China
Chinese “birth tourism” shows citizenship evolves
Several years ago, while living in Southern California and pregnant with my twin sons, I began hearing news reports about maternity hotels.
Baffled neighbours were asking why so…
Belt and Road: China’s biggest brand
Most public discussion of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) tends to paint it as a coherent strategy of the Chinese Communist Party. One school argues that this strategy is…
Huawei in Australia: the 5G fear
The Australian government has officially blocked Chinese telecommunications firms, most notably Huawei, from providing equipment to Australia’s new 5G mobile phone networks,…
China takes on Hong Kong’s press club
On Tuesday, the usually crowded Central district of Hong Kong, the very heart of the financial hub, experienced an unusual flare of tension. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club…
Working with China on Pacific climate change
The recent release of the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Aid Map has relieved some “strategic anxiety” around China’s growing influence in the Pacific islands. Beijing…
CAC-handed: tensions in Chinese internet control
Facebook’s farcical entry into, and withdrawal from, the Chinese market in July appears to confirm a widely held view of the Chinese state’s power to police its online spaces. We…
Disappearing Deng
It started as soon as Xi Jinping had secured power over the party-state of China. First he was selected to head the Communist Party in November 2012, and then, in what was a…
The Belt and Road’s difficult embrace
This article is based on episode 26 of the Little Red Podcast, featuring Peter Cai of the Lowy Institute, Dirk van der Kley of the Australian National University, and Louisa Lim…
Made in China 2025 and US–China power competition
While US President Donald Trump seems to be cosying up with the likes of North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin lately, his administration has wasted no time in…
The many ways to be Chinese Singaporean
About 76% of Singapore’s population are ethnically Chinese, making it the only majority-Chinese country outside of China, Taiwan, and the cities of Hong Kong and Macau. But…