27 articles found : Show all articles
The harassment and expulsion of foreign journalists in China threatens to turn back the clock to the old days of artful China watching from abroad. But former China correspondent and journalism professor Keith B. Richburg argues the explosion of new media and the determination of many Chinese to tell their own stories means China can no longer be isolated or escape critical coverage.
Australia is the world’s biggest producer of lithium – a key ingredient in the manufacture of the batteries that will power the fourth Industrial Revolution. It also has aspirations to be a battery maker. But, as Sophia Kalantzakos, an expert on the geopolitics of minerals writes, it is a field that promises to be both a strategic and commercial scramble as the great powers in the Indo-Pacific vie to secure vital, and scarce, supplies.
This year the United Nations marked the 50th anniversary of the entry into force of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). But, as Professor Emeritus Ramesh Thakur, a renowned expert on nuclear control regimes, notes there is little to celebrate and even less to be optimistic about as the risks of nuclear war persist, especially in the Indo-Pacific. Some bold new thinking is required.
China's recent incursions into the icy borderlands of India's Ladakh region have resulted in increased pushback from its Indo-Pacific neighbours. Far from entrenching China's preeminence in the region, President Xi's expansionist policies have placed the China-India relationship on a knife-edge, writes Professor Brahma Chellaney of the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe managed to strike a delicate diplomatic balance between China and the United States. But as Sino-American tensions escalate, his successor, Yoshihide Suga, will find it increasingly difficult to avoid taking sides, especially on technology issues and security arrangements, writes China expert Minxin Pei.