Security
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Security by Solidarity: The Shifting Scapegoating of Chinese-Indonesians in Modern Indonesia
As Indonesia’s working class began to unravel the entrenched corruption embedded in its national legislature in early August 2025, memories of the racialized violence of 1998 surged back into public consciousness– years when the ethnic Chinese community bore the brunt of civil unrest. Yet amidst these echoes of the past,…
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How Modern Chinese Surveillance and Censorship Prevail on Self-Regulation
Modern Chinese censorship and surveillance do not rely on overt coercion but instead operate by constantly reminding citizens that what they say online is never private. While violence through physical coercion is rare, knowledge of its possibility is enough to instill caution. Living under such an unspoken threat fosters a…
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Competition in the Ocean: China’s Vertical Expansion and India’s Horizontal Dominance
As China deepens its strategic footprint through vertical port development and energy corridors, India counters with a horizontally expansive maritime network rooted in historical connectivity. Both powers have increasingly prioritized the Indian Ocean as a geopolitical landscape, where ancient trade routes meet modern rivalries. In their ancient maritime treatises, “Bahr…
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Korea’s Rise and America’s Retreat in Southeast Asian Defense
As the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting convenes in South Korea amid heightened geopolitical tensions, Southeast Asia’s systematic shift toward Korean and European defense systems represents a critical challenge to American strategic influence in the region. While the US pursues renewed engagement through expanded defense agreements and strengthened alliances, Seoul’s emerging…
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The New Iron Curtains of AI: How US and Chinese Rulebooks Are Rewiring Power
AI policy has become industrial policy, export control, and alliance management at once. Since 2020, Washington and Beijing have converged on a blunt insight: whoever writes the rules for models, chips, and data flows sets the pecking order. Both are building regulatory perimeters that do more than “keep us safe.”…
Sino-Southeast Initiative 