Thread. Fascinating conversation with @dfat Secretary Frances Adamson on the latest Australia in the World podcast with Allan Gyngell and @limdarrenj No breaking news but some interesting snippets for those who haven’t yet listened 1/ https://australiaintheworld.podbean.com/ 

Adamson says the #COVID19 pandemic is placing significant pressure on the Department. “We’ve never seen anything quite like this before, it’s been crisis writ large.” She says at one point 80% of @dfat staff (!) were redeployed to work on the #COVID19 response 2/

Worth contemplating the sheer scale of this task. Adamson says @dfat has helped more than 27 thousand Australians return home, and fielded around 70 thousand phone calls from Australians needing help 3/

How has #COVID19 reshaped diplomacy? Quite profoundly. Face to face meetings with foreign leaders/diplomats have almost entirely disappeared. But Adamson says everyone has adapted quite quickly 4/

Adamson says after the PM's very first virtual summit - with Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong - @ScottMorrisonMP said “that was weird!” But she says “that was the only time it felt weird.” It now feels very normal. Adamson says the summit with Modi was a great success, for eg 5/

In some ways the explosion of virtual meetings actually offers advantages. The Secretary says the FM @MarisePayne has “over-achieved” in the last three months, holding 50-60 (!) substantive bilateral meetings with her counterparts, far more than she could have done in person 6/

Continuing this. Adamson says the only problem with the virtual meetings is that you miss “the touch, the feel, the context” you get from face-to-face meetings and extended visits overseas 7/

Adamson is asked about resurgent nativism, populism and isolationism in the US/UK. Adamson says the same sentiments aren’t as powerful in Australia. There is still a broad bipartisan consensus in favour of free trade for example. But she says she watches this closely 8/

Adamson – “there isn’t a single defining issue (like Brexit) that eats away at us until we’ve fixed it. I would worry deeply if I were to see evidence of that (in Australia) … you have to nip these sorts of things in the bud” 9/

The Secretary says in this era it’s particularly important for Australian leaders and civil servants to both listen to (and engage with) Australians on foreign policy – “what we do has to be connected to the real world” 10/

Then they move on to China. Adamson – “China should be in no doubt that countries in region will be respectful of its great power status, when it reaches that point. But great powers need to realise they can command power in a variety of ways” 11/

Adamson says Australia’s partners all want the region to be both “resistant to coercion and open to collaboration.” There’s an active conversation between nations “about how to get there.” These discussions don’t hog headlines, but they're intensifying in frequency 12/

Adamson says Australia is still searching for an equilibrium with China in the region. Adamson says Australia wants a balance “where differences are recognised and understood, and there is still space for there to be mutual pursuit of opportunity” 13/

Finally, a fascinating discussion about China's authoritarian turn. Adamson recalls how the intellectual climate began to change back in 2013 when she was still Australia's Ambassador to China 14/

Adamson says some Chinese intellectuals and foreign policy thinkers who came to the Australian Embassy for dinners/lunches started to complain they’d lost access - "they were puzzled, they were used to being invited into ministries or the leadership compound. It was striking" 15/

Of course the atmosphere is now even more fearful (my word, not Adamson's) The Secretary says you "can still have conversations with individuals" in China, but "the space for public debate has probably shrunk a bit" 16/

But Adamson (no surprise!) has not given up on diplomacy with China. She says right now we are in a "a period of difference." But the Chinese government is "pragmatic." Both countries "may still have opportunities to work together in the future when it makes pragmatic sense" 17/