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182. The internet of things: China’s rise and Australia’s choices
- Author:
- John Lee
- Publication Date:
- 12-2021
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Lowy Institute for International Policy
- Abstract:
- The Internet of Things (IoT) is connecting a growing range of economic and social activity across national borders, while simultaneously expanding the security challenges implied by these connections, including to Chinese state power. Despite US-led efforts to exclude Chinese actors from digital networks worldwide, the economies of East and Southeast Asia are becoming more densely integrated with China through evolving IoT ecosystems and supply chains. These trends threaten to disadvantage Australia and require policies to build up the country’s own technological capacities while devising innovative ways to manage, rather than avoid, the risks entailed in growing digital connections with China.
- Topic:
- Security, Economics, Science and Technology, Internet of Things, and Supply Chains
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, Australia, and United States of America
183. Lines blurred: Chinese community organisations in Australia
- Author:
- Jennifer Hsu, Richard McGregor, and Natasha Kassam
- Publication Date:
- 11-2021
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Lowy Institute for International Policy
- Abstract:
- Australia’s foreign interference debate and the souring of bilateral relations between China and Australia has left many Chinese-Australians and their community organisations caught in a contest for their loyalty. The Chinese Party-state actively reaches out to overseas Chinese communities, in Australia and elsewhere, to promote China’s political interests and economic development, with mixed results. Australia’s efforts to combat this outreach have also had mixed results. A survey of Chinese-Australians found that many believed the new anti-foreign interference laws helped to protect community members from Beijing’s overtures. However, a greater number said attacks on the community in Australia — political, verbal, and sometimes physical — had alienated Chinese-Australians and in some cases made them more receptive to messages critical of Australia. Many Chinese-Australians said they had little or no engagement with Chinese community organisations. The newer organisations in particular, which often have closer economic ties to China, were not considered to be representative of broader community sentiment. The area in which community associations were reported to have the greatest traction was in promoting business opportunities in China.
- Topic:
- Bilateral Relations, Foreign Interference, and Community Organizing
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, and Australia
184. Translating tension: Chinese-language media in Australia
- Author:
- Fan Yang
- Publication Date:
- 09-2021
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Lowy Institute for International Policy
- Abstract:
- Chinese-language media outlets in Australia are more likely to support Australian government policy than Chinese government policy when reporting on tensions in the Australia–China relationship, but editorialise to soften or remove criticism of China and the Chinese government. This is, in part, because Chinese-language media outlets in Australia produce little original content, and instead translate and reproduce the majority of their content from Australian, rather than Chinese, news sources. Chinese-language media professionals say they prefer to re-publish Australian content because this helps Chinese migrants integrate into society. However, self-censorship is embedded in these media organisations’ editorial processes. This is particularly the case for Chinese-language media outlets whose content is distributed to mainland China via WeChat, news apps, and websites. Outlets self-censor out of concerns for a loss of market share and reprisals from Beijing.
- Topic:
- Diaspora, Media, News Analysis, and Translation
- Political Geography:
- China, Australia, and Asia-Pacific
185. Australia and the growing reach of China’s military
- Author:
- Thomas Shugart
- Publication Date:
- 08-2021
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Lowy Institute for International Policy
- Abstract:
- China’s recent military development constitutes the greatest expansion of maritime and aerospace power in generations and is most obviously seen in its expanding long-range missile force, bomber force, and modernising blue-water navy. While Australia’s defence interests and territorial integrity are largely unthreatened for now, a future Indo-Pacific dominated by China would present a grave possibility of military coercion by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The prospect of Chinese military action against Australia remains remote. But China has the military and industrial potential to field a long-range power projection capacity that would dwarf anything Japan threatened Australia with during the Second World War.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Armed Forces, Maritime, Military, and Aerospace
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, and Australia
186. Economic impact of illicit tobacco in Australia
- Author:
- Oxford Economics
- Publication Date:
- 12-2021
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Oxford Economics
- Abstract:
- This report commissioned by British American Tobacco Australia, examines the size of the illicit market as well as the economic effects of that market on the national economy. Gains to illicit traders and the potential impact of issues such as money laundering are also discussed. In total, we estimate around $4.9 billion in revenue was lost by the legal economy to the illicit economy by the illicit tobacco trade in 2019. Of the $4.9 billion lost to the legal economy in 2019, we estimate some $2.1 billion flowed to illicit operators.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Economics, Tobacco, and Illegal Trade
- Political Geography:
- Australia
187. Civil Resistance Against Climate Change
- Author:
- Robyn Gulliver, Kelly Fielding, and Winnifred Louis
- Publication Date:
- 09-2021
- Content Type:
- Book
- Institution:
- International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC)
- Abstract:
- Transnational movements using nonviolent resistance tactics to demand action on climate change have emerged from a foundation of decades of persistent and diverse environmental activism. What are the features of this nonviolent resistance that differentiate it from previous activism? What response is this resistance prompting from political and financial entities? To investigate these questions this monograph combines a large-scale longitudinal data set on climate activism in Australia with two case studies of nonviolent resistance against corporations. The study offers key lessons for a range of individuals and groups, from climate activists and civil society organizations to academics and others interested in supporting nonviolent action against climate change. In doing so, it addresses major gaps in our understanding of the effectiveness of civil resistance against climate change and the potential this resistance holds to prompt urgent action.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, transnationalism, Resistance, Nonviolence, and Activim
- Political Geography:
- Australia
188. Influence for hire. The Asia-Pacific’s online shadow economy
- Author:
