Geoff Raby AO, former Australian ambassador to China, discusses with Michael Lester the remaking of the global order in his book Great Game On: The Contest for Central Asia and Global Supremacy (Melbourne University Press, 2024).
Raby explores how China, having secured its 22,000 km land borders and outmaneuvered its rival Russia (now mired in Ukraine) in Central Asia, is now poised to assert its maritime boundaries as an emergent global power. The book recounts the 19th-century “Great Game” between Britain and Russia, drawing parallels with today’s US-China rivalry. He argues that avoiding the “Thucydides Trap” of war will require strategic space to stabilise a “bounded” global order.
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Michael Lester is a public policy economist with a career in Commonwealth and State agencies, World Bank and OECD. His interests include innovation, environment, and governance. He presents programs on community radio.
Geoff Raby: Ambassador to China, 2007-11; 2nd edn. of China’s Grand Strategy and Australia’s Future in the New Global Order was published in May 2025 and Great Game On, November 2024, both by Melbourne UP.