The creation of multilateral institutions was the natural response to the horrific destruction wrought during World War II. As global attention swings to New York with the UN General Assembly leaders’ week kicking off on Monday, it’s worth remembering the principled protection that multilateral institutions have for generations offered against malign behaviour by rogue states and bullies that want to bend the international system to suit themselves at the expense of others. 

Yet today, these institutions are failing to protect free and fair trade, dignified labour, human rights, orderly migration, non-proliferation of indiscriminate weapons and other shared goals. The multilateral system, in short, is failing right at the time we need it to respond to a world in which major state conflict is back and nations are testing international rules and the institutions themselves.  

The answer is not to give up and let the multilateral system, including the United Nations and the many organisations that sit under it, be taken over and weaponised by authoritarian powers like China and Russia. Some form of global co-operation will continue to exist. If rule-abiding states vacate the field, it will be left to those who want to bend and distort these institutions so that they unilaterally suit these powerful players’ narrow causes and ultimately prop up their illiberal systems of government. 

The answer, rather, is to do the hard work to reform these institutions, to make them legitimate and relevant so that they serve the majority of nations that want a functioning international system that respects the rights and interests of all states, large and small. As the institutions re-energise, they can compel the attention of capitals that multilateralism is worth the investment of time and resources, creating a virtuous cycle that serves all our interests. 

Yet what we are seeing is that nations and industries are prioritising unilateral policies and minilateral groupings that are proving more agile in adapting to modern day realities over engagement in New York and Geneva. 

We are in this miserable situation because liberal democracies have been complacent about the infallibility of institutional power, failing to recognise that institutions are only as strong as the determination of their most active members. Meanwhile, authoritarian nations led by China and Russia, and supported by the likes of Iran, have identified and exploited structural weaknesses, reshaping the institutions, bending the rules and co-opting or coercing smaller and more vulnerable member states. Some of these smaller states, it is true, have historically felt they weren’t being heard—again a problem that engagement by rule-abiding countries could help rectify by putting greater effort into inclusive reform. 

Beijing has been especially adept at constructive sabotage from within. After being allowed to join institutions without being required to meet appropriate standards—as an optimistic world hoped a growing China would also be a liberalising China—it then proceeded to weaken key institutions from within. 

It has offered unprecedented numbers of what are known as Junior Professional Officers to UN secretariats while also vying to put Chinese nationals in senior roles, effectively stacking the organisations. This has meant that discussions on Beijing’s malign activities are shut down, often before they begin. And when recommendations are made, their implementation is blocked. 

It’s worth pointing out a distinction here from the way the United States has acted as a permanent member of the Security Council, such as vetoing resolutions supporting full UN membership for a state of Palestine. The US does not seek to quash the drafting and discussion of resolutions before they ever see the light of day. It votes against measures that it cannot support—and if its P5 power status is a matter of frustration for other nations, that’s a question of the need for long term reform. 

Tough love will be needed to fix these institutions, starting with acknowledgement of the problem. Unlike the US, Beijing is breaching just about every international rule it has signed onto, including in space, cyberspace, the maritime domain—below and above water—through covert foreign interference in democratic institutions, transnational repression and most recently in the supply of dual-use goods and manufacturing equipment to support Russia’s illegal war on Ukraine.  

Human rights abuses in Xinjiang are a case in point. In 2022, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet released a report on her last day in office that found human rights violations were being committed against Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim communities, which might constitute crimes against humanity. But discussion of the report has been voted down and there seems an unwillingness even to try to act.  

Despite the OHCHR’s findings about human slavery, China was allowed to ratify two International Labour Organization conventions on Forced Labour and the Abolition of Forced Labour that said China was committed to ending the practice but, incredibly, required no actions from Beijing. 

Then there’s the World Trade Organization, which is supposed to stand for free and fair trade. Yet the body and its member states seem to work harder to explain why such unfair practices as economic coercion and intellectual property theft fall outside its remit than it does trying to adapt to capture these trade-related abuses. Every serious strategic thinker now accepts we can no longer treat economics and security separately, and yet our global institutions are failing to catch up. 