- Jacob Wallis, Ariel Bogle, Albert Zhang, and Hillary Mansour
- Publication Date:
- 08-2021
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
- Abstract:
- It’s not just nation-states that interfere in elections and manipulate political discourse. A range of commercial services increasingly engage in such activities, operating in a shadow online influence-for-hire economy that spans from content farms through to high-end PR agencies. There’s growing evidence of states using commercial influence-for-hire networks. The Oxford Internet Institute found 48 instances of states working with influence-for-hire firms in 2019–20, an increase from 21 in 2017–18 and nine in 2016–17. There’s a distinction between legitimate, disclosed political campaigning and government advertising campaigns, on the one hand, and efforts by state actors to covertly manipulate the public opinion of domestic populations or citizens of other countries using inauthentic social media activity, on the other. The use of covert, inauthentic, outsourced online influence is also problematic as it degrades the quality of the public sphere in which citizens must make informed political choices and decisions. The Asia–Pacific region contains many states in different stages of democratisation. Many have transitioned to democratic forms of governance from authoritarian regimes. Some have weak political institutions, limitations on independent media and fragile civil societies. The rapid rate of digital penetration in the region layered over that political context leaves populations vulnerable to online manipulation. In fragile democratic contexts, the prevalence of influence-for-hire operations and their leverage by agents of the state is particularly problematic, given the power imbalance between citizens and the state. A surplus of cheap digital labour makes the Asia–Pacific a focus for operators in this economy, and this report examines the regional influence-for-hire marketplace using case studies of online manipulation in the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan and Australia. Governments and other entities in the region contract such services to target and influence their own populations in ways that aren’t transparent and that may inhibit freedom of political expression by drowning out dissenting voices. Several governments have introduced anti-fake-news legislation that has the potential to inhibit civic discourse by limiting popular political dissent or constraining the independence of the media from the state. These trends risk damaging the quality of civic engagement in the region’s emerging democracies.
- Topic:
- Elections, Labor Market, and Shadow Economy
- Political Geography:
- Australia and Asia-Pacific
189. Buying and selling extremism: New funding opportunities in the right-wing extremist online ecosystem
- Author:
- Ariel Bogle
- Publication Date:
- 08-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
- Abstract:
- As mainstream social media companies have increased their scrutiny and moderation of right-wing extremist (RWE) content and groups, there’s been a move to alternative online content platforms. There’s also growing concern about right-wing extremism in Australia, and about how this shift has diversified the mechanisms used to fundraise by RWE entities. This phenomenon isn’t well understood in Australia, despite the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) advising in March 2021 that ‘ideological extremism’ now makes up around 40% of its priority counterterrorism caseload. Research by ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) has found that nine Australian Telegram channels that share RWE content used at least 22 different funding platforms, including online monetisation tools and cryptocurrencies, to solicit, process and earn funds between 1 January 2021 and 15 July 2021. Due to the opaque nature of many online financial platforms, it’s difficult to obtain a complete picture of online fundraising, so this sample is necessarily limited. However, in this report we aim to provide a preliminary map of the online financial platforms and services that may both support and incentivise an RWE content ecosystem in Australia. Most funding platforms found in our sample have policies that explicitly prohibit the use of their services for hate speech, but we found that those policies were often unclear and not uniformly enforced. Of course, there’s debate about how to balance civil liberties with the risks posed by online communities that promote RWE ideology (and much of that activity isn’t illegal), but a better understanding of online funding mechanisms is necessary, given the growing concern about the role online propaganda may play in inspiring acts of violence as well as the risk that, like other social divisions, such channels and movements could be exploited by adversaries. The fundraising facilitated by these platforms not only has the potential to grow the resources of groups and individuals linked to right-wing extremism, but it’s also likely to be a means of building the RWE community both within Australia and with overseas groups and a vector for spreading RWE propaganda through the engagement inherent in fundraising efforts. The funding platforms mirror those used by RWE figures overseas, and funding requests were boosted by foreign actors, continuing Australian RWEs’ history of ‘meaningful international exchange’ with overseas counterparts.
- Topic:
- Internet, Social Media, Far Right, and Political Extremism
- Political Geography:
- Australia and Global Focus
190. New beginnings: Rethinking business and trade in an era of strategic clarity and rolling disruption
- Author:
- John Coyne, Gill Savage, and Michael Shoebridge
- Publication Date:
- 09-2021
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
- Abstract:
- This special report considers the relationship between our business and trade positioning in the context of the impacts of Covid, natural disasters and the actions of coercive trading partners. Global economic integration has enabled the spread of ideas, products, people and investment at never before seen speed. International free trade has been a goal of policy-makers and academics for generations, allowing and fostering innovation and growth. We saw the mechanism shudder in 2008 when the movement of money faltered; the disruption brought about by COVID-19 has seen a much more multi-dimensional failure of the systems by which we share and move. The unstoppable conveyor belt of our global supply chain has ground to a halt. This time, what will we learn? ASPI’s latest research identifies factors that have led to the erosion of Australia’s policy and planning capacity, while detailing the strengths of our national responses to recent crises. The authors recommend an overhaul of our current business and trade policy settings, with a view to building an ‘agenda that invests in what we’re good at and what we need, values what we have and builds the future we want.’ The authors examine the vulnerabilities in Australia’s national security, resilience and sovereignty in relation to supply chains and the intersection of the corporate sector and government. To protect Australia’s business interests and national sovereignty, the report highlights recent paradigm shifts in geopolitics, whereby economic and trade priorities are increasingly relevant to the national security discussion.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, National Security, Business, Trade, COVID-19, and Disaster Management
- Political Geography:
- Australia and Global Focus