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Articles by Ian Satchwell
Australia can reap the benefits of critical-minerals rivalry
Accelerating geo‑economic competition to control supply chains for critical minerals is disrupting global markets and threatening security. Resource-rich Australia is delicately positioned between rival great powers but also faces unique opportunities to increase its influence in global markets and reap the economic benefits.
Overseas investment is getting riskier. The government needs to step up
Australian companies operating overseas are navigating an increasingly volatile geopolitical landscape where economic coercion, regulatory uncertainty and security risks are becoming the norm. Our growing global investment footprint is nationally important, and the Australian government must support it more strongly. The government needs to do this above all to counter market manipulation by China and even its seizure of Australian assets, but other risks are piling up, too.
Northern Australia strengthens its role in the national economy and energy security
Each day, more than 160 airline flights carrying 13,000 passengers take off and land at Perth Airport to and from destinations across northern Australia. They ferry skilled workers to and from minerals and energy operations. Darwin and Brisbane airports also host air services to and from northern Australian resources hubs. This provides a real-time indicator of the health of the Australian resources sector, which is overwhelmingly concentrated north of the 26th parallel.
Sustainable critical materials can’t have a price premium without global standards
If Australia and like-minded nations want secure, sustainable critical-minerals supply chains, they must tackle the interrelated challenges of price premiums and global environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards. Australia and its miners are leaders in ESG performance in mining. Meeting high standards, however, costs more than working to lower ones.
Australia and partners must harmonise critical-minerals policies
While Australia and its critical-minerals partners agree that supply-chain diversity, security and sustainability are essential, inconsistent national policies continue to inhibit the development of the end-to-end supply chains they seek. In the dynamic landscape of at-risk supply chains, harmonising national policies has emerged as a key factor for achieving shared goals.
Critical mineral, rare earth elements, mining
CRITICAL MINERALSCountering Coercion: Australia Must Engage with Allies on Critical Minerals Supply Published 18 June 2024 China’s use of coercion to control critical mineral mining and processing projects, their output and even whole supply chains has motivated several countries to take increasingly strong measures to secure alternative supply chains. Meanwhile, China’s state-linked companies continue to use multiple channels to manipulate markets at scale.
Countering coercion: Australia must engage with allies on critical minerals supply
This is the second part of a two-part article on coercive threats to critical minerals supply chains and what Australia and its critical minerals partners are doing and should do to counter them. China’s use of coercion to control critical mineral mining and processing projects, their output and even whole supply chains has motivated Australia and its strategic partners to take increasingly strong measures to secure alternative supply chains.
Private Investment in Pacific Island Countries
On 3 May, ASPI DC organized and moderated a Private Investment in Pacific Island States roundtable featuring 10 Pacific island states’ Heads of Mission and more than a dozen representatives from the US investment and private philanthropy sectors.
China’s Control and Coercion in Critical Minerals
This is the first of two parts of an article on coercive threats to critical minerals supply and what Australia and its critical minerals partners are doing and should do to counter them. Markets for critical minerals are no longer shaping up to be the next components of the global economy to be dominated by China. They already are.
Critical mineral, rare earth elements, mining, China
CRITICAL MINERALSChina’s Control and Coercion in Critical Minerals Published 8 June 2024 Markets for critical minerals are no longer shaping up to be the next components of the global economy to be dominated by China. They already are. While Western nations were sleeping, China built vertically integrated supply chains for several critical minerals vital to the energy transition and high technology applications, including defense equipment.
Critical mineral, rare earth elements, mining, China
CRITICAL MINERALSChina’s Control and Coercion in Critical Minerals Published 7 June 2024 Markets for critical minerals are no longer shaping up to be the next components of the global economy to be dominated by China. They already are. While Western nations were sleeping, China built vertically integrated supply chains for several critical minerals vital to the energy transition and high technology applications, including defense equipment.
China’s control and coercion in critical minerals
This is the first of two parts of an article on coercive threats to critical minerals supply and what Australia and its critical minerals partners are doing and should do to counter them. Markets for critical minerals are no longer shaping up to be the next components of the global economy to be dominated by China. They already are.
Northern Australia’s energy and minerals development still needs more action
Federal government initiatives revealed this month have reinforced Northern Australia’s pivotal role in national and international energy and minerals security. While they make for good announcements, whether federal and state policies can deliver on development objectives remains unclear. One of the initiatives, the Future Gas Strategy, is a keystone of the Future Made in Australia policy.