This helps explain why countries are losing faith in the WTO’s mechanisms. The European Union launched a case against China for clear economic coercion of Lithuania. But it has suspended its action, apparently fearing that it would lose the case because China’s conduct is beyond the WTO’s remit.  

Countries that believe in multilateralism need to back the key organisations by demonstrating their faith in them. Australia missed a chance to do this when it withdrew its two WTO cases against China—on barley and wine—as a misguided gesture to Beijing to help ‘stabilise’ the relationship. Likewise, Brussels could have seen its Lithuania case through and, if it ended in a technical dismissal, pointed to the failure as a demonstration of the need for WTO reform. 

Rebuilding trust in international institutions also means member countries posting representatives to Geneva and New York who firmly believe in their missions and purpose—not people who are cynical about multilateralism or who maintain a quixotic and antiquated view of multilateralism. 

Institutions need staff with expertise in both foreign affairs and security. Having such staff defending these institutions from within, and pushing the tough but necessary reform, would be the most effective way to ensure they are fit for purpose. These believers need to be our megaphones on the importance of the rules, the need to defend them, and the importance of holding states to account for non-compliance. 

In parallel, we should continue to strengthen minilateral groupings to demonstrate that collective action is possible, and to achieve outcomes that might remain simply out of reach of much bigger global institutions. 

For NATO, it took the crisis of Russia’s war on Ukraine to revive its sense of purpose and unity.  

Having China and Russia working together and constantly breaching international norms, rules and laws ought to be enough to encourage other countries to put some elbow grease into resourcing and reforming multilateral institutions in the name of global security and prosperity. 

China has recently made two provocative military incursions into Japanese territory in just a week, with a surveillance plane breaching airspace on 26 August and a survey ship entering territorial waters on 31 August.

On 5 September, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles will host their Japanese counterparts for 2+2 consultations. They should use the opportunity to call out China’s aggressive behaviour, rectifying Canberra’s tardiness and laying down a marker that such breaches of international rules will be met by a collective response.

We must not become desensitised to, nor casually dismiss, Beijing’s provocations. While Chinese survey ships and submarines have entered Japanese waters before, this was the first time that a Chinese military aircraft has violated Japan’s territorial airspace.

Unlike the disputed Senkaku Islands near Taiwan, where China sent a non-military plane in 2012, last week’s airspace violation took place in territory universally recognised as belonging to Japan, which should make it easier for Australia and other countries to condemn Beijing’s actions unreservedly.

These latest incursions follow two violations of Japanese airspace by Russian helicopters since 2022—seemingly warnings over Tokyo’s support for Ukraine. An ineffective response, including from Japan’s partners, might embolden Beijing and Moscow to push their ‘no limits’ partnership even further, such as taking greater risks in the joint military exercises that they already conduct around Japan.

Beijing’s transgressions were no accident, as the publicly available flight plan of the People’s Liberation Army aircraft showed. This fits a pattern of dangerous brinkmanship by Beijing, which included the sonar targeting of Australian navy divers from HMAS Toowoomba in 2023 and the release of flares near an Australian navy helicopter in May this year. Such acts are intended to test the resolve and solidarity of Beijing’s democratic rivals, as well as the response times of their armed forces.

As ever, Beijing’s motivations are murky. It’s possible that the Chinese leadership wanted to influence the selection process for a new Japanese prime minister later this month. Or they might have been aiming to dissuade Japan from hosting the armed forces of democratic partners, as occurred last month when an Italian aircraft carrier docked near Tokyo—part of an Indo-Pacific deployment that included the Pitch Black military exercises in Australia.

Alternatively, Beijing might be picking on Japan as part of a grander regional plan. Around the same time as these incursions, Chinese coast guard ships rammed a Philippines counterpart in the South China Sea, and the leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum were strong-armed into removing a reference to Taiwan from their joint communique.

Whatever its overarching strategy, such incursions reflect Beijing’s relentless tactical probing, which is designed to test the military, political and diplomatic responsiveness of its rivals.

