Australian CEOs face a wave of geopolitical risks
An abridged version of this essay was first published by the Lowy Institute Interpreter on 6 August, 2024.
Australian business leaders need to start taking geopolitics seriously. Markets, shareholders and stakeholders will punish those firms caught unprepared for the calamities ahead.
When Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan declared that geopolitical headwinds “may very well be creating risks that could eclipse anything since World War II”, you know the mood in the global boardrooms has shifted.
He is not alone.
Australia’s Future Fund CEO Raphael Arndt has recently urged the investment community to prepare for “a riskier world” in which geopolitical events defy predictions and grow in complexity and impact.
For the last four months, I have spoken to more than five dozen risk and strategy executives, consultants and advisors in Australia, the US and Latin America.
Their message is clear – geopolitics has moved to the top of the risk register of virtually any company that operates in the global markets. The influential Natixis and Bank of America surveys of institutional investors and global fund managers rank geopolitics as the biggest risk. The global business community is responding. The last three years have seen most major multinationals, consulting and law firms investing in their geopolitical risk expertise – from boards to middle management.
Australian business is not immune from geopolitical shocks. As a global trading nation, reliant on international markets for its prosperity and alliances for its security, our country is particularly vulnerable. Over the last few years, Australia - through the drawn-out contraction and timid recovery of its relationship with China - has learnt the hard way what happens when geopolitics meets business. But the future challenges will be more complex.
Geopolitics has moved to the top of the risk register of virtually any company that operates in the global markets.
The Australian Government has recognised the economic fragmentation, systemic competition between the United States and China and the unravelling of the rules-based order early on and its policy directions have now taken shape. Further enmeshment in the United States’s alliance network and AUKUS, diversification of trade and a pivot to South-East Asia, and the wide-ranging economic security agenda, articulated by Treasurer Jim Chalmers in his recent speech at the Lowy Institute are the policy foundations on which Australia will navigate the new age of geopolitics.
As Treasury Secretary Stephen Kennedy has stated in a follow-up to Chalmer’s address - preparing our economy for this new era will require a whole-of-society effort.
Leaving the difficult task of managing geopolitical risks to government – as has been the Australian practice - is no longer an option. Ultimately, markets, shareholders and stakeholders will punish those firms caught unprepared for the calamities ahead.
Australian business leaders need to start taking geopolitics seriously. The challenges on the horizon are manifest.
The United States
The assassination attempt on Donald Trump and the swift rise of Kamala Harris have added further uncertainty to the future directions of Australia’s most important partner.
We do not yet know what Kamala Harris’ foreign policy will look like and how different it will be from Biden. We can reasonably expect some continuity from Biden’s agenda on climate, industrial policy, China and Russia. But if the views of her senior foreign policy advisor Philip Gordon are a reliable litmus test of Harris’ world view, she may be less ambitious in her application of the US power abroad and less enthusiastic about alliances and hand-holding that goes with them.
The possible election of Trump as the next US President will bring wholesale policy direction change to Australia’s most important bilateral partner, investor and investment destination. The immediate risks to Australian business are Trump’s planned reduction or elimination of green subsidies and his destructive approach to climate policy. This will affect Australian investors, from the super funds to Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue Futures. It will also create a major policy gulf between Canberra and Washington, further dampening Australian investors and industry’s ambition to turn Australia into a renewable energy superpower. Trump’s trade agenda will also be radical. A protectionist at heart, Trump will not hesitate to use tariffs and restrictions against both adversaries and friends. Bluescope Steel’s careful dance around Trump’s threats of tariffs during his last presidency is a powerful reminder of his trade policy instincts and execution. But even if it is Kamala Harris in the Oval Office, Australia should not expect ANZUS romanticism to offset Washington’s hard-headed pursuit of its national interest and mercantilism.
China
China will remain Australia’s top geopolitical risk in the foreseeable future. The recent visit by Chinese Premier Li Qiang has shown both the promise and limitations of Australia’s stabilisation policy. In welcome news for Australian business - Australia and China are talking again and China’s coercive tariffs have been largely lifted. The China economic opportunity is still there – especially in mining, resources and energy, despite the headwinds in China’s economy and deep strategic rifts with the West. It will be impossible and make little economic sense to exclude China, the global energy transition champion, from Australia’s decarbonisation drive and the resources trade – the lifeblood of Australian economy. But China risks are also on the rise, as Beijing continues to toughen its foreign policy, security and economic sovereignty agenda. Irreconcilable strategic fault lines between Beijing and Canberra mean that the stabilisation is fragile, and unpredictability is high. Australia will also face increasing pressure from Washington to moderate its China stabilisation efforts – especially around sensitive industries. As our own government’s new economic security and investment regimes take shape, navigating China risks and opportunities will only become harder for Australian business. But navigate and invest in deep China expertise they must, if they don’t want to be caught between their business priorities and competing policy pressures from Beijing, Washington and Canberra.
