8 May 2018
Soft-power dressing: China’s moment in the US
A rare chance to dress up political motives as a form of cultural appreciation.
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4 May 2018
The language of cross-strait tensions
The Chinese military has released a propaganda video aimed at Taiwan recorded in Hokkien, a language widely discouraged in China. -
30 Apr 2018
China: magic weapons and “plausible deniability”
Attention has understandably focused on the designs abroad of the United Front Work Department, yet more profound effects may be felt within China’s borders. -
27 Apr 2018
Clamorous response to a Silent Invasion
Instead of generating a sense of common concern, Clive Hamilton’s book could spark discord, sow the seeds of suspicion, and feed ingrained paranoia. -
26 Apr 2018
Australia’s Chinese ballistic missile problem
China’s new islands and missiles have changed our regional strategic balance. -
23 Apr 2018
The Beijing way of trade punishment
China has a bigger adversary to contend with before picking fights with Australia. -
20 Apr 2018
Australian warships challenged in South China Sea
Clearly, someone in Australia’s defence and security establishment wanted China’s challenge to be made public. -
20 Apr 2018
Will China’s new aid agency be effective?
China’s new approach to aid looks to be closely aligned to the Belt and Road Initiative. -
19 Apr 2018
China influence: in defence of parliamentary sovereignty
For a party with no interest in popular elections at home, the Chinese Communist Party shows remarkable curiosity about electoral democracies elsewhere. -
18 Apr 2018
Is Japan’s rare earth discovery fool’s gold?
It is one thing to be in possession of an unrivalled deposit of unmined ore, and quite another to unlock its vast potential. -
18 Apr 2018
Caught in a pincer
The biggest destabilising player in Melanesia over the past five years has not been China, but Indonesia. -
16 Apr 2018
Is Trump ready to bear the cost of a trade war?
The test of US policy is not how much it can hurt others but how much pain it will withstand. -
13 Apr 2018
Boao Forum, through the eyes of China’s state media
“Confidence” was the message, reinforced in print and online. -
11 Apr 2018
The Boao confidence
Xi Jinping didn’t mention Beijing’s current stand-off with Washington, but the contrast he was drawing was clear. -
11 Apr 2018
Australia vs China, Europe vs Russia
Surprising parallels in international relations appear to lead to similar replies. -
10 Apr 2018
The many questions about China’s Vanuatu ambition
Talk of a Chinese military base in Vanuatu should provoke tough questions in Australia, but not undue alarm. -
10 Apr 2018
Xi’s big bureaucratic shake-up
Sweeping reforms may be difficult to swallow for central and local agencies, but the reorganisation of the Chinese bureaucracy has a good chance of success. -
9 Apr 2018
American trade policy returns to “aggressive unilateralism”
The US deployed similar trade tactics in the 1980s to pursue its grievances with a rising Japan. -
6 Apr 2018
Chinese belts and roads stir mixed reactions in Europe
Europeans are growing more wary of China, but still welcome many of its contributions. -
2 Apr 2018
China: the party, the state, and the new anti-graft body
Xi Jinping has taken a significant risk with reforms of the anti-corruption system. -
1 Apr 2018
Leslie – 15 years on
Leslie Cheung was known as the “Elvis of Hong Kong” and his legacy shows LGBT+ issues remain very much taboo in Chinese culture. -
30 Mar 2018
Deterrence under the dragon’s shadow: Vietnam’s military modernisation
Vietnam has long sought to calibrate its defence posture in the shadows of great power competition. -
28 Mar 2018
Hot take: what does Kim Jong-un’s trip to China mean?
