• How Modern Chinese Surveillance and Censorship Prevail on Self-Regulation

    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…

  • Competition in the Ocean: China’s Vertical Expansion and India’s Horizontal Dominance

    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…

  • The Promise and Power of BRICS+: A Conversation with Professor Brian Wong

    The Promise and Power of BRICS+: A Conversation with Professor Brian Wong

    Jonathan Chin, SSI Editor-in-Chief, speaks to Brian Wong, Assistant Professor in Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong. Brian’s research examines the ethics and dynamics of authoritarian regimes and their foreign policies, historical and colonial injustices, and the intersection of geopolitics, political and moral philosophy, and technology. As a geopolitical…

  • The Rise of Cheap, Chinese Humanoid Robots

    The Rise of Cheap, Chinese Humanoid Robots

    The world of humanoid robotics is undergoing a remarkable transformation. Once confined to sci-fi stories and elite research labs, robots are now becoming affordable, mass-produced tools thanks to China’s rapid innovation. Powered by a “good enough, fast, and accessible” mindset, Chinese companies are challenging costly Western prototypes and opening new…

  • The New Iron Curtains of AI: How US and Chinese Rulebooks Are Rewiring Power

    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.”…