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Australia and Korea: Middle Power Parallels

Middle Power Parallels Landing Page Seoul - Ciaran-OBrien - Unsplash
Ciaran-OBrien - Unsplash

‘Australia and Korea: Middle Power Parallels’ is a three-part project by Asia Society Australia and Asia Society Korea seeking to provide new understanding to the unique position of Australia and Korea in regional geopolitics and how it intersects with their respective trade and economic status. Both nations must balance their relationships with the United States and China, are seeking to diversify their trade dependencies, and remain vulnerable to tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

The project focuses on these three parallel challenges and brings together leaders from government and corporate sectors in Australia and Korea to strengthen alignment and understanding, exchange lessons and to inform the next phase in our bilateral relationship.

Supported by the Australia-Korea Foundation in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the project will include public programs, private briefings, policy briefs and the appointment of Australia and Korea based Fellows who will offer subject-matter expertise and curate key activities.


The Australia and Korea: Middle Power Parallels project is supported by the Commonwealth through the Australia-Korea Foundation, which is part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This project is undertaken in partnership with Asia Society Korea.

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Asia Society Australia-Korea Fellows

Wongi Choe web

Wongi Choe, Professor, Korea National Diplomatic Academy

Wongi Choe is a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy (KNDA), where he has been doing policy research on various topics in Asian regional politics, climate change and global governance, etc. As an advisory member of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the ROK delegation, he participated in the UN Climate Change Negotiations from 2009 to 2019.

Currently, he serves as the head of the Center for ASEAN–India Studies at the KNDA. In that capacity, he leads KNDA's policy research on Korea's diplomatic approach to Southeast Asia, South Asia and beyond. He also serves as a member of advisory group at the Presidential Committee on New Southern Policy in Korea.

His current research focuses on Korea's role in the geopolitical dynamics and regional architecture in East Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific region. His recent writings include “Is Seoul Turning toward the Indo-Pacific? A Korean Perspective on the Moon-Biden Summit” (2021); New Southern Policy: Korea’s Newfound Ambition in Search of Strategic Autonomy (2021); “US Indo-Pacific Strategy and Directions for ROK-US Cooperation” (2020); Thirty Years of ASEAN-ROK Relations (in Korean, co-edited, 2019), among others.

He received BA and MA in international relations from Seoul National University in Korea and PhD in political science from University of Washington in the United States.

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Lauren Richardson Headshot web

Lauren Richardson, Lecturer in the Department of International Relations, Australian National University

Lauren Richardson is a Lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the Australian National University. She is also Director of the ANU Japan Institute and a Board Member of the ANU Korea Institute. Previously she taught Northeast Asian Relations at the University of Edinburgh and Keio University in Japan. She has been a visiting fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs, a recipient of the Prime Minister’s Australia-Asia Award (2011), a participant in the US-Korea NextGen Scholars Program (2015-16) and the German Marshall Fund’s Young Strategist Forum (2019).

Dr Richardson’s research focuses on the diplomatic and strategic dynamics of Northeast Asia, with a particular focus on Japan-Korea peninsula relations. She obtained Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Asian Studies from Monash University, which entailed extensive Japanese and Korean language study. She also completed a Master’s in Political Science at Keio University in Tokyo and a PhD in international, political and strategic studies at the ANU.

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Elizabeth Thurbon

Dr Elizabeth Thurbon, Scientia Associate Professor of International Political Economy, UNSW Sydney 

Dr Elizabeth Thurbon is recognised internationally for her policy-relevant research on the state and its strategic role in the economy, with a particular focus on strategic techno-industrial governance in East Asia, Australia and the United States. She is currently leading a 3-year collaborative Australian Research Council Discovery Project on the geo-strategic drivers of East Asia's Clean Energy Shift and its implications for Australia.

She is also a Chief Investigator on a 5-year Academy of Korean Studies Laboratory Project examining South Korea's past, present and future development trajectory, led by Professor Keun Lee (Seoul National University), and a Chief Investigator on an Australian Department of Defence Strategic Policy Grant examining the weaponisation of trade and its implications for Australia, led by Professor Lisa Toohey (University of Newcastle).

She has published widely on the politics of economic development, techno-industrial strategy, economic statecraft, and the clean energy shift for scholarly and popular audiences, and regularly contributes to policy and public debate on these topics. She currently holds a Scientia Fellowship at UNSW Sydney (2019-2022) and an Asia Society Fellowship (2021-2022) and has also held Visiting Fellowships at Seoul National University (as a Korea Foundation Fellow) and China Foreign Affairs University. She is an elected member of the Executive Council of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) and a member of the Research Committee of the Jubilee Australia Research Centre.

Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. in Government from the University of Sydney. She also completed her Economics (Social Sciences) Degree at Sydney University, where she was awarded first-class Honours and the University Medal for Academic Excellence.

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Attachment

  • Australia_and_Korea_Middle_Power_Parallels_Report.pdf (PDF, 3.25 MB)

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