In September 2014, as revelations from the Edward Snowden affair roiled Australia–Indonesia relations, the late Sabam Siagian, Jakarta’s ambassador to Canberra between 1991 and 1995, offered the kind of frank appraisal of the bilateral relationship …
The increasing strategic competition between the US and China means one thing for most of the countries in the Asia–Pacific region: it’s going to be harder to respond to a more assertive China that challenges …
In March 1950, Australia’s external affairs minister Percy Spender set out the Menzies government’s appreciation of the international situation in a parliamentary speech. The aims of Australian foreign policy, he declared, ‘are essentially the preservation …
Australian government policy, in former foreign minister Julie Bishop’s words, has been to support the ASEAN-led East Asia Summit ‘as the region’s key forum for discussing security challenges’. However, in recent months we’ve seen Australian …
Seeing Australia’s foreign minister and their opposition counterpart arguing international affairs on the same stage is a rare thing. The federal parliament is the nation’s great clearinghouse for all arguments, but big set-piece foreign policy …