Despite the leadership transition, Tokyo has made clear that China’s breaches of Japanese sovereignty are unacceptable. Australian ministers must offer their support, just as they would expect from Japan and other close partners were our territorial integrity challenged so brazenly.

Beijing will claim that this is a bilateral issue with Tokyo, best handled through quiet diplomacy behind closed doors, and that any other country that shows an interest is interfering. Sadly, Beijing’s narrative has gained traction in Southeast Asia, where elites misidentify the Philippines’ alliances and broadcasting of China’s maritime aggression on social media as the problem rather than the remedy.

Setting aside sovereignty disputes, members of the Association of South East Asian Nations should be able to agree that China’s use of force against the Philippines violates international rules, including ASEAN’s declaration on the conduct of parties in the South China Sea, which Beijing has signed. A strong statement by Southeast Asian countries would be a powerful rebuke of Beijing and an affirmation that ASEAN stands by its principles.

Transparency is not a magic wand, but evidence shows that it helps counter Chinese bullying. For instance, the Chinese navy does not appear to have locked its radars onto Japanese targets since it was called out for doing so in 2013 by Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister at the time, and other ministers.

But speaking out is most effective in company, supported by hard power. The joint statement on maritime cooperative activity between Australia, Japan, the Philippines and the US in April this year met this bar. While its language was careful, Beijing’s unlawful conduct in the South China Sea was clearly the target, and the rhetoric was backed by joint exercises and other initiatives. Such collective actions communicate that deterrence goes deeper than the US’ bilateral security treaties or the whim of whoever occupies the White House.

Solidarity is especially important between Japan and Australia, which have become allies in all but name, including borrowing language from the ANZUS treaty in an upgraded security agreement in 2022. Beyond their bilateral reciprocal access agreement that facilitates military exchanges, Australia and Japan also cooperate trilaterally with their US ally on priorities like networked air and missile defence. And Japan is front of the queue for contributing to AUKUS Pillar 2 advanced capabilities.

Therefore, it is vital that Australian and Japanese ministers unreservedly support each other when they stand side-by-side before the media tomorrow. A genuine partnership needs a common language on regional threats, from Beijing’s coercion to sabre-rattling by Pyongyang and Moscow. Good news stories about practical cooperation and the bonds between our nations matter, but effective deterrence also requires the naming and shaming of bad actors.

Zhou Enlai was a giant of twentieth century international relations. Serving as China’s premier from the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949 until his death in 1976 and also as China’s first foreign minister, Zhou set up China’s foreign service and skilfully guided China through the international events of the entire Mao Zedong era.

Zhou was a key member of the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership already in the 1920s, outranking Mao initially. He quickly established himself as the CCP’s indispensable person for getting things done. Later, as premier and foreign minister, he laid the foundations for China’s role as a leader of the global south in the 1950s, managed the Sino-Soviet rift in the 1960s, and was key to the opening of relations with the United States in the 1970s, helping to turn a crucial page in China’s history.

Zhou was the consummate political survivor. Under the mercurial Mao, this was no mean feat, as demonstrated by the fates of Zhou’s contemporaries. Following ideological disagreements in the wake of the disastrous Great Leap Forward, Mao shunned his anointed successor, Liu Shaoqi, who was detained by Red Guards and died in captivity. Lin Biao, another designated successor, was killed in a plane crash while fleeing the country following a power struggle, while Deng Xiaoping was purged twice, before rising to power following Mao’s death.

In stark contrast, Zhou learned to swallow his pride and was ultimately subservient to Mao. At the same time his diplomatic and organizational skills made him indispensable. However, Zhou’s record is mixed. He played a key role in tempering the chairman’s worst political excesses, particularly during the Cultural Revolution, and paved the way for the subsequent opening of China’s economy. But through his unwavering support he also facilitated Mao’s tyranny.

How did Zhou manage to survive over half a century of political turmoil, while at the same time deftly ushering China onto the global stage?

