pretty sure was in the Boston review but you will be able to find it and post it I think it's headed what are we living through and it summarizes three main ways are looking at the challenge that Trump represents to American democracy it's really very good otherwise on reading and listening I'm going to give a shout out to a former colleague Lockland Straun who's written a memoir of his life in diplomacy called the curious diplomat I have only begun to dip into it it only just turned up in the letter box but it looks very interesting and lively and Peter Varghese who's given a nice rap amongst other people he he talks about Lockland's distinctive and evocative narrative style which blends analysis scene setting and the occasional withering judgment quote unquote in other words it sounds quite interesting and you know there are there are actually quite a rare thing a memoir from a current Australian or recently retired Australian diplomat so the curious diplomat is my recommendation okay okay well for me I'm currently teaching my undergraduate course at the moment it's called power and influence in world politics and over the last month I have been thinking a lot about AI because the reality is most students on campus are using it not all but most and we in the university sector have not come close to figuring out how to integrate students education you know with AI in ways that enable genuine learning rather than just the taking of shortcuts and so often it is just used as the taking of shortcuts so part of my project this year with the course has been to start down that path and I've both encouraged the students to use AI but also delivered a lot of content in the form of lectures and readings on how to use AI well and what the impact of AI is going to be or is already on the labor market and so therefore what it will you'll need what skills you'll need for your future careers but mostly to turbocharge your learning rather than just using AI to get you a given grade I use AI a lot and I have found that I have worked harder and been more creative with it as a tool but equally I recognize that I have the benefit of years and years of intellectual and professional development without AI and so I'm focused on this question of how can we create the structures of learning so the students get the benefit of the old style which I think is necessary often frustrating sometimes boring lots of friction they need that while using AI tools to enable them to dig deeper and range further than I ever could have so what I'll do is just post a couple of the most interesting things that my team have come across on these questions for those who are interested Richard it is a real pleasure to see you and always so valuable to hear your thoughts on Australia in the world so thank you for joining me here today it's been a pleasure down thank you all that's all for today's episode of Australia in the world I thank Rory standing for opposing our theme music as always but especially to my co-author Hannah Nelson for research and audio editing today we will talk to you again soon.