Economy
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Isolation vis-a-vis Integration: China’s road to AI self sufficiency
Far from crippling China’ technological ambitions, the US sanctions have accelerated Beijing’s transition toward a resilient, state-directed model of AI sovereignty. Through a “Triple Helix” framework that fuses immense state capital, corporate entrepreneurship, and growing R&D power of elite universities, China is systematically replacing foreign dependencies with domestic alternatives. The…
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China’s Japan Moment: Why Beijing’s Next Few Years Could Decide a “Lost Decade”
In the late 1980s, Japan’s rise felt inevitable with the second-largest economy in the world. The country had in the past decades transformed into a manufacturing powerhouse, with its share of world trade increasing to nearly 10%. Then, the story flipped, as a currency shock collided with an asset bubble…
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Reprioritising Education for Effective Poverty Reduction in Lao PDR
While Laos has made progress in reducing poverty, a deeper problem remains hidden beneath the numbers. Today, poverty is no longer determined by where people live, but rather by whether children finish school. Education deprivation has become the bottleneck in solving Laos’s poverty issue, yet current developmental policies continue to…
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Plugging Timor-Leste Into ASEAN: Could China Power the Region’s Next Great Integration?
Timor-Leste’s entry into ASEAN exposes a structural weakness in the region’s energy integration. The ASEAN Power Grid promises resilience through connectivity but remains vulnerable if new and weaker members stay outside its core infrastructure. With Timor-Leste reliant on costly diesel and lacking interconnections, external support is unavoidable. China’s deep experience…
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The World’s Factory is Producing Less, and Southeast Asia Stands to Benefit
China’s economy, after dominating global manufacturing for almost three decades, is beginning to mature away from low-cost manufacturing in favour of innovation and high-value sectors. This, combined with higher labour costs and geopolitics, has increasingly pushed mass manufacturers—foreign and Chinese—toward Southeast Asia as an industrial hub. While presenting immense benefits,…
Sino-Southeast Initiative 