Russia’s invasion of Ukraine poses the starkest challenge to world order since the Cold War, but China’s ambitions in Asia raise even bigger questions, especially for Australia.  Can we continue to rely on America to keep Asia stable and Australia safe in future, as we have done for so long? And if not, how should we prepare to make out way in the very different Asia of the 21^st Century?   

Professor Hugh White AO FASSA is Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra.  He spent much of his career in the Australian Government, including as International Relations Advisor to Prime Minister Bob Hawke and Deputy Secretary for Strategy in the Department of Defence.  He was the founding Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and from 2004 to 2011 he was Head of ANU’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. His major publications include Power Shift: Australia’s future between Washington and Beijing, [2010], The China Choice: Why America should share power, [2012], Without America: Australia’s future in the New Asia [2017], and How to defend Australia [2019].  In the 1970s he studied philosophy at the universities of Melbourne and Oxford.