A Royal Australian Navy ship is transiting international waters in the South China Sea. A large fleet of fishing vessels, some with reinforced bows, deliberately manoeuvres close to the Australian warship. In the melee, one …
Planet A California has shifted its land-management policy, removing legal barriers to controlled burns and training civilians in indigenous burn-off methods to mitigate the state’s increasingly catastrophic bushfires. By recognising the unique culture of land …
Since the late 1920s, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has been active in the development of northern Australia. Research over the years has ranged from tackling invasive plants like prickly pear to introducing …
As the world’s largest, strongest and longest-surviving dictatorship, contemporary China lacks the rule of law. Yet it is increasingly using its rubber-stamp parliament to enact domestic legislation asserting territorial claims and rights in international law. …
This month marks 30 years since the USSR collapsed voluntarily. It’s rare in world history that such a militarily powerful empire disappears without going to war. The Soviet Union had 12,000 strategic nuclear warheads, 260 …
In October, Facebook and its related social media platforms went down in mysterious circumstances for six hours. On the same day, China sent 52 military aircraft into Taiwan’s air defence zone, the largest and most …
When global leaders gather virtually on 9 and 10 December for US President Joe Biden’s Summit for Democracy, they ought to be asking themselves a simple question: What can we do to help democracy’s bravest …
As the world grapples with global warming and seeks to reduce emissions to net zero over the next three decades, oil-producing states are set to maximise earnings from their black gold before it loses its …
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has done the right thing: he’s announced Australia will join a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics because of the Chinese government’s human rights abuses. While it couldn’t be taken …
France’s valued role in the Indo-Pacific is under pressure, as it proceeds with its own plans for settling the future of New Caledonia in apparent disregard for the local practices of its indigenous Kanak communities, …
Czech voters delivered an upset in their country’s parliamentary election in October, choosing a coalition of mainly centre-right opposition parties over the movement led by the populist former prime minister, Andrej Babis. With the new …
Should Australian officials and dignitaries travel with our athletes to Beijing in February for the Winter Olympics? Check the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Smartraveller site, which says that Chinese authorities have ‘detained foreigners …
A recent test flight of Boeing Australia’s Airpower Teaming System, the second such flight in the ‘Loyal Wingman’ program, which currently has two test aircraft, saw the first aircraft retract its undercarriage for the first …
A year after Beijing imposed its national security law on Hong Kong, many residents are leaving the city or are contemplating departing. Since 2020, close to 90,000 people, or 1.2% of the population, have gone. …
The United States and China are competing for dominance in technology. America has long been at the forefront in developing the technologies (bio, nano, information) that are central to economic growth in the 21st century …
Technology policy formulation has gained a renewed importance for governments in the era of strategic competition, but contextual understanding and expertise in deciding where to focus efforts are lacking. As a result, it’s difficult to …
China’s system of bankrolling its state companies may be entrenching great inefficiency in its economy but has delivered it unchallenged dominance in the critical minerals required for advanced technologies. Separate investigations by the New York …
In what is becoming a monthly phenomenon, Islamic State’s branch in Afghanistan (Islamic State Khorasan, or IS-K) has topped all of its global provinces in terms of both quantity of operations as well as casualties inflicted, reclaiming its …
India has somehow emerged as the villain of last month’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), blamed for resisting cuts to coal consumption even as toxic air envelops its capital, New Delhi. The country’s supposed …
ASPI celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. This series looks at ASPI’s work since its creation in August 2001. Quad 1.0 had a tentative start and then crashed. Reborn in 2017, Quad 2.0 has had …