<p>Events are moving fast now and the Beijing trip means a Trump–Kim summit is increasingly likely.</p> -
27 Mar 2018
South China Sea: the Philippine fissure
Rodrigo Duterte is still to resolve tensions between accommodating China and maintaining strong US ties. -
23 Mar 2018
Happiness and the “China Dream”
The Chinese Communist Party has embraced happiness as an aspiration and a mission – not for the first time. -
23 Mar 2018
Cross-strait tensions rising, but Chinese aircraft carrier poses no threat
Sending the Liaoning through the Taiwan Strait may signal China’s displeasure, but in military terms is an irrelevance. -
22 Mar 2018
Q&A: China’s mounting great wall of debt
Richard McGregor talks to Dinny McMahon, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, about his grass-roots tour of the underworld of Chinese finance. -
21 Mar 2018
What next for the anti-whale hunters?
If Japan caused headaches, a fight with China about activists at sea will be very awkward for Australia. -
21 Mar 2018
Silent Invasion: the question of race
Clive Hamilton challenges Australians to recognise the true victims of the Chinese Communist Party’s actions. -
20 Mar 2018
Intellectual property: the big risk in US–China ties
China will certainly respond to a forthcoming US investigation and exports penalties with sanctions of its own. -
19 Mar 2018
China’s new aid agency
An independent agency to oversee China’s expanding aid program is a first step in the right direction. -
16 Mar 2018
The patchy results of China’s soft power efforts
China is merging departments in a bid to further enhance its cultural influence. -
9 Mar 2018
The myth of Chinese containment
Beijing has fostered calculated messages to confuse Western countries about Chinese concerns, real or imagined. -
6 Mar 2018
Beijing’s welcome mat for overseas Chinese
The Chinese Communist Party desires the skills, connections, and knowledge of the outside world. -
6 Mar 2018
Xi Jinping and the grip of the party
Xi Jinping is determined to consolidate and strengthen China’s ruling communist party’s grip on government and the military, the intelligentsia and civil society. -
2 Mar 2018
China’s loans and the debt dilemma
Is Beijing making living with debt easier for poor nations, or easier to default on? -
28 Feb 2018
The danger of might without power
The US cannot only respond to Beijing’s growing economic heft by increasing its military capabilities. -
27 Feb 2018
Philippine troops to China?
Rodrigo Duterte’s latest call to strengthen ties with China is likely to become another source of friction with the Philippine military. -
26 Feb 2018
Echoes of Mao as Xi Jinping ends term limits
Xi’s centralisation of power harks back to darker times in China. -
23 Feb 2018
The Belt and Road to nowhere: China’s incoherent aid in Papua New Guinea
Ten canneries were to be built to capture more value from tuna caught in PNG waters. A decade later, there are no canneries. -
23 Feb 2018
India’s rivalry with China, from the mountains to the sea
During the Doklam crisis, New Dehli apparently tried to send a signal to Beijing with its nuclear missile submarine. -
14 Feb 2018
The Monroe Doctrine revival
The US is again seeking to stamp its authority in Latin America. -
8 Feb 2018
China: the web closes in
Top Chinese officials easily say one thing and do another to fit their vision of deeper party control. -
2 Feb 2018
China’s economic gloom merchants
China will one day run into the same growth-constraining factors as South Korea and Japan. But not yet. -
31 Jan 2018
Off beat: China’s hip-hop ban
An act of censorship serves domestic ends and to project a controlled version of soft power on an international stage. -
30 Jan 2018
China’s new network of Indian Ocean bases
The Chinese navy does not intend to challenge the US Fifth Fleet – at least in the short term. -
25 Jan 2018
Asia’s escalating missile race
Last year saw a surge in testing and deployment of both ballistic and cruise missile technology throughout the Indo-Pacific. -
25 Jan 2018
Joining the dots to Vancouver
Did China browbeat Australia to downgrade official participation in a conference on North Korea? -
24 Jan 2018
What a US–China trade war would look like
The problem for the global economy is not what the Trump administration has done so far. It is what it may contemplate doing next. -
24 Jan 2018
The China factor in India’s commitment to ASEAN
India's position on ASEAN reflects an ambition to create a bulwark against the emergence of a Sino-centric regional order.