This paper explores how China has strategised its monopoly on rare earth commodities and the impact of that action at the geopolitical level. It also examines how countries such as Australia and the U.S may navigate around that monopolisation, which will also have implications at the political level.

This paper argues that China has a key and, in the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), legitimate reason to focus its efforts in the South-West Pacific: to break out from Washington’s efforts to contain China’s influence and displace the United States as the dominant Pacific power.

This analysