Our government is apparently seeing China as a threat in the Asia Pacific region, hence our $375 billion AUKUS agreement with the US and UK. But is China really a threat to Australia or the region? How do other countries in the region view China and our agreement with the USA? What are our options?’

Speakers at the webinar will be Sam Roggeveen and Prof Jocelyn Chey.

Sam Roggeveen

Sam Roggeveen is Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program. He is the author of The Echidna Strategy: Australia’s Search for Power and Peace, published by La Trobe University Press in 2023.

Before joining the Lowy Institute, Sam was a senior strategic analyst in Australia’s peak intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments, where his work dealt mainly with North Asian strategic affairs, including nuclear strategy and Asian military forces. Sam also worked on arms control policy in Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs, and as an analyst in the Defence Intelligence Organisation.

Sam has a long-standing interest in politics and political philosophy, and in 2019 he wrote Our Very Own Brexit: Australia’s Hollow Politics and Where it Could Lead Us, about the hollowing out of Western democracy and its implications for Australia. 

Sam writes for newspapers and magazines in Australia and around the world, and is a regular commentator on the Lowy Institute’s digital magazine, The Interpreter, of which he was the founding editor from 2007 to 2014.

Professor Jocelyn Chey

Professor Jocelyn Chey AM is an Adjunct Professor at the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS:ACRI).

Professor Chey is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Sydney and an Adjunct Professor at the Australia-China Institute for Arts and Culture at Western Sydney University.  She is a former senior diplomat specialising in Australia-China relations. Professor Chey moved from the University of Sydney to Canberra in 1973 when Australia first established diplomatic relations with China and worked in the Departments of Trade and Foreign Affairs for more than twenty years. She was posted three times in China and Hong Kong, concluding with an appointment as Consul-General in Hong Kong (1992-1995). She was the key administrative officer in the Australia-China Council at the time that it was founded in 1979. Professor Chey is a frequent speaker and lecturer on Chinese affairs. She was awarded an Australia-China Council Medal for contributions to the development of relations between Australia and China in November 2008. She is a Fellow of the Institute of International Affairs and was awarded the Order of Australia (AM) in 2009 for her community service and contribution to the development of relations with China.