Lowy Institute

On the eve of the upcoming Trump-Xi summit, Donald Trump's approach to China looks less like strategic competition and more like a search for a deal. In this episode, Richard McGregor speaks with Lowy Institute Nonresident Fellow and former Biden White House official, Thomas Wright, about what the Trump–Xi summit reveals, why the 2025 tariff war ended badly for Washington, and how the Democratic Party is reckoning with its own foreign policy legacy. Wright also makes the case that the world now faces not one American foreign policy, but two — and must plan accordingly.

You can access Tom Wright’s Lowy Institute Paper Inflection Point: Biden, Trump, and the Future World Order here: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/inflection-point-biden-trump-future-world-order

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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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The post–Cold War international order hasn't collapsed from a single shock. It's been deliberately unwound.

Thomas Wright, a former Senior Director for Strategic Planning in President Biden's National Security Council, argues that China, Russia, and the United States have each adopted foreign policies that broke the foundational restraints holding the system together. By historical measures, what's emerged has the hallmarks of a pre-war environment. 

Drawing on his time inside the White House, Dr Wright diagnoses how we got here and what may come next. From Xi Jinping's strategy of asymmetric economic dominance, to Putin's war of conquest in Europe, to Trump's redefinition of American alliances as transactional arrangements.

This event was hosted by Sam Roggeveen, Director of the Lowy Institute's International Security Program, in Melbourne on Wednesday 6 May 2026.

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International trade has faced multiple shocks in recent years, making the need to reform the architecture of global trade more urgent than ever. Aligning new trade rules with global net-zero ambitions will be crucial to providing the necessary incentives for firms and economies to decarbonise. Many have already recognised the need to “green” trade. But how to do it?

The Lowy Institute’s Grace Stanhope and Robert Walker are joined by Ryan Mulholland, a senior fellow for international economic policy at the US-based Center for American Progress, to discuss what green trade is, how it fits into global decarbonisation efforts, and how governments could go about designing green trade agreements. They also discuss how major economies like the United States and China fit into a green trade future, where Australia might fit, and what it’s like being at the forefront of negotiations.

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Further reading:

See Ryan’s latest work on green trade here: https://www.inettt.org/news-blog/unilateralism-in-trade-calls-for-a-new-approach-to-build-a-green-future

Robert’s latest work on green trade and implications for Australia here: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/green-trade-partnerships-will-make-or-break-australia-s-renewable-superpower

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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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Australia's appetite for methamphetamine and cocaine is reshaping Pacific communities, turning island nations into key transit points on a global drug superhighway, and exposing them to violence, corruption and addiction.

In this special panel discussion, the Lowy Institute's Oliver Nobetau is joined by three ABC Pacific Local Journalism Network reporters who have reported from the front lines of the crisis: Lice Movono in Fiji, Marian Kupu in Tonga, and Chrisnrita Aumanu-Leong in Solomon Islands. All three played a pivotal role in Foreign Correspondent's two-part investigation Cartel Paradise.

Drawing on their deep local knowledge and hard-won access, the reporters take us behind the scenes of a complex, multi-country collaboration. From gaining access to naval and intelligence operations in Fiji, to tracking narco subs in Solomon Islands, to examining how deportation policies are fuelling gang culture and drug networks in Tonga.

This event was recorded on Wednesday 22 April 2026.

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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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Stephen Biegun, former US Deputy Secretary of State and Trump administration chief North Korea negotiator, joins the Lowy Institute's International Security Program Director Sam Roggeveen at the National Press Club in Canberra for a wide-ranging conversation on American foreign policy.

They discuss President Trump's worldview and its roots in the 1980s, the historical precedents behind US policy on Greenland, the war with Iran, nuclear proliferation, and the health of American democratic institutions.

Biegun brings four decades of experience in government and the private sector to bear on some of the most pressing questions in international affairs today.

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