China
China’s high ambition for the low-altitude economy
The futuristic notion of flying drones buzzing atop houses and city streets, making deliveries or even transporting passengers, might never quite eventuate. Yet governments and…
Are US export controls making China’s chip industry more innovative?
Recent reports of Chinese semiconductor chip manufacturers planning to produce 5-nanometre (nm) chips this year raise several uncomfortable questions for American efforts to…
Why China remains unlikely to invade Taiwan
The United States, and Washington DC in particular, is awash with expectations of war against China in the near future, most likely caused by a Chinese decision to forcibly…
Prabowo in China: Indonesia’s president-elect on the world stage
President-elect Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia visited China, Japan and Malaysia last week, heralding his intent to foster foreign relations earnestly after he becomes president in…
What are China’s long-term Antarctic ambitions?
The recent opening of China’s Qinling base, its third permanent Antarctic station, has worried some Australian and American observers. Their concerns suggest it may be time…
Pakistan: The dangerous reality of working on China’s megaprojects
The killing of five Chinese engineers in a 26 March suicide attack in Pakistan’s northwest has renewed concerns about the safety and security of Chinese personnel and projects in…
What should Australia be doing about the South China Sea?
It’s a mark of our turbulent times that China’s dangerous and illegal actions against the Philippines at the Second Thomas Shoal currently only sit in the second tier of…
A wave of US trilaterals sends a clear message to China
After months of speculation, the White House has confirmed the inaugural Trilateral Leaders’ Summit between Japan, the Philippines and the United States. On 11 April, US President…
Are Beijing and Washington testing the dark forest hypothesis?
Last week, Netflix released Three-Body Problem, its widely anticipated TV adaptation of the acclaimed novels by science fiction author Liu Cixin. While met with broadly positive…
Mind the gap: China’s megaproject promises fall short of reality in Southeast Asia
In Bangkok in 2010, Chinese and Thai authorities were discussing a dream: the possibility of working together on a high-speed rail project, which would be Southeast Asia’s first…