Change the Conversation

Red Zone

By Peter Hartcher, Political Editor, Sydney Morning Herald How Australia woke up to China’s challenge – and what comes next What does China want from Australia? In this incisive and original book, Peter Hartcher reveals how decades of economic dependence left Australia open to the strategic ambitions of the most successful authoritarian regime in modern history. He shows how ideology, paranoia and Xi Jinping’s personal story have reshaped China, and shines new light on Beijing’s overt and covert campaign for influence – over trade and defence, media and politics. Australia has now woken up to China’s challenge, from passing foreign interference laws to banning Huawei from our 5G network. But at what cost? Will we see a further slump in relations? How best to protect our security, economy and identity? Drawing on interviews with Scott Morrison, Malcolm Turnbull and other key policymakers, as well as leading Sinologists and a rare interview with Australia’s spy chief, Red Zone is a gripping look at China’s power and Australia’s future.

Ways to accelerate grassroots innovation and build a more inclusive future

If there is one thing clear from the past year, it is that consensus building and collective action is required to convert the ideas and innovations of knowledge-rich but economically poor individuals and communities, into viable means of raising income, addressing social needs and conserving the environment. Unless we build on the resources in which poor people are rich, the development process will not be dignified, and a mutually respectful and learning culture will not be reinforced in society and lead to an inclusive future for all. Even with access to the best pool of resources and networks, accelerating grassroots innovation is not a guaranteed smooth-sailing journey. The simple answer is: it is tough. A more objective answer is: it requires a coherent and holistic hand-holding ecosystem to be built around it for sustenance. 1. Crowdsource global innovative ideas to deliver on the SDGs The importance of sustainable solutions came to the forefront in 2020 as communities across the world faced the twin threats of climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2021, this urgency continues to grow. Innovation and sustainability are inextricably linked at the grassroots level, and we can only be sustainable by generating measurable long-term social and environmental development benefits applicable to local communities. 2. Encourage local governments to become an active stakeholder Around the world, local governments are increasingly tasked with regulating environmental concerns that do not conventionally lie within their purview. In local government policymaking, affected residents are the grassroots. Citizen participation in local government is an effective method to educate citizens about governmental activities and remove barriers to advancing the SDGs. 3. Foster a grassroots community to share research, know-how and talent A basic principle of grassroots innovations is to not depend on external systems and incentives for solving local problems. Whether innovation is […]

As the US plans its Afghan troop withdrawal, what was it all for?

Unlike most US presidents, Joe Biden did not come to the White House with many fixed ideological positions. He did, however, come with fixed values. Chief among them is understanding how US policies impact working American families. In his nearly half century of experience in and around Washington, Biden was known to ask any staffers using academic or elitist language to pick up your phone, call your mother, read her what you just told me […] If she understands, we can keep talking. The debate about the nearly 20-year US presence in Afghanistan has challenged three prior US presidents — George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Yet Biden, as the first US president in 40 years to have had a child who served in combat, sees things differently. There undoubtedly remains a strategic argument — albeit shared by increasingly fewer Americans — for maintaining a US presence in Afghanistan. Namely, that it would continue to prevent terrorists from once again making safe haven there. But Biden’s announcement that he would withdraw the remaining US troops by September essentially meant he saw no way of making the parent of another soldier killed in Afghanistan understand such an argument. As he said, Our reasons for remaining in Afghanistan have become increasingly unclear. Shifting US support for the war Today, most Americans agree with him. When the longest war in American history began, 83% of Americans were in favour of it. But by 2019, 41% of Americans simply had no opinion on whether the US had accomplished its goals in Afghanistan. Perhaps clearer than the US rationale for maintaining troops in Afghanistan is the fact Americans are dramatically less concerned about terrorism than they were 20 years ago. One month after the September 11, 2001, attacks, 71% of Americans said they were worried about a terror attack. But by July 2020, terrorism ranked last in […]

