NEWS WRAP

Vax for kids

• COVID-19 vaccinations for kids | Since the start of the 2021 school year, coronavirus cases and hospitalisations increased among children under 12 in the United States. Now, there is a push to vaccinate US children with Pfizer and BioNTech applying for FDA approval for the emergency use of their vaccines for kids aged 5-11. The latest wave of Delta appears to have lost pace in the United States, but the debate over vaccinations persists. READ MORE HERE
   
• Buying time for BBB | A ‘Band Aid solution’ to the debt ceiling crisis passed by the Senate (50-48) last week was approved in the House of Representatives (219-206) today. The measure raises the government’s borrowing limits to US$28.9 trillion and postpones the fight over spending and the risk of default until 3 December. Delaying the debt ceiling may buy time for Democrats, but they need long term solutions to successfully finance the president’s Build Back Better package. READ MORE HERE
   
• Indigenous Peoples’ (Columbus) day | President Biden became the first US president to formally recognise Indigenous Peoples’ Day on 11 October. The celebrations have gradually replaced “Columbus Day”, with several US cities, states and corporations choosing to commemorate Indigenous culture and history on the second Monday of October each year. READ MORE HERE
   
• Trump for 2024 | With lingering Republican belief in ‘the big lie' and strong support coming from influential Republicans at a recent rally in Iowa, former president Donald Trump still dominates the Republican party. Much to the chagrin of presidential hopefuls like former Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump is considered the "nominee designate" for 2024. READ MORE HERE

VIDEO

The future of US politics

Did you miss last weeks webinar? Sarah Binder and Thomas Mann, Senior Fellows in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution joined Bruce Wolpe, USSC Non-Resident Senior Fellow to discuss post-2020 Trump and the challenges of the Biden administration. 

Catch more analysis on the United States on the USSC YouTube channel.

WEBINAR | 15 October

Integrated deterrence in the Indo Pacific: Advancing the Australia-United States alliance

Amid sharpening strategic competition with China in the Indo-Pacific, the Biden administration has proposed the concept of ‘integrated deterrence’ as a cornerstone for US defence strategy. By collaborating more closely with US allies and partners, and by more effectively combining military and non-military instruments of national power, Washington hopes this new approach will deter Beijing’s use of coercion across a wide spectrum of competition.

But what exactly does ‘integrated deterrence’ mean? Is it really new? How does it intersect with ongoing efforts to increase interoperability among US allies and partners? And what role is there for the Australia-US alliance to bring integrated deterrence into being in the Indo-Pacific?

To discuss these issues, please join the United States Studies Centre (USSC) and Pacific Forum for the launch of “Integrated deterrence in the Indo-Pacific: Advancing the Australia-United States alliance", a new policy brief by Jane Hardy, Visiting Senior Fellow with USSC and former Australian Consul-General in Hawaii. Joining her for this in-conversation webinar will be Ashley Townshend, Director of Foreign Policy and Defence at USSC, and David Santoro, President of Pacific Forum, both founding convenors and co-chairs of the Track 1.5 US-Australia Indo-Pacific Deterrence Dialogue.

WHEN:
SYDNEY | Friday, 15 October 2021 | 10:00am-11:00am AEDT
PERTH | Friday, 15 October 2021 | 7:00-8:00pm AWST                                    WASHINGTON DC | Thursday, 14 October 2021 | 7:00-8:00pm EDT

COST:
Free but registration is essential.

You can also subscribe to have event invitations and reminders sent straight to your inbox, so you never have to miss an event!

ANALYSIS

China's unstable political economy

Dr John Lee
Non-Resident Senior Fellow, United States Studies Centre

The world has been watching as the Chinese real estate giant Evergrande flails, and some have been asking whether Beijing will soon have a moment akin to 2008’s collapse of Lehman Brothers in America. Xi Jinping may manage to prevent the burst of the real estate bubble, but China’s economy isn’t heading for more sustainable growth. Evergrande’s woes are a reminder that China’s political economy under Mr. Xi has become even more unstable, even as Beijing grows more impatient to displace America as the dominant power. Time is not on China’s side.

The global financial crisis that began with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 led to a severe liquidity crunch as financial institutions lost faith in the capacity of one another and commercial firms to repay their loans. China’s financial system doesn’t work this way. Loss of faith in the commercial worthiness of other entities isn’t fatal. Instead, banks and other financial institutions unfailingly lend if instructed to do so by political masters.

This happened in 2008, when Chinese state-owned banks injected about US$15 trillion of new capital into the economy for fixed-investment projects over the next six years, as export markets in North America and Europe stagnated. This was about 1.5 times the size of the entire American commercial banking system at the time. Politically driven lending has been a feature of the Chinese political economy ever since.

This is an excerpt from Dr John Lee's article first published by The Wall Street Journal

BY THE NUMBERS

Playing catch up

Sarah Hamilton
Research Associate for Data Insights

Although initially slow, Australia's vaccine rollout has picked up pace dramatically and overtaken the United States in the percent of total population who have received at least one dose against COVID-19. Being just three percentage points behind the United Kingdom, it is also likely Australia will overtake the UK in the coming days.

While still five percentage points behind the US in fully-vaccinated total population (two doses or one dose of Johnson and Johnson in the US), these numbers are encouraging for Australia - now likely to reach herd immunity in its adult population - as the US shifts its focus to booster shots and rolling out Pfizer for children under the age of 12. 

Of the eligible population (those 12 or older) the UK has the highest rate of vaccination at 78.6 per cent double dosed, the US has fully vaccinated 66 per cent and Australia so far has vaccinated 60.4 per cent.  

THE ALLIANCE AT 70 |  Cultural connections and creativity 

Cultural connections and creativity

The following is an excerpt from The Alliance at 70, a contribution by USSC Non-Resident Fellow Stephen Loosley, AM, the former Senator for New South Wales (1990-5).

It is possible to chart the Australian experience in the 20th century through war and peace by absorbing Australian movies from Gallipoli to Between Wars and on to Kokoda. Indigenous life is reflected in films as different as Rabbit-Proof Fence and Sweet Country, with a more nuanced understanding of the tensions between ancient cultures and cascading waves of new arrivals.  

Australian soft power is actually most respected for our sports. The Brits in particular acknowledge the contributions made by our athletes at Olympic and Commonwealth levels and our professional sports- men and women. Sports diplomacy is of particular significance to the Australian step-up in the South Pacific with both codes of rugby prominent in nations ranging from Papua New Guinea to Fiji. Australian team jerseys for both men and women appear to complement the blue jeans of the American Peace Corps.  

But few experiences in either the United States or Australia, with the probable exception of religious links, have the impact of education. To glance at the Cabinets of Asian countries is to underline the value of Australian tertiary institutions. This is magnified many times by Australian students studying in the United States. Overwhelmingly, the experience is positive, and the roiling and boisterous democratic experience is absorbed by young people almost by osmosis.  

Soft power may indeed be difficult to measure but its qualitative impact upon other nations is a very real factor in foreign policy. Australian and American values often coalesce around common themes. This represents the essential explanation as to why Australians have had such success in Hollywood and why Americans are so comfortable making movies here.  

Joseph Nye was right. Persuading people by example is always to be preferred to authoritarian tendencies to intimidate or bully, especially in the form of Beijing’s ‘sharp power’ which often assumes the shape of coercion.

THE WEEK IN TWEETS

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