Michael Fullilove calls for increased Australian defence and diplomatic spending 10 years after dire warning

When Michael Fullilove was invited to deliver the prestigious Boyer lectures a decade ago, the head of Australia’s top foreign policy think tank insisted upon one condition. The Lowy Institute’s executive director wanted to deliver his first speech, examining Australia’s place in a rapidly transforming world, in Beijing. Since the annual lecture series was launched in 1959, Fullilove’s talk at Peking University was the first, and to this day only, time an address has been given overseas.

It was a divisive choice. Fullilove recalls that some conservative commentators criticised him for choosing the capital of communist China over Washington or London. When he stepped onto the tarmac in China, he had a voicemail from an Australian diplomat saying: “May I just ask you one favour: please don’