The strength of soft power

Soft power is a slow-growing asset, as much the product of a society as the possession of a government. But, as a twittering US president shows, destroying trust and burning a nation’s soft power can be done with awful speed.

The hard part of soft power

Australia used ‘soft power’ to enhance its regional interests long before the term was invented, but how should DFAT reassert its ability to control the narrative within the machinery of government itself?

We should speak for ourselves in the Asia-Pacific

The Australian government’s rethink on Asia–Pacific journalism must be matched by a revived and renewed ABC focus on international broadcasting in its widest sense.

Fake news and weaponised media

Media shams and shonky shamans are nothing new; going digital merely speeds the effect and widens their reach.

Hello, 21st century, Australia calling

Reviving shortwave should be one part of a much bigger project: to revive the ABC as an international broadcaster and to create a 21st-century voice for Australia across the Asia–Pacific.

Kangaroo step-up and Kiwi reset in the South Pacific

Australia and New Zealand understand the demand to do more in the Pacific and the need to do some things differently. Whatever future directions both countries take, they must pursue them together.

Australia and the South Pacific: come to my aid

Australian development assistance and aid dollars are always being put to use in communities in the Pacific Islands, doing essential work even when Canberra’s attention is elsewhere.

The big chill in Australian-Chinese relations

A fifth ‘ice age’ has descended on China–Australia relations — cooling business, frosting diplomacy and chilling strategic perspectives.

How Oz politics works

A twenty year veteran of the Canberra Parliament reporting scene, Graeme Dobell takes a wry look at the cut throat world of Australian politics, a place where you’re always on your own and, in the end, you’ll let everyone down.

ASEAN and Australia peer from the summit

Southeast Asia is where Australia’s geography collides with our economic and perhaps political future. Australia has always thought ASEAN a good thing – the harder question for us is what to do with it.