Preface
The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 will reverberate long into the future. International travel is banned and borders are closed. Many of the social interactions that we all enjoy remain on pause. Governments have deliberately shut down whole sections of their economies and a prolonged global economic downturn seems certain.
This is a global crisis, but we have all turned inwards, not outwards.
No one has looked to the United Nations headquarters in New York for solutions — or for hope. Instead, we have all fallen back on the nation-state. We have tuned in to speeches by our own national leaders.
And yet, international relations have never been more important than they are now. None of humanity’s greatest problems — including pandemics — are susceptible to purely national solutions.
At this time, the world is asking big questions of Australia. Our ties to China are being tested by an increasingly assertive party-state. Our great ally, the United States, was already self-isolating under the presidency of Donald Trump. Now, in the middle of the pandemic, it looks seriously unwell.
The 2020 Lowy Institute Poll records unprecedented shifts in public opinion. Only half the country reports feeling safe — a record low for Australians. Our concern about a global economic downturn has skyrocketed. Optimism about our economic prospects has sunk to an historic low.
Trust in our largest trading partner — China — has declined precipitously. Confidence in China’s leader Xi Jinping, has fallen even further. Almost all Australians would like to see diversification in order to reduce our economic dependence on China, and most would support imposing travel and financial sanctions on Chinese officials associated with human rights abuses.
Most Australians continue to believe that our alliance with the United States is important to our security. But trust in the United States has stagnated, and few Australians have confidence in President Trump. Only a small minority of the country support the President’s signature policies: increasing tariffs on imports, criticising the defence spending of US allies, and taking America out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations and the Paris climate agreement.
Many believed 2020 would be a year of debate about climate policy in Australia, in the aftermath of our hellish summer of bushfires. But Covid-19 has turned Australians’ heads. Though Australians continue to view climate change as a critical threat, their anxiety has been eclipsed by the pandemic and its economic effects.
As well as the annual Lowy Institute Poll, this report also incorporates COVIDpoll, a survey that asked Australians about global responses to the coronavirus pandemic. Australians were disappointed by the approaches taken by the United States, the United Kingdom and China, but were impressed by their own leaders’ responses. The coronavirus performance of the superpowers has been unimpressive; but smaller, more agile countries such as Australia, with rational politicians and effective bureaucracies, have done better.
The Lowy Institute Poll, now in its sixteenth year, captures the mood of the Australian public at a remarkable moment. Australians are sceptical of China, disappointed in the United States, and anxious about the economic downturn. But even in the face of this grave pandemic, Australians retain their belief in globalisation and democratic values.
Dr Michael Fullilove
Executive Director
June 2020