China

Over the last couple of years Taiwan has been steadily haemorrhaging diplomatic allies. Countries from Africa, Central America and the Caribbean have switched allegiance to Beijing, leaving just 17 countries maintaining formal relations with Taipei. The largest bloc of such countries is in the

Most public discussion of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) tends to paint it as a coherent strategy of the Chinese Communist Party. One school argues that this strategy is largely economic in focus, the other major approach focuses on the political drivers. What both need to consider is

On Tuesday, the usually crowded Central district of Hong Kong, the very heart of the financial hub, experienced an unusual flare of tension. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club hosted an event featuring Andy Chan, the 27-year-old leader of a fringe party promoting Hong Kong independence from

Facebook’s farcical entry into, and withdrawal from, the Chinese market in July appears to confirm a widely held view of the Chinese state’s power to police its online spaces. We like to think of China’s internet as not only bordered but also tightly controlled, subject to the

This article is based on episode 26 of the Little Red Podcast, featuring Peter Cai of the Lowy Institute, Dirk van der Kley of the Australian National University, and Louisa Lim from the Centre for Advancing Journalism at Melbourne University. Last year my most decorated PhD student Colonel

About 76% of Singapore’s population are ethnically Chinese, making it the only majority-Chinese country outside of China, Taiwan, and the cities of Hong Kong and Macau. But as Amy Qin’s New York Times article on Chinese influence creeping into Singapore began circulating on social media,

Former senior Australian diplomat Geoff Raby’s substantial article written for the Asia Society and reproduced in the Australian Financial Review this week continues his “realist” approach to discussion of Australia’s foreign policy choices. It’s another piece

Last week, rumours began swirling around Beijing about possible factional infighting within the Chinese Government involving President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang. The rumours seemed troubling, with Chinese commentator Li Yee saying:  Online reports last Friday

Xi Jinping’s choice of Senegal for a state visit on 20–21 July, his first visit to West Africa, en route to the BRICS summit in South Africa, suggests that China seeks to deepen cooperation in a region that has seen comparatively less Chinese engagements than elsewhere in Africa. In using

The US is moving quickly to follow through on Trump’s threats to further escalate his trade war with China (now is as good a time as any to say that the trade war has officially started). Last week the US imposed tariffs on US$34 billion worth of Chinese imports, with another US$16 billion to be

When President Rodrigo Duterte visited the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in October 2016, he came home with an agreement that earmarked US$24 billion worth of Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) and overseas development aid for the Philippines. Many of the deals were eventually

China has loomed large in the Australian economy for two decades. Be it the demand for iron ore or coal, or the education, property, and tourism markets, the Australian economy has boomed with China’s wind in its sails. As China is now the world’s second largest economy, its global

Once entertaining, the Trump administration is becoming unfunny. In less than a week the trade dispute between China and the US has escalated to cover what will quite likely be the entirety of US goods exports to China, and the greater part, if not the whole, of Chinese goods exports to the US

China is rising! This remarkable event, which is hardly surprising because the process has been underway for at least forty years, is causing great excitement in Australia and elsewhere. In some circles, China’s strong economic growth and international activities have 

It has been a year since Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt severed diplomatic ties with Qatar. Saudi Arabia and the UAE led the boycott, instituting an economic and trade embargo that isolated Qatar by air, land, and sea from its neighbours, sternly restricting Qatari-bound

What’s at stake in the “China influence” debate? According to one view, China’s rise, if unchecked, will leave Australia a mere vassal state, while the United Front Work Department rends the fabric of our democracy from within. Viewed another way, Australia’s future

Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than merely to keep us warm. They change our view of the world, and the world’s view of us.Virginia Woolf, Orlando (1928)  In 2003, then president of the French Fashion Federation, Didier Grumbach, had only one

According to the caricature in the popular media, Chinese international students in Australia are devoted agents of the Chinese Government. They are “brainwashed from birth” and, in this compromised state, pose a threat to Australian universities and the values they espouse. In this context,

Australia’s not-so-old tendency to avoid tension that could jeopardise our economic and trade relationship with China had the unfortunate effect of making China dismissive of Australia’s regional interests. For too long, too few of us thought hard, if at all, about what a region deterred by

Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia Philip Lowe’s speech last week highlighting the risks to the Chinese financial system from shadow banks – non-bank financial institutions often operating in more lightly regulated wholesale markets – has once again drawn attention to the

Over the last year there has been a steady stream of anecdotal and eyewitness reports of China’s construction of a system of “transformation through education” (jiaoyu zhuanhua) centres in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), in the northwest of the country,

Recent media reports indicate Beijing may lift all restrictions on family size, possibly by the end of this year. Of course, there have been premature predictions about the end of the policy ever since China switched to a nationwide two-child policy two years ago. This misunderstanding

With government investment in higher education continuing to decrease, Australian universities are becoming more and more financially reliant on international student fees. As has been the case for a number of years, students from the People’s Republic of China are the largest group by a wide

China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has been viewed through the wider debate over whether a rising China will overturn or uphold the US-led “rules-based liberal international order”. As the first significant international organisation established by China, the AIIB is often