In conversation with Professor the Honourable Gareth Evans AC KC
Australia’s Regional Security: Keeping our Balance
In this edition of the Asia Pacific Centre-Newcastle Institute Lecture series, Professor Evans will explore the ever-intensifying contest for primacy between the United States and China that has created an Indo-Pacific regional security environment more fraught and fragile than it has been for decades.
The stakes for Australia, like others in our region trying to navigate a course between the two giants, could hardly be higher. We need to avoid becoming further hostage to American political and military decision-making and use such middle power influence as we have to encourage diplomacy, dialogue, and restraint and balance in the way all of us conduct our relationships.
Professor, the Honourable, Gareth Evans AC KC
Gareth Evans was a Cabinet Minister throughout the Hawke-Keating governments, including as Foreign Minister from 1988-96, led the Brussels-based International Crisis Group from 2000-09, and was Chancellor of the Australian National University from 2010-19, where he is now Distinguished Honorary Professor. He co-chaired major international commissions on mass atrocity crimes and nuclear weapons, has won many national and international awards and has written or edited fourteen books, including Good International Citizenship: The Case for Decency (Monash 2022), Incorrigible Optimist: A Political Memoir (MUP, 2017), Nuclear Weapons: The State of Play (ANU,2015) Inside the Hawke Keating Government: A Cabinet Diary (MUP, 2014) and The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes (Brookings, 2009).