This event was hosted in joint partnership between the ANU Centre for European Studies (ANUCES) and the Lowy Institute.

The world is undergoing an extraordinary transformation. The liberal order is in crisis, and the very idea of a rules-based international system has become discredited. China and Russia, and their strategic partnership, are widely blamed for this state of anarchy. In his address, pre-eminent Russia scholar Bobo Lo asked whether this ‘axis of authoritarians’ is as close and purposeful as it seems. Are Beijing and Moscow engaged in a common enterprise against Western interests and values? Or does the real threat to a liberal world order come from within?

The event began with a presentation from Dr Bobo Lo where he addressed these complex questions. This was followed by a conversation between Dr Bobo Lo and Sam Roggeveen, Director of the International Security Program, and finally a Q&A session with the crowd.

Dr Bobo Lo is a Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute. He is an independent analyst and an Associate Research Fellow with the Russia/NIS Center at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI). He was previously Head of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House and Deputy Head of Mission at the Australian Embassy in Moscow. Dr Lo’s most recent book, A Wary Embrace: What the China-Russia Relationship Means for the World, was published by Penguin Random House Australia in 2017. His Russia and the New World Disorder (2015) was described by The Economist as ‘the best attempt yet to explain Russia’s unhappy relationship with the rest of the world”