In Zhou Enlai: A Life, Chen Jian answers this question and many more. Chen is a professor of history at New York University and an emeritus professor at Cornell University. He spent the better part of 20 years researching this vivid and nuanced biography of a leader described by US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as ‘one of the two or three most impressive men I have ever met’.

Zhou’s complex relationship with chairman Mao is at the centre of Chen’s narrative. In the 1920s at the CCP headquarters in Shanghai, Zhou was reluctant to become the head of the CCP, setting a pattern that would mark his entire career as the steadfast number two. On economic policy and even ideology, the moderate and reform-minded Zhou and the chairman never quite saw eye to eye.

The manipulative Mao used and abused the relationship, never entirely trusting Zhou. To survive the chairman’s whims, Zhou accepted frequent debasement and reprimands while only rarely receiving praise. When Zhou was diagnosed with gallbladder cancer in 1972, Mao prevented him from receiving potentially lifesaving surgery. It is widely assumed that Mao did not want Zhou to outlive him.

Throughout his career Zhou skilfully managed events, with a keen eye for detail. During the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, he ensured that the Zhongnanhai leadership compound and the cultural treasures of the Forbidden City were protected from rampaging Red Guards.

Zhou’s list of international achievements is vast. He negotiated sensitive border issues with Indian leader Jawaharlal Nehru, managed conflict-ridden relations with Soviet leaders Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev, established ties with newly independent emerging economies and opened up relations with the West. As premier, Zhou also handled domestic issues. He led the drafting of China’s first five-year plan and worked hard to counterbalance Mao’s policy swings and mitigate the damage caused by the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

Chen also provides a Chinese perspective on the behind-the-scenes negotiations leading up to Nixon’s visit to China, which have been extensively covered from an American perspective. The early stages were particularly sensitive, with both sides inching their way towards negotiations and neither side wanting to lose face.

In late 1970, Zhou arranged for major Chinese newspapers to publish a picture of Mao meeting the American journalist Edgar Snow, intending to send a sign to the Americans. At the time serving as national security adviser, Henry Kissinger missed the signal and later admitted that the Chinese ‘overestimated our subtlety’. To ensure that everything went to plan, in the ‘ping-pong diplomacy’ that followed, Zhou ordered the Chinese players to ‘let the American players win a few games’.

Chen provides a fascinating account of the wrangling within the CCP that deepened the rift between Mao and Lin Biao, and of the power struggle within the top leadership as Zhou and Mao both prepared to ‘meet Karl Marx’. As Xi Jinping advances in age and China’s younger leaders position themselves for an eventual succession struggle, these lessons will become increasingly relevant.

The lives of China’s top leaders, including Mao and Deng, have been extensively covered, but a comprehensive account of Zhou’s life has been a long time coming. Thoroughly researched, detailed and balanced, in Zhou Enlai: A Life, Zhou finally has the biography he deserves.

Australia’s 20-year-long economic party, funded by China, may be drawing to a close, with consequences for federal and state budgets, superannuation returns and living standards generally.

The iron ore price is the most obvious pointer to China’s declining demand for Australia’s raw materials: it has come down from an extraordinary peak of US$144 a tonne at the beginning of January to a spot price of US$92 this month, and the fall is expected to continue.

It is amazing that it has remained high for as long as it has, given that the construction of housing in China—traditionally accounting for 30 percent of its domestic steel use—has turned down since the biggest builder, Evergrande, struck financial trouble in 2021.

The subsequent collapse of Evergrande and other major builders has sapped Chinese consumer confidence, since housing is by far the biggest destination for household savings. Authorities sought to offset the housing decline by advancing further support to manufacturing and seeking growth in export markets.

China’s exports rose from an annual average of US$2.5 trillion between 2018 and 2020, reaching US$3.4 trillion over the past three years. While this has brought protest and retaliatory tariffs in many advanced nations, Australia was able to piggy-back on China’s export boom.

The prices Australia receives for its exports, relative to what we pay for our imports, have never been better than over the last two years. Our returns from trade have been even greater than during the peak of the resources boom in the early 2010s. The only other episode in Australia’s history that comes close was the wool boom during the Korean War in 1951, but that lasted barely a year.