Australia pulls out of Afghanistan

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has declared Australia will withdraw its remaining 80 troops from Afghanistan by September, marking the end of its longest involvement in a war. This follows President Joe Biden announcing the United States will leave Afghanistan by September. The path to this point has appeared inevitable for years. Ten years ago, journalist Karen Middleton highlighted the futility of the counterinsurgency campaign in her aptly-titled book, An Unwinnable War. High hopes dashed Back in 2001, it all seemed so different. Only weeks after the September 11 attacks, Australian special forces deployed to southern Afghanistan alongside US, Canadian, British and other NATO troops to defeat al-Qaeda, who was hosted by the then-Afghan government, known as the Taliban. After dusting off their boots and leaving in early 2002, Australian forces were drawn back in 2005 with a special forces task group. This was followed by an engineering reconstruction task force that over time morphed into a mentoring task force, intended to help the Afghan national security forces establish law and order. But without a clear strategy for effective governance and widespread corruption, the Taliban returned with a vengeance. The mentoring created opportunities for so-called “green on blue” attacks, which contributed to the deaths of a number of Australians. By 2014, 41 Australian soldiers had been killed. Many understandably wondered: was it worth it? Australia’s niche approach Australian politicians and policy makers were always risk-averse about the commitment. Eager to avoid casualties on the scale of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War (where 500 Australians were killed), successive governments opted to make niche contributions that relied on critical support and leadership from US and other allies. But never wanting to manage everything itself left Australia vulnerable. For example, Australia handed detainees to Afghan authorities who, soon enough released them. Some of these, it appears, ended up fighting against Australians again. With special forces, in particular, undertaking rotation […]

The importance of press freedom

The importance of a free press to a thriving democracy is well-known. But what is its importance to a thriving economy? Attacks on press freedom – such as jailing journalists, raiding their homes, shutting down printing presses, and using libel laws to thwart reporters – have measurable effects on economic growth. Countries that recorded a decrease in press freedom also experienced a 1%-2% drop in real gross domestic product (GDP) growth. Economies may not bounce back Institutions that uphold a “rule of law” are strongly associated with stronger economic performance. Most significantly is the long-term economic impost of undermining a free press. Freedom House’s own research suggests “press freedom can rebound from even lengthy stints of repression when given the opportunity”: The basic desire for democratic liberties, including access to honest and fact-based journalism, can never be extinguished. But this rebound does not translate to the economy. In nations where freedoms were removed, and then restored, economic growth does not fully recover. That’s a significant point at a time when economic frustration is contributing to waning enthusiasm for democracy, increasing distrust of legacy media, and the rise of populist and authoritarian governments taking action to control the news media. Throughout Asia there has been a tightening of press freedoms. In Hong Kong, new security laws threaten to snuff out independent media. In Myanmar, publications have been silenced and journalists arrested. In Malaysia, journalists have been harassed and jailed for criticising the government. In the Philippines, respected investigative journalist Maria Ressa has been detained ten times in two years and convicted of “cyberlibel” under controversial laws. In India, the world’s largest democracy, the Modi government has curbed press freedoms. These aren’t just issues for other countries. Australia might look relatively free, particularly compared with near neighbours. But recent years has seen Australian Federal Police raids on journalists homes and the new restrictive national security […]

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Sea levels rising fastest in big cities

It is well known that climate-induced sea level rise is a major threat. What is less well know is the threat of sinking land. And in many of the most populated coastal areas, the land is sinking even faster than the sea is rising. Parts of Tokyo for instance sank by 4 metres during the 20th century, with 2 metres or more of sinking reported in Shanghai, Bangkok, and New Orleans. This process is known as subsidence. Slow subsidence happens naturally in river deltas, and it can be accelerated by the extraction of groundwater, oil or gas which causes the soil to consolidate and the surface to lose elevation. Subsidence leads to relative sea level rise (sea level rise plus land sinking). It turns croplands salty, damages buildings, causes widespread flooding and can even mean the loss of entire coastal areas. Subsidence can threaten flooding in low-lying coastal areas, much more so than rising sea levels, yet scientists are only just realising the global implications of the threat with respect to coastal cities. In fact, while the average coastal area experiences relative sea level rise of less than 3mm per year, the average coastal resident experiences a rise of around 8mm to 10mm per year. This is because so many people live in deltas and especially cities on deltas that are subsiding. That’s the key finding of our new research, where we analysed how fast cities are sinking across the world and compared them with global subsidence data including less densely populated coastlines. People often choose to live in river deltas, floodplains and other areas that were already prone to sinking, and in doing so will further enhance subsidence. In particular, subsiding cities contain more than 150 million people in the coastal zone – that’s roughly 20% of people in […]

