China
Opium and the colonial narco-state
Book review: Smoke and ashes: Opium’s hidden histories by Amitav Ghosh (Murray, 2024)
Switching for a while from fiction to fact, Amitav Ghosh has written an account of …
Where did that Chinese police video come from?
Last night’s 60 Minutes broadcast in Australia featured extraordinary footage of 2017 Chinese police raids in Fiji, followed by the extraction of 77 People’s Republic of China…
The Philippines seeks out old friends and new
The failure of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to secure a substantive joint statement to address South China Sea disputes at last year’s leaders’ summit and the more…
Green transition: Supercharging a sustainable future for the Asia‑Pacific
The Asia-Pacific region, a beacon of economic growth, is projected to contribute an astonishing 60% to global GDP growth by 2024. At the heart of this region’s transformation is…
New Zealand and ASEAN: Focusing on what’s right under its nose
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is new in the job, yet he took time away to fly across the Tasman earlier this month and meet the various leaders of the Association…
China's grey-zone provocations: Time to reciprocate
It’s time to send a signal to Beijing that a crisis is approaching. China’s use of grey zone tactics is intensifying. This worsening trend line has been evident for several years…
China’s dominance over critical minerals poses an unacceptable risk
Critical minerals are the world's building blocks for emerging and future technologies. They are essential to manufacturing, clean energy production, semiconductor production, and…
Why Japan’s de‑risking response to China is incoherent
While “de-risking” has only recently entered the strategic vocabulary of Western policymakers, Japan has sought to de-risk its economy from China for well over ten years. Yet, the…
Shipping and the great shrinking waterways
How low can the Yangtze go?
Although Asia’s longest river is making a slow recovery from the late-2022 drought that stopped some of the traffic up the “golden waterway” that…
Understanding China’s efforts to bridge the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait disputes
Two Asia-Pacific flashpoints – the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait – stand at a critical juncture, but their connection is not always well understood.
In the South China Sea,…