It is 20 years since Gareth Evans stepped down as Australia’s most influential foreign minister, and one of the world’s most popular diplomats. Serving between 1988 and 1996, he helped imprint good international citizenry as a feature of the liberal global order, and left it as a lasting legacy for what defines a better world. [...] Evans, now the chancellor of the Australia National University, has remained faithful to the cause of good international citizenry despite the much changed and challenging global environment.

“The traditional approach of foreign offices and chancelleries, of strategic command centres, now needs to be supplemented and expanded and re-fashioned by public diplomacy and cultural outreach. I draw your attention to a very successful cultural diplomacy policy that the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has been vigorously promoting in the last year or so,” he said.