This chapter examines security and Australian foreign policy during 2016–2020 using two strands. It shows that Australia confronted both the ‘high politics’ issues that are the stuff of traditional foreign policy, as well as the unconventional security challenges to which Australia had to adapt. We begin by considering Australia’s conventional security politics, and the three consistent strands in Australia’s security thinking: how Australia fits into a world of super powers and the balancing act it must conduct to do so; relatedly, its alliance with the Unitd States; and Australia’s role in multilateral organisations. We then assess the so-called ‘unconventional’ security issues and their impact on Australian national security. Our analysis reveals that Australia’s responses to unconventional threats were increasingly conventional and relied on domestic tools to solve international problems. Some new threats seemed to bring international tools, like the military, to bear on domestic problems. Moreover, we demonstrate that the security environment was increasingly defined by the ‘grey zone’ – acts that reside between war and peace and take on unconventional forms.

This chapter describes the re-emergence of great-power competition between the United States and China, discusses how it reshaped the external environment and strategic space for Australia’s foreign policy, and examines how Canberra responded to it between 2016 and 2020.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) brought to greater prominence a question that has long vexed Australian foreign policy-makers: could they avoid choosing between the US security alliance and Australia’s complementary economic ties with China? Given the immense political capital invested in the BRI by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, it was perhaps inevitable that Australia – like many other countries – had to declare its position. By so doing, however, Australia was forced to reckon with an issue that pitted its security interests directly against its economic ones. This chapter traces Australia’s evolving position on the BRI from 2016 to 2020, its interrelated justifications for rejecting the BRI, and the political and economic consequences of the decision. We show that debate over the BRI disrupted a longstanding consensus about the centrality of free trade and investment to Australian foreign economic policy. The BRI, we argue, signified a turning away from Australia’s previously enthusiastic support for global free trade to a more qualified security-sensitive approach.

Between 2016 and 2020 the Australian government established a regional health security diplomacy project, known as the Indo–Pacific Centre for Health Security. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the initiative looked prescient. Its roots, however, could be traced back to Australia’s engagement with health security in the early 2000s. Then, as now, the government aligned its foreign policy agenda with health – specifically emerging infectious diseases – as a ‘scaled up’ approach comprising diplomatic, aid, and research and development. To explain Australia’s evolving relationship with health security this chapter proceeds in four parts. First, health security is situated with the recent tradition of ‘non-traditional security’. The second part examines the establishment of health security as a core theme in Australia’s response to global challenges. The third part turns to the government’s strategy and especially the Indo–Pacific Centre for Health Security both before and during the COVID-19 era. Finally, the chapter examines how Australia conceptualised its leadership role in regional health security.

This chapter argues that in the period under review, Australia’s foreign-policymaking faced a number of challenges, most notably in its handling of bilateral relations with China, which took a significant turn for the worse. Unfortunately, this was also a time when Australians of Chinese heritage made little contribution to foreign policy. Despite Australia’s multicultural identity and a professed embrace of the strength and diversity of its growing migrant populations, low numbers of Chinese Australians were working in government and politics. By drawing on data from the 2019 Lowy Institute Poll on Australian attitudes towards the world, this chapter argues that Asian Australians had different views on foreign policy compared to those born in Australia. If Australia is to truly embrace its growing migrant population to engage confidently with its Asian neighbours, the chapter concludes, the views of Asian Australians in political debates and policymaking matters need to be formally recognised through greater representation.

From 2016 to 2020 Australia put in place new legislation to counter perceived threats to Australia’s security, including the National Security (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Act 2018 (Cth) (‘Foreign Interference Act’), Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act 2018 (Cth) (‘FITS’) and Australia’s Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Act 2020 (Cth) (‘Foreign Relations Act’). These domestic laws, which are enforced by the police and other security agencies, were presented as a response to foreign interference in Australian politics and democracy, especially by the People’s Republic of China. During the same period, Australia’s relationship with China deteriorated markedly, including a freeze on high-level contacts and trade retaliation. This chapter focuses on the impact of these new domestic laws on Australia’s international relations and assesses whether they were a significant factor in the worsening of Australia–China relations during this period.

Values and gender are an increasingly established part of Australian foreign policy. This chapter explores their role in Australia’s engagement in the world from 2016 to 2020. We argue that gender equality continued to serve as a tangible expression of Australian identity and values in foreign policy, informing Australia’s key international alliances and relationships. First, we analyse the construction and expression of national identity through the values Australia projected in its foreign policy and international relations, and how these values evolved. Next, we focus on who represented Australia and how Australia was represented in foreign policy through its diplomacy, security and development relationships. We also analyse how Australia distinguished itself from other states, which we illustrate with reference to the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. Third, we critically examine the soft power aspect of Australian foreign policy, and how values and gender equality principles were used to enhance Australia’s reputation.