Australia in the global supply chain - Openforum
Economists hate it, and nationalists yearning for the Australia of yore love it. The Albanese government’s A Future Made in Australia policy will need to be understood with a bit more nuance than its name implies. The address to the Lowy Institute by Treasuer Jim Chalmers on 1 May injected some reality into the policy. His contribution was this: we can’t do everything at home; we still must work with other countries in making things, doing our bit where we have a comparative advantage.
Australia's future must be made in global supply chains
Economists hate it, and nationalists yearning for the Australia of yore love it. The Albanese government’s A Future Made in Australia policy will need to be understood with a bit more nuance than its name implies. The address to the Lowy Institute by Treasuer Jim Chalmers on 1 May injected some reality into the policy. His contribution was this: we can’t do everything at home; we still must work with other countries in making things, doing our bit where we have a comparative advantage.
Critical mineral, rare earth elements, mining
CRITICAL MINERALSAustralia’s Leadership Imperatives in Critical Minerals Published 18 April 2024 Australia, like Canada, is well placed to be a global leader in the critical minerals sector. The country has the natural endowment, technical expertise and experience, global mining footprint, and mining capital base to back a claim to worldwide leadership. Australia, like Canada, is well placed to be a global leader in the critical minerals sector.
Reclaiming leadership: Australia and the global critical minerals race
Climate policy, geopolitics and market forces are coalescing to deliver Australia a global leadership opportunity in critical minerals. To grasp that opportunity, Australia needs both to utilise its domestic mineral endowment and its mining knowledge and technology and to leverage the global footprint of Australian companies to help build a global supply chain network.
Australia’s leadership imperatives in critical minerals
Australia, like Canada, is well placed to be a global leader in the critical minerals sector. Our nation has the natural endowment, technical expertise and experience, global mining footprint, and mining capital base to back a claim to worldwide leadership. As advanced industrialised nations seek to diversify and strengthen supply chains for critical minerals, they need a well-coordinated, harmonised system that exploits market dynamics and targeted government intervention.
Critical minerals, rare earth elements, mining, uranium, Australia
CRITICAL MINERALSDoes Australia Have the Will to Develop the Next Critical Mineral at Scale? Published 23 February 2024 The forces of demand driven by the global energy transition and supply limited by geopolitics are coalescing to make yet another mineral globally ‘critical’—uranium. Australia’s rich economic geology has endowed it with the world’s biggest uranium resources. Yet Australians have a long-term aversion to uranium mining.
Does Australia have the will to develop the next critical mineral at scale?
The forces of demand driven by the global energy transition and supply limited by geopolitics are coalescing to make yet another mineral globally ‘critical’—uranium. Australia’s rich economic geology has endowed it with . Yet we have a long-term aversion to uranium mining driven in no small part by fears among many people stemming from the Cold War era when nuclear Armageddon was a persistent worry, periodically reinforced by civil reactor accidents.
Middle East turmoil and a US pause offer Australia LNG opportunities
The United States has just overtaken Australia as the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). By 2030, US production is forecast to be more than double Australia’s previously world-leading capacity of 88 million tonnes a year. However, a recent Biden administration pause in approvals of exports to countries without free trade agreements, during which a review of the economic and environmental impacts of the gas supply chain will take place, threatens to slow LNG expansion.
Australia and Africa: Economic diplomacy is out of sync with investment ties
Two West African nations report that Australia – and not France, the United States or China – is their largest foreign investor. Large Australia-linked energy and minerals projects will transform economies in two other nations in West Africa. Australia’s economic linkages with Africa are growing, in goods and services trade, two-way investment and people-to-people relationships. The potential upside is high. Resource-rich African nations are key to global minerals and energy security.
Migration vital for northern Australia, and national security
Nowhere in Australia are population and skills shortfalls more apparent than in the north which is heavily dependent on overseas migration to sustain both, and to boost the region’s contribution to national security. It is good that the federal government’s new migration strategy recognises and responds to markedly different population trends and skills deficits in regional Australia compared to major cities.
Critical mineral, rare earth elements, mining, Australia, Canada
CRITICAL MINERALSAustralia Should Learn from Canada and Take a Truly Global Approach to Critical Minerals Published 4 January 2024 Canada and Australia are key players in the global supply chain for critical minerals. Simultaneously the top two nations for receiving minerals investment and for providing minerals investment, they are perfectly placed to use critical minerals to facilitate the global energy transition, foster innovation and build their security capabilities.
Japan’s trust in Australia erodes in response to energy security fears
For many decades, Japan has looked favourably on Australia as a reliable producer of gas and coal. Japan’s long-term investments in Australia undoubtedly were a product of our natural endowment, but also the reliable and predictable legislative environment. This is increasingly not the case.
