Bertil Wenger

Director, Regional Office of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung for Australia, New Zealand and the Southern Pacific

Bertil Wenger is the director of the regional office of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung for Australia, New Zealand and the Southern Pacific since 2021. He is a lawyer by profession with more than 20-years of experience in policy consulting in the German Bundestag, public affairs companies and the CDU Headquarters in Berlin, where he was Director of International Relations from 2011 – 2021. His fields of experience include international relations and party developments, as well as foreign and security policy.

Volkmar Klein

Member of German Bundestag and Chair of German-Pacific Parliamentary Friendship Group

Volkmar Klein is a German politician from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and has been a member of the Bundestag since 2009, where he chairs the German-Pacific Friendship Group and the Economic Cooperation and Development Task Force of the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group. Before joining the Bundestag, he served in the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament (1995–2009) and was previously the mayor of Burbach (1992–1996). Prior to his political career, Klein held roles in business consulting and healthcare management.

Professor Gordon Flake

Chief Executive Officer, Perth USAsia Centre

Gordon Flake has spent twenty-five years in the US foreign policy community focused on the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia and now ten years in Australia’s Indian Ocean capital and is considered an expert on key strategic relationships in the broader Indo-Pacific. He has authored many scholarly and policy studies on security developments in the region, and their policy implications for the US and its regional partners. He is a Governor of the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia (AmCham) and serves on the board of the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. Prior to joining the Centre, he was the Executive Director of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, an Associate Director of the Program on Conflict Resolution at The Atlantic Council of the United States, and Director for Research and Academic Affairs at the Korea Economic Institute of America.

Why does the Australia-China relationship matter?

Navigating Australia’s relationship with China has never been more complex. It remains a vital trading partner and is critical to global supply chains. At the same time, its assertive behaviour in the Indo-Pacific, including in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, is fuelling fears of a conflict in Australia’s near neighbourhood. Dr Herscovitch explains why Australia’s relationship with China matters.

What is derisking?

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the problems that can emerge from relying on globalised supply chains when these supply chains are disrupted by international events. For example, in Australia, COVID-related supply chain disruptions reduced the access to medicine because medicine was imported rather than produced domestically.

Similarly, China now dominates supply chains for key minerals that are required to produce everyday products (from microwaves to smartphones and TVs). As China has exploited this dominance and showed its willingness to cut off supplies, Australia and its partners have sought to reduce dependencies on China.

How is Australia leading the way in critical minerals?

How is Australia leading the way in critical minerals? Ian Satchwell explains.