• How China’s AI Momentum Reflects the Strength of Its Economic Playbook

    How China’s AI Momentum Reflects the Strength of Its Economic Playbook

    China’s rise in artificial intelligence reflects the strength of its state-directed economic playbook, which mobilizes capital, talent, and local governments around national priorities. Unlike the US’ predominantly market-led model, China’s centralized political authority combined with decentralized economic competition enables rapid policy execution and industrial coordination. Though prone to inefficiencies, this…

  • Malaysia — The Missing Piece in US Indo-Pacific Strategy

    Malaysia — The Missing Piece in US Indo-Pacific Strategy

    Malaysia’s growing tilt toward non-Western partners reflects less a natural alignment with China than the cumulative effects of American neglect, protectionism, and transactional diplomacy. Despite deep security cooperation, shared interests in the South China Sea, and critical economic interdependence, especially in semiconductors, US policy has weakened a partnership that is…

  • An Insignificant Sympathy: Assessing Overseas Chinese Influence Operations in Malaysia

    An Insignificant Sympathy: Assessing Overseas Chinese Influence Operations in Malaysia

    Over the last two decades, analysts have increasingly described the PRC’s “Qiaowu” as the “largest diasporic influence operation in history,” with increasingly alarmist examples of the Overseas Chinese manipulating local politics in Europe, the US, and Australia. In the case of Malaysia, the Overseas Chinese exhibit contradictory tendencies. On one…

  • Reflecting on China’s One: Child Policy 45 Years Later

    Reflecting on China’s One: Child Policy 45 Years Later

    Born out of a legacy of extensive state planning, China’s one-child policy is regarded as the strictest family planning program in modern history. Formulated as an emergency measure to increase per capita living standards at its inception, the experiences of comparative countries provide strong evidence that the policy provided limited…