Interstate linkages just as important to the NT as Asian connections
The Northern Territory Government often compares the proximity of Darwin to Asian and Australian cities. To be sure, Asia is very close to Darwin, with Dili just one hour’s flying time away. An often-used government map makes the point that within six hours north of Darwin live 485 million people but there are only 25 million Australians to the south.
Ian Satchwell | Lowy Institute
Ian Satchwell is an Adjunct Professor at the Sustainable Minerals Institute of The University of Queensland and a Senior Fellow of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Ian has more than three decades of experience in policy and governance of trade, investment, minerals, energy and infrastructure in Australia and internationally. He has advised the private sector and governments in Australia, Asia, Africa and the Americas.
Southeast Asia's minerals: Opportunity knocks
Minerals produced in Southeast Asia play an important role in global supply and local manufacturing and infrastructure. The region is a large-scale producer of minerals required for the global energy transition, including nickel, copper and tin, and has high potential to produce more. However, environmental and social impacts from mining and processing cause concerns among local communities and customers alike.
Outward bound: We should celebrate Australian investment overseas
Australian miners and bankers are globally competitive wherever they operate. And yet what Australian businesses are doing abroad is rarely celebrated with the same interest as what is occurring at home. Outbound investment is seen as somehow less desirable than inbound. Successive governments have barely acknowledged the worldwide reach of Australian investment, which has expanded rapidly during the past two decades.
Australia should learn from Canada and take a truly global approach to critical minerals
Canada and Australia are key players in the global supply chain for critical minerals. Simultaneously the top two nations for receiving minerals investment and for providing minerals investment, they are perfectly placed to use critical minerals to facilitate the global energy transition, foster innovation and build their security capabilities. Accordingly, both have released critical minerals strategies in the past year.
New Caledonia: Not either/or when it comes to France and China
Is China about to plant a red-and-yellow flag in Nouméa, its latest Pacific trophy? Not really. But that’s the impression local politicians are increasingly adept at conveying, both to garner votes and jangle nerves in France and Australia about New Caledonia’s 44-year political struggle over independence. The island’s last independence vote on 12 December produced the most inflated China rhetoric in local history.
Economic diplomacy: Priorities shift amid a budget aid boost
Back to the future The Morrison government gave the development aid sector an unexpected surprise with a budget spending increase mostly in the Pacific, just as the latest crisis in Solomon Islands was occurring. There is still plenty of grumbling that this – perhaps parting gift given the imminent election – was again done as a “temporary and targeted” measure and so probably doesn’t stop the trend decline in aid spending as a share of GDP under this government.
AUKMIN shows the UK is a world away from Australia
Last week’s AUKMIN consultations between Australia and the United Kingdom, the first since 2018, suggested both sides were injecting new energy into this relationship. As Australia increasingly “mainstreams” European partnerships within its Indo-Pacific focused foreign policy, it’s worth scrutinising the AUKMIN outcomes closely. How much does the UK’s worldview align with Australia’s? What more should Canberra expect of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Indo-Pacific tilt?
Refugee detention in Indonesia
It was a morning like any other until Mohammed, the 16-year-old refugee, was arrested by Indonesian immigration officials at a local market. In order to support his family, who had fled Afghanistan to seek asylum in Indonesia, he had taken up work assisting a shopkeeper. Before he had a chance to inform his family, he was taken away and sent to an immigration detention centre in Jakarta, becoming one the 969* underage refugees now in detention across Indonesia.
Australia’s Foreign Policy White Paper 2017
This post is part of a debate on Australia’s foreign policy White paper 2017. Click here for other debate posts. The debate on Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act is of limited interest to most people, but nonetheless reflects a divide on values in Australia. This divide has profile, given the wash from Donald Trump’s accession to the presidency in America and a shift in political attitudes in Europe.
Kung-Fu Yoga: China's soft power drive goes awry
Despite China's best efforts to make its mark on the global film industry, the lukewarm response to the recent Chinese-Indian joint venture film Kung-Fu Yoga suggests that global domination by the Chinese film industry is still some way off. This has further implications on China's quest for wider soft power.
Indonesia's new power industry ministers face big challenges
By Ian Satchwell, a Senior Fellow at the Perth USAsia Centre and a former President of the Australia Indonesia Business Council. In surprise appointments of not one but two ministers to the energy and mineral resources portfolio earlier this month, Indonesian President Jokowi acknowledged the complexity and strategic and economic importance of the sector.
Indonesia's energy expansion: Delayed and uncertain
Indonesia’s ambitious 35,000 MW (megawatt) electricity expansion is falling behind schedule. How the project will be expedited in the context of organisational changes within government is unclear, as is the status of remote power delivery and progress on renewables.
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