The benefits of the bonanza have been widely spread. The resource companies and their shareholders, including most Australian superannuation funds, have achieved extraordinary returns. Resource company tax payments have delivered healthy budget surpluses to the federal government, despite its spending rising to the highest level in almost 40 years. Royalties have boosted the finances of the West Australian and Queensland governments.

The public at large gains not only from the spending on government services but also from cheaper imported goods with the strength of export prices boosting the value of the Australian dollar.

These extraordinary returns to Australia from trade have occurred while global trade has been flat. There has been no growth in world trade volumes since the beginning of 2022, and average trade prices are lower.  The International Monetary Fund attributes the weak global trade performance to the rise of protectionism and fragmentation, as trade within geopolitical blocs rises while trade between them falls.

The strength of Australia’s returns from trade over the past two years was not expected. Treasury has repeatedly predicted an imminent slump in iron ore prices to US$55 to US$60 a tonne (with similar falls in coal prices) in every budget since at least 2017.

But the Chinese authorities’ preference for stimulating their economy through subsidies to manufacturers, rather than through tax cuts or payments to consumers, has kept the rivers of cash flowing to Australia’s miners.

Although the past few years have been exceptional, Australia’s Chinese bonanza is now into its 20th year. Until the early 2000s, China’s economic growth was driven by light industry, but huge investments in infrastructure and heavy industry brought explosive growth in demand for Australian resources from 2004 onwards.

Until then, it was thought that Australia’s dependence on resource exports would bring ever-weaker returns from trade: from the mid-1970s until the early-2000s, the average returns from exports were gradually falling while the average cost of manufactured imports was rising. This was the outlook facing the Howard government for much of its term.

Instead, there has been a remarkable rise in Australian living standards. In 2004, Australia’s income per person ranked 23rd, behind the United States, all the major countries of Europe, Britain and Japan.  It now ranks ninth and has overtaken every larger country except the US (excluding tax havens), according to World Bank data.

But China is now bumping up against the limits of its export-driven economic model. Export growth is slowing and steel production is falling. Steel output in July was down 9 percent from the previous month leading the chair of China’s biggest steelmaker, Baowu Steel Group, Hu Wangming, to warn staff at the company’s half-year meeting that conditions were like a ‘harsh winter’ that will be ‘longer, colder and more difficult to endure than we expected’.

It is a chill that will likely be felt in Australia.  Already, Treasurer Jim Chalmers is warning that the federal budget balance will deteriorate, while the impact of weaker exports will flow through to superannuation returns, the value of the Australian dollar and the cost of imported goods. Living standards will suffer.

For the most of the past 20 years, it has been a seller’s market for Australia’s resources. The many efforts of China’s authorities to weaken the markets for major commodities have failed. How China will exploit its market power once it becomes a buyer’s market is an open question.

China’s leader Xi Jinping has his eye on the transformative forces of artificial intelligence to revolutionise the country’s economy and society in the coming decades. But the disruptive, and potentially unforeseen, consequences of this technology may be more than the party-state can stomach.

While there are signs that the leadership is considering loosening the grip in this space, the Chinese Communist Party’s instincts towards overregulation, ideological conformity, and cautious incrementalism could stand in the way of China’s ambitions for global supremacy in AI.

Xi has made AI a strategic priority and wants its development to move quickly. Clearly frustrated by the perceived slow pace of China’s innovation and technological progress, Xi focused the third plenum meeting of the CCP on ways to accelerate his version of ‘Chinese modernisation’. At a politburo study session in January this year, he said he wanted China to ‘break away from the traditional economic growth model and productivity development path’ it has been on for the past 40 years.

To do this, Xi wants China to harness ‘new quality productive forces’ that will drive disruptive breakthroughs and not merely produce incremental improvements on existing technologies. Xi wants to encourage great technological leaps forward that will have a ‘profound impact on global economic and social development and the progress of human civilization’, according to a letter he sent to the 2024 World Intelligence Expo in June this year.

