China

Australia has entered the renewed diplomatic fray about China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea, clarifying, if not entirely resolving, Canberra’s previously vague legal position on the strategically important and contested waters. The timing is significant, following the 

To understand China, it’s not a bad idea to keep an eye on what is happening inside the country. Much of the current international discussion about China focuses on China’s plans to expand its overseas influence – both in Asia and beyond. But as the legendary American politician Tip O’Neill

As China recovers from the Covid-19 crisis, the apparatus of the state is about to be devoted to a new form of social control. By the end of 2020, China plans to introduce its national social credit system. For some, this evokes dystopian visions of a surveillance state, monitoring more than a

In this episode of COVIDcast, Hervé Lemahieu, Director of the Power and Diplomacy Program at the Lowy Institute, sat down with the Honourable Malcolm Turnbull, Prime Minister of Australia from 2015 to 2018, to discuss the geopolitical challenges Australia must confront in the wake of the pandemic.

Indian officials claim that China is continuing its build-up along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the de facto border between India and China in the Galwan Valley of eastern Ladakh region. New satellite imagery supports the claim that not only is the People’s Liberation Army holding ground

When discussing the rise of China, a sense of inevitability often pervades. China’s sheer population size and economic base will inevitably see it become the dominant regional power– or so the argument goes. China’s faster reopening from Covid-19 lockdowns has added to such arguments. That

Last month’s clash between Indian and Chinese troops in Ladakh was the most significant conflict between the two countries since 1967. Despite signs of a partial tactical pullback in some places, there is considerable risk of further confrontations and even escalation along the disputed border.

One might wonder how something as small as five nanometres – about the width of two strands of DNA – could be of consequence to the complex political relationships between the US, China and Taiwan. Semiconductor chips are the brains of all our electronics, from mobile phones to cars to fighter

Last month, US President Donald Trump surprised allies by calling for Russia and Australia to be admitted together with India and South Korea to an expanded G-7. Writing in support of the idea, federal Liberal MP Dave Sharma has cast the argument as a reversal of Nixon’s 1972 opening to Mao’s

In the late hours of Tuesday evening last week, China’s new national security law for Hong Kong came into force. Seen by many as a response to the pro-democracy protests that erupted in the city last year, the law criminalises four types of national security offenses: sedition, subversion,

Costing the D word Diversification might be the word of the moment in the lexicon of Australian trade debate, even though few advocates make much attempt to explain how it will actually work. But now we have two interesting efforts to quantify just how selected reductions in trade with China in

It has been more than a year and a half since the Chinese government arbitrarily apprehended two Canadian citizens, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. Their arrests have been widely interpreted as retaliation for Canada detaining Meng Wanzhou, a Huawei executive and the daughter of the company’s

The China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is one of the flagship projects of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It initially attracted US$46 billion in investment, which was later increased to $62 billion by April 2017, to support large-scale “infrastructure construction” and industrial

Nearly a century ago, Dale Carnegie achieved world renown for his book How to Win Friends and Influence People. I’m not sure if it was ever translated into Mandarin, but I’m guessing that Chinese President Xi Jinping has never read it, either way. Perhaps he should. Under Xi’s leadership,

Book Review: Dexter Roberts The Myth of Chinese Capitalism: The Worker, the Factory, and the Future of the World (St Martin’s Press, 2020) With the US, Brazil and many European countries struggling to manage the Covid-19 pandemic, China seems to be emerging as an even greater economic and

Sam Roggeveen is absolutely right. Australia’s China debate has been dramatically transformed over the past few years. Like him, I welcome a robust discussion about our relationship with Asia’s emerging power and our major trading partner. It’s a pity China’s citizens can’t have one about

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which aims to grow the Chinese economy through facilitating extensive trade across Eurasia and Africa, is now so large it is shaping how China engages its near region and the wider world. Some 126 countries and 29 international organisations have signed

Australia’s national debate about China has been dramatically transformed over the last few years. China’s rise is arguably the most important thing to happen to Australia’s place in the world since federation, so the fact that we are debating its implications so openly and