Wars
Wars in Ukraine and Palestine will continue to drain the global economy, depress confidence and create instability. Australia may be far away from Gaza and Crimea, but these conflicts will continue to disrupt shipping and supply chains, depress or spike commodities and energy prices, and force difficult logistical, ethical and reputational choices on boards and executives. Importantly, both wars are only one small step away from dangerous escalation. Israel is being drawn to respond to Hezbollah’s attacks and open a northern front in Lebanon engulfing the Middle East in a regional war. As Russia’s winning streak ends and the new Western military aid gives Ukraine a strategic advantage and capabilities to strike Russian cities, President Vladimir Putin may choose to raise the stakes yet again in what is now an existential conflict for him and many of his people.
Protectionism
The fences of trade restrictions are growing higher and the yards of national industry policies larger. Behind the elegant formulation of “economic security” lie not only support of national governments for the industries that are deemed strategic, but also regulatory and protectionist measures that may undermine the competitiveness of the very industries the government is trying to prop. For Australia - a global free trade champion – the rise of protectionism, accelerated by geopolitical shocks and the pandemic, is not good news.
As was the case with the last era of fragmentation and competition – the Cold War – geopolitical risks come with geoeconomic opportunities.
What started as a targeted response to the pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions and concerns about China’s access to sensitive US technologies, protectionism is now back as an accepted policy playbook. IMF estimates that from 2019 to 2023, new trade restrictions have almost tripled. Industry policies now cover more sectors and countries and copping a friendly fire of protectionism from our like-minded trading partners is as likely as from our adversaries. For few Australian businesses daring to expand globally – this creates another major disincentive and risk.
Technological competition
Technology will permeate and underpin each of these challenges. Cybersecurity will remain a core risk. Australian companies and government have vastly improved their defences and invested in cyber competencies and systems. But it’s the rapidly accelerating technological competition and inequality – driven by AI and geopolitical and geo-economic fault lines – that present this new set of challenges. As a non-player in AI, Australia is forced to play catch-up on risk management and regulations of the technology – the task that falls largely on Australian business where AI deployment mainly occurs. Australian media companies are already in the fight of their lives against the AI-empowered American tech giants and regulatory vacuum. We simply can’t predict where else AI – developed both in like-minded countries and those adversarial to us - will create or hollow out business models and opportunities for Australian business. But we must keep trying to figure it out.
Geoeconomic opportunities
As was the case with the last era of fragmentation and competition – the Cold War – geopolitical risks come with geoeconomic opportunities. China’s tariff onslaught on Australian primary producers opened new markets and mobilised a pivot to South-East Asia. Australian grain producers benefitted from price hikes and disruptions in grain trade caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Driven by both business opportunity and geopolitical alignment, Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths is on the cusp of breaking China’s monopoly of light and heavy rare earth materials - which are essential for advanced electronic manufacturing – thanks to funding from the US Government and the global thirst for critical minerals. If Australian government and private sector can successfully execute its renewable energy superpower strategy, Australia can dramatically expand its energy trade with both US and China-led blocks, and many non-aligned markets in between, and be a magnet for global investors. As defence budgets are rising around the world, AUKUS has the potential to reshape Australian defence industry and build new science, engineering and manufacturing capabilities and talent creating new jobs and economic opportunities.
A mindset shift
Australian boards and CEOs are highly astute to the global economic, technological and societal shifts. Corporate Australia has promptly embedded sustainability, diversity and social licence in its DNA. A similar mindset shift is required to respond to the world in disarray. As fragmentation, US-China competition and securitisation of national economies gather pace, it makes good business sense to add another “G” to corporate strategy.
CEOs should start at the top by building geostrategic expertise on their boards and management teams and making geopolitics an indispensable part of the risk strategy. A more proactive engagement with government on foreign policy will help with scanning a global horizon for macrotrends, managing the current threats and informing and influencing policy choices. Never in the recent past has a close coordination between business and government on security and foreign policy been so critical to our success as a country.
Business also needs to drive the development of the local ecosystem of geopolitical analysis and risk management practitioners to build a pipeline of talent and a flow of tailored and relevant intelligence and data. While the geopolitical risks facing Australian companies are inherently global, our responses need to be crafted in Perth and Sydney, not New York and Singapore.
CEOs should start at the top by building geostrategic expertise on their boards and management teams and making geopolitics an indispensable part of the risk strategy.
New forecast, scenario-planning and risk management methodologies are emerging fast, but to be effective, they need to be substantially tailored to organisational, geographic and sectoral settings. Industry bodies, consultants and business schools should also up their game on geopolitics and offer uniquely Australian and sector-specific insights and capabilities to their members, clients and students.
The wave of immediate and long-term structural risks is coming to our shores hard and fast, and the time to build our geopolitical muscle is now.