He also sees AI playing a central role in advancing China’s military power by pushing the People’s Liberation Army through multiple stages of military-technological development simultaneously rather than sequentially.

China hopes to acquire ‘leapfrog’ technology, particularly in military AI, which it hopes can change the military balance of power by giving the PLA an overwhelming edge. Debates about the future potential of AI by military analysts in China focus on developing the PLA’s ‘intelligentised warfare’ capabilities, referring to the aim of using AI to control the will of the enemy’s top decision-makers. If successful, AI has the potential to bring about revolutionary changes in the way militaries operate and warfare is conducted—comparable to mechanised warfare, information warfare, and even nuclear warfare.

The party-state apparatus is following suit. While there is, in theory, a ‘whole-of-society’ approach to science and technology development, the various parts of Chinese society in practice have different resources, outlooks, and priorities for how to develop and use AI. Ultimately, it is Xi who is pushing for this technology to be China’s deus ex machina, turbo-charging its economy out of a malaise, transforming its military power and capabilities, and catapulting the Chinese nation to the top of the global order.

Mixed signals are coming from the centre of the political system. In 2017, the State Council called for developing the resources to fuel major breakthroughs in AI by 2025 and to be the global leader in AI by 2030—but gave few details on how to do this. The Council has also urged administrative authorities and courts to adopt a cautious and tolerant regulatory stance toward AI. Following this year’s two session meeting, Premier Li Qiang emphasised the need for greater policy support for AI and to create ‘a relaxed environment for the development of the AI industry’.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. Xi sees advances in science and technology as a proxy measurement for China’s overall development. In a speech at the National Science and Technology Awards in June, he noted that, although great progress had been made, ‘innovation capabilities are still relatively weak, some key core technologies are controlled by other countries, and there is a shortage of top scientific and technological talent’.

The twin opportunities and risks of AI create a quandary for the CCP as it moves to put safety measures in place that could act as impediments to progress. Getting the behemoth Chinese party-state to head in one direction has historically been difficult but has been a large part of Xi’s focus over his first two terms in power. Chinese regulations are often described as ‘more reactive than proactive’, and this is generally a theme of Chinese policymaking in all areas. Regulation enforcement can be spotty.

Chinese authorities have begun taking regulatory action, including against deepfakes and harmful recommendation algorithms in 2018. Their top concerns, according to a white paper on AI-generated content published by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, are to maintain the CCP’s objectives for online information and network security.

But there are other known risks. PwC estimates that AI and related technologies, such as robots, drones and autonomous vehicles could displace around 26% of existing jobs in China over the next two decades—which would strike at the heart of the implicit social contract the CCP has with the people.

The biggest obstacles to AI success are in fact those the party-state itself has imposed to maintain its control on social stability and to manage disruption and change.

The data regulations and laws China has created, for example, have a heavy focus on national security, meaning protection of the CCP’s position of power must trump the easy flow of huge amounts of data needed for AI development and innovation. Legal restrictions on cross-border data transfers pose a significant compliance challenge for foreign companies operating in the country. Draft regulations on generative AI released in May signalled a shift towards more stringent security standards and regulatory oversight.

Thanks to the CCP’s obsession with information control and ideological conformity, Chinese regulators require AI-generated content to ‘reflect core socialist values and not contain content that subverts state power’, putting the country’s AI aspirations on a collision course with its censorship regime—not to mention precluding future research collaboration and exporting technology to liberal democracies.

Some Chinese companies have been better at threading this needle than others. Researchers from Fudan University created a benchmark to test compliance on different Chinese large language models (LLMs) and determined ByteDance’s ‘Doubao-Pro’ to be the best at responding in ways that were ideologically correct.

The party-state’s obsession with security is a straitjacket it chooses to wear. It is always free to loosen it—and there are some signs that it is at least considering that. But to make Xi’s AI dream a reality, China’s bureaucracy will need to walk a shaky tightrope to maintain the CCP’s ‘two miracles’ of economic development and social stability, while also tolerating the unavoidable disruption that comes with technology-driven transformation.