For years, the conventional wisdom held that the United States retained a decisive lead over China in the technologies and industries that will define the 21st century. The 2025 report of the US–China Economic and Security Review Commission to Congress challenges that view, and its conclusions make for sobering reading.

Ahead of the Trump–Xi summit where trade and technology are on the table, the Commission finds that China has not only caught up with but in multiple sectors now leads advanced economies including the United States. From electric vehicles and solar panels to quantum computing pathways and pharmaceutical supply chains, Beijing’s combination of state direction, entrepreneurial competition, and sustained investment has produced results that Western policymakers are only beginning to reckon with.

In this episode, the Lowy Institute's Richard McGregor speaks with Randy Schriver and Mike Kuiken — vice-chairs of the Commission — about what their report found and what it means. They discuss China’s model of directed innovation, the case for a consolidated US economic statecraft entity, the multiple “choke points” China now holds over industrialised economies, and what sustained engagement in the Pacific, including by Australia, must look like to be effective. They also assess the military situation around Taiwan and the second-order implications of the ongoing conflict with Iran.

Randy Schriver served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs in the first Trump administration. Mike Kuiken is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and a former senior adviser to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

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Samir Puri, former UK diplomat and author of Westlessness: The Great Global Rebalancing, joins Transnational Challenges Program Director Lydia Khalil to explore the long decline of Western dominance in world affairs. They discuss why the rise of the non-West is about far more than China's challenge to the United States, and how the BRICS bloc is reshaping global networks. They also explore what a more multipolar world means for a country like Australia — Western by heritage, but increasingly embedded in Asia.

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When Iran deterred shipping from the Strait of Hormuz following Operation Epic Fury, it sent shockwaves through global energy markets and exposed uncomfortable truths about Australia's dependence on maritime trade. 
 
Jennifer Parker, a Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute and former Royal Australian Navy warfare officer, joins Research Fellow Charlie Lyons-Jones to explain what a naval blockade means for the crisis. They also unpack Australia’s new National Defence Strategy and discuss why Australia’s surface combatant fleet is the smallest it's been since the 1950s.

This episode was recorded on Wednesday 15 April 2026.

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Geopolitical strategist Parag Khanna joins the Lowy Institute's Sam Roggeveen to make sense of a world in flux.

In a wide-ranging conversation recorded on the day President Trump declared the Iran war nearly over, the pair discuss what the conflict reveals about multipolarity, why Mark Carney's Davos speech resonated more than expected, and why every attempt to unwind globalisation ends up deepening it.

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British Cabinet Minister the Rt Hon Darren Jones MP joins the Lowy Institute’s Executive Director Dr Michael Fullilove AM for a wide-ranging conversation about politics, power and the transatlantic relationship.

Serving as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, and Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, Jones is one of the most senior figures in PM Keir Starmer's government.

In this episode, Darren Jones and Michael Fullilove discuss the MP’s rise from a council estate in Bristol to the Cabinet table, the lessons UK Labour learned from Hawke and Keating, and why people shouldn't underestimate Keir Starmer.

They also cover the challenge posed by Nigel Farage's Reform UK party, the long shadow of Brexit, how Britain navigates its alliance with President Trump's America, and the strategic logic of AUKUS.

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Drone technology is now more accessible than ever. What was once the exclusive domain of state actors now falls within reach of nearly anyone with a credit card and a data signal. Domestic extremists are no exception — they are increasingly incorporating drones into attack plots, taking inspiration from the battlefield. Violent plots utilising drones have increased sharply over the past five years, but governments are underprepared.

In this episode, the Lowy Institute’s James Paterson and Lydia Khalil discuss their policy paper, The ungoverned sky: Drones and the domestic extremist threat, and outline their recommendations for how to address this growing challenge.

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Lowy Institute Lead Economist Roland Rajah and Nonresident Fellow Jenny Gordon discuss the economic implications of the expanding conflict in Iran. They put recent events in context, unpacking how we should understand and address the ongoing geoeconomic shocks. 

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To mark International Women’s Day, Lowy Institute fellows Susannah Patton and Serena Sasingian speak with Lydia Khalil in a wide-ranging discussion on women in international relations. They explore how gender equality strategies fit into realist power politics, how the global rise of “strongman” politics is threatening hard-won gains for women worldwide, and the relationship between gender equality and national power. They also reflect on their own careers and offer ideas for what meaningful progress could look like.

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Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a frank and impassioned speech at this year's World Economic Forum at Davos. He argued that in an era of great power competition, middle powers can no longer afford to maintain the fiction of a rules-based order. While never calling out President Trump by name, Carney highlighted the broader “rupture" in the global order.

Speaking with the Lowy Institute's Sam Roggeveen, Lydia Khalil discusses the value of rhetoric and dissects how Carney's remarks are being viewed in Canberra and other world capitals. While it has been much talked about, will Carney's speech shift how middle powers coordinate globally?

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More on this topic

• “Principled and pragmatic: Canada’s path”, Prime Minister Carney addresses the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting
• “A rupture, not a transition”:Carney’s new order, Sam Roggeveen, The Interpreter
  
• Nato without America: Europe ‘thinks the unthinkable’, Ben Hall and Henry Foy, Financial Times

 

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Professor Cynthia Miller-Idriss is a globally recognised expert on violent extremism and prevention, based at American University in Washington, DC. She is the author of a new book, Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism, which explores how misogyny is driving a surge in extremist violence throughout the West.

Speaking with the Lowy Institute's Lydia Khalil, Professor Miller-Idriss explains the five tactics of misogyny in extremist movements, why Gen Z men are increasingly rejecting women's rights, and what a public health approach to prevention looks like in practice.

More episodes of the Lowy Institute's podcasts are available on your favourite podcast apps, including Spotify, YouTube and Apple.

Follow the Lowy Institute on our website, X, Instagram or LinkedIn.

Follow Lydia Khalil on LinkedIn.

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