Between 2016 and 2020 Australia’s foreign and strategic policy became more tightly focused on South-East Asia and the Pacific, which it identified as its ‘immediate region’. This reflected the government’s concern about the strategic consequences of emerging great-power competition, and particularly the assumption that China’s presence in these subregions equated to greater influence. While this assumption influenced Australia’s strategic and foreign policy choices, it was largely untested. Australia responded by increasing its engagement in both subregions to solidify its relationships, bolster its influence, and reassure its regional partners of its continued commitment. But Australia had different geostrategic perceptions and interests than South-East Asia and the Pacific. Its failure to acknowledge the agency of these neighbours sometimes led to counterproductive strategic and foreign policy decisions.

The period from 2016 to 2020 was dominated by the rivalry between China and the United States, and by Australia’s relative position amid this rivalry. At the same time, a debate about how to combat climate change and its role in foreign affairs took place in the backdrop to this great-power rivalry. In this chapter we examine the interaction of political and public commentary around these three issues – the United States, China and climate change – with the insights available from polling data. We also examine how opinion on these issues fed into ongoing and longstanding debates. Our results suggest that there was both continuity and change in public opinion on international affairs between 2016 and 2020. Trust in the two great powers declined significantly. At the same time, support for Australia’s military alliance with the US remained strong. In terms of threat perceptions, concerns around climate change remained high, reflecting a lack of policy certainty and a failure to act decisively at the federal level. Accompanying this steady trend of high concern around climate-based security risks was a sharp increase in the perception of China as a potential threat to Australian security interests.

This chapter examines Australia’s perspectives and strategies on the rules-based order between 2016 and 2020. Australian understanding of the rules-based order were built on US supremacy as well as US-led multilateral institutions, but China’s rise posed serious challenges to both the power configuration and the institutional foundation of that order. Australian leaders believed that the United States would enjoy military advantage over China for decades, so Australia adopted a series of balancing strategies to cope with China’s challenges under the Coalition government. This was evident in a higher military budget, stronger security cooperation with the Quad countries, support for ASEAN’s centrality to Asian diplomacy, coordination of an infrastructure coalition in the South Pacific, and a campaign against the CCP’s ‘sharp power’. Australia pursued balancing strategies against China to defend the existing order, despite the attendant risks to its national interests.

This chapter examines how the ‘Indo–Pacific’ concept became entrenched as the primary frame of reference for Australian regional security between 2016 and 2020. It first briefly reviews the process by which the ‘Asia–Pacific’ descriptor was jettisoned in favour of the ‘Indo–Pacific’ to capture Australia’s conception of its region and its place therein, and how this affected related policies. The chapter next examines Australia’s efforts to engage the region’s major powers, as well as the sub-regions of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, to illustrate how the Indo–Pacific framework governed Australia’s approach to regional security. Australia’s enunciation of the Indo–Pacific concept, the chapter shows, facilitated closer relations with the US, Japan and India, but it created frictions with China and gained only limited acceptance in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.

This chapter is concerned with how the foreign policy process developed during the period 2016–20 and how it interacted with and was shaped by the return of great-power politics. In particular, the chapter examines the foreign policy process through the lens of three main developments: the significant change in Australia’s approach to the People’s Republic of China in the context of growing Sino-American rivalry, the dominance of security in Australian foreign policy, and the adoption of the Indo-Pacific strategic construct. The chapter examines each of these in turn. Its conclusion reflects on what each of these developments tells us about the foreign policy process and in particular the role of key institutions, actors such as think tanks, parliament and the media, as well as individuals have played during this period.

Between 2016 and 2020, Australia began to feel the effects of international pressure on climate change and struggled to articulate a convincing public case that its failure to take decisive action was consistent with national interests and values. This chapter asks how and why the government found itself in this seemingly unsustainable position, and the role that Australia’s approach to climate change played in its foreign policy more generally. It first discusses Australia’s approach to the international climate regime and the commitments made under the Paris agreement, before examining the impact of the leadership change from Turnbull to Morrison and election outcomes within Australia. The third section examines the domestic pressure for political action on climate change, especially during the 2019–20 bushfires and their aftermath, before shifting to a focus on the international pressure that Australia faced. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the state of climate politics and policy in Australia, and the possibility of moving beyond the ‘toxic politics’ of climate change that have long plagued Australia’s engagement with this issue.