Roundtable with Professor Hugh White

On Thursday 17 November 2022, the Perth USAsia Centre convened a roundtable discussion with Professor Hugh White, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University with attendees from business, government and academia.  

The Indo-Pacific is vital to Australia’s future, but with growing geostrategic and geoeconomic competition between the US and China, regional uncertainty poses threats to Australia’s national interests.
 
As Australia seeks to reassesses its regional strategic engagement, it will be critical to consider how great power competition will define Australia’s future, and its defence policy going forward. Having recently authored an edition of the Quarterly Essay titled Sleepwalk to War, Professor White joined us for a timely discussion on how Australia should respond to complicated regional dynamics.

Conversation assessed regional trends such as the projected growth of both India and China, and the implication this will have for Australia’s strategic interests. A relative decline of US influence in the Indo-Pacific has created a pressing need for Australia to reassess its regional ambitions. With the current growth trajectories of India and China, the region will become more multipolar, leaving Australia positioned uniquely between both India and China’s spheres of influence.