The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is increasingly taking a stand against corruption in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Bribing foreign officials in securing projects has always been an unspoken BRI mechanism, but what’s become …
To make a good battery, you need fluorine, an element that is sourced from the mineral fluorspar. That presents a looming problem for China and its considerable efforts to dominate the global electric vehicle (EV) …
The Wall Street Journal recently exposed a 2022 Chinese government directive, named Document 79, that requires state-owned enterprises to replace proprietary foreign software such as operating systems, email services and word processors in their IT …
While China was imposing punitive barriers against Australian exports, its own sales to Australia were rising rapidly, with growth led by motor vehicles, electric machinery and wind towers. China’s annual sales of manufactured goods (excluding …
The future of US-China rivalry is not likely to become a cold war, nor a hot one. Rather, it’s more likely to be a simmer war, a new situation in which there is persistent competition …
The US, Australia and partner countries should take a page from China’s stockpiling playbook. They should build up stockpiles of critical minerals, managing inventories to optimise prices for domestic mineral producers and consumers and to …
Journalists, it has been said, write the first rough draft of history. This is particularly true in China, where official sources and local media provide an incomplete picture and unofficial sources are scarce. As a …
The Singapore government has designated Philip Chan, a naturalised Singapore citizen from Hong Kong, as a ‘politically significant person’. It assessed that Chan was susceptible to foreign influence and willing to advance those interests, essentially …
Writing in The Australian Financial Review on 5 February, my former ASPI colleague, Jennifer Parker, put forward an excellent argument for granting more leeway to serving Defence personnel to speak out on defence affairs, raising …
The five-year icy age between Australia and China has wound down. The leaders have met, and enough fitful warmth has returned to melt a few icicles. The icy age can be mapped and dated as …
Hostage diplomacy is an apt name for the exquisite predicament in which Australia finds itself. An Australian citizen, Yang Hengjun, is held arbitrarily and then, in a shocking decision, sentenced to death. But with the …
On 30 January, 2024, President Xi Jinping provided further evidence that China formally recognises the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. This sets a dangerous international precedent and is a morally moribund approach to …