A deep dive on China’s spy balloons

Beijing’s covert spy balloons are an example of the way the regime uses ostensibly civilian and scientific means to pursue its expansionist military ends.

Welcome to the danger zone

In their book, Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, Hal Brands and Michael Beckley argue that China is passing its economic peak but that this increases its temptation for aggression against its neighbours and the West.

The curious case of the Chinese spy balloon

The incursion of a Chinese spy balloon into United States’ airspace, and revelations that this incident is by no means a one off, have dominated the headlines, so why is China still protesting its innocence in the affair?

Hong Kong’s walled garden

China’s tightening grip on Hong Kong may have fallen from the headlines, but the suffocating grip of the Chinese Communist Party increases every day.

Standing up to China on trade

Trade policy is inseparable from strategy and security, and Australia must resist China’s attempts to use trade to ­coerce Australia over sovereign decisions it made in other realms.

China’s assault on global human rights

China is using economic coercion, inducement, harassment and manipulation through its belt and road initiative to undermine the international human rights framework.

Welcome to the danger zone

China appears to be on collision course with the West, given its aggressive rhetoric and actions, but conflict is not inevitable.

House of the dragon

China’s apparently unstoppable rise has been slowed by economic woes, international suspicion and internal dissent in recent months.

Protests surge in China

30 years after thousands of pro-democracy students were massacred in Tiananmen Square, nationwide popular protests against China’s harsh COVID lockdowns may spill over into renewed rage against the Communist Party and Xi Jinping’s brutal dictatorship itself.

Judicial repression in Hong Kong

The more the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities politicise local courts, the harder it will be for them to pretend that Hong Kong’s legal system can survive under China’s dark shadow.

Turn into something beautiful

China’s imposition of a draconian ‘national security law’ has quashed but failed to extinguish the embers of Hong Kong’s democracy.

Pride before the fall

President Xi has concentrated all power in China in his hands, a recipe for disaster which may soon come to the boil.