Nick

-by Michael Farris Smith Michael Farris Smith takes the narrator of The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway, and imagines his life prior to the events of the classic novel. The first part of the story is set during WW1 and follows Nick’s fortunes on the front line in France – a long nightmare of bloody battles and constant fear. During short periods of leave in Paris he strikes up a relationship with Ella, a nomadic free spirit ….. an affair, that in his damaged state becomes all consuming. Psychologically broken, Nick can’t face going home as the war comes to an end. He detours, randomly to New Orleans and enters a sleazy, pre prohibition world of chancers, prostitutes, drugs and abject poverty. Nick falls in with some dangerous and desperate characters and a twisted drama plays out that has some strange echoes of the Great Gatsby storyline. In an introduction to the book MFS discusses his writing life, his bouts of depression and why he was drawn to Nick Carraway as a character (he too was a dislocated ex pat feeling his life was running away from him) and it’s interesting how these elements become important themes in the book. In The Great Gatsby Nick is an integral part of the plot but is also slightly detached, an honest outsider observing those around him, not quite connecting. In this novel his relationship to the story and characters felt similar. This was probably intended, but I wanted to know him more and really get under his skin. His PTSD, emotional background and family life were well described but I still felt he was an enigma. I never felt that I fully understood his actions. Michael Farris Smith is a very good writer and creates a convincing picture of post WW1 New Orleans. […]

Technologies-of-control-figure The Mirror website

Break up big tech, make it fairer

With billions of people now members of social media networks such as Facebook and the all-pervasiveness of big tech throughout many aspects of our lives, conversations about digital citizenship have never been more important. Seeta Peña Gangadharan writes that despite efforts by the Obama administration in the late 2000s to improve digital citizenship, the US information economy has now become one characterised by surveillance, targeting, nudging, and manipulation so that digital technologies represent a control rather than an opportunity. For people to be able to exercise a right to refuse these technologies, she argues, we need to reinvent what it means to practice civil disobedience in the digital era. Watch Professor Gangadharan’s recent TEDxLondon talk. It’s about time that we renewed a conversation about what it means an active digital citizen in the 21stcentury. The current conditions of our data-driven economy demand that we explore ways to deny technologies the possibility to control us. Unfortunately, Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, which was the Obama Administration’s signature digital inclusion policy effort, marks the last time the US government paid close attention to digital citizenship. Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009), the program channeled $4.7 billion aimed to drive economic prosperity, drive educational attainment, and create a more inclusive digital citizenry. But the history of the program reveals a cruel irony. While many—myself included—celebrated this policy as a means to meaningful participation in digital society (see here and here for examples), the toxic subprime loan industry and the historic financial crisis—which led to the Recovery Act and subsequent establishment of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program—provided a clue of what was to come in the country’s next chapter of the information economy: surveillance, targeting, nudging, and manipulation. As I’ve written elsewhere, the toxic subprime financial crisis relied on a thriving network of actors who helped enable demand for an inherently […]

The Mirror

2021 Media Kit is now available. Please email publisher@xtra.co.nz if you require a copy.

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Myanmar’s military reverts to its old strong-arm behaviour

Just before the newly elected members of Myanmar’s parliament were due to be sworn in today, the military detained the country’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi; the president, Win Myint; and other key figures from the elected ruling party, the National League for Democracy. The military later announced it had taken control of the country for 12 months and declared a state of emergency. This is a coup d’etat, whether the military calls it that or not. A disputed election and claims of fraud In November, the NLD and Suu Kyi won a landslide victory in national elections, with the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) faring poorly in its key strongholds. Humiliated by the result, the USDP alleged the election was subject to widespread fraud. However, international observers, including the Carter Center, the Asian Network for Free Elections and the European Union’s Election Observation Mission, all declared the elections a success. The EU’s preliminary statement noted that 95% of observers had rated the process “good” or “very good. Yet, taking a page out of former US President Donald Trump’s book, the USDP pressed its claims of fraud despite the absence of any substantial evidence — a move designed to undermine the legitimacy of the elections. The military did not initially back the USDP’s claims, but it has gradually begun to provide the party with more support, with the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, General Min Aung Hlaing, refusing to rule out a coup last week. The following day, the country’s election authorities broke weeks of silence and firmly rejected the USDP’s claims of widespread fraud. [Myanmar’s] most acute constitutional crisis since the abolition of the old junta in 2010. The civilian-military power-sharing arrangement It is difficult to see how the military will benefit from today’s actions, since the power-sharing arrangement it had struck with the NLD under the 2008 constitution had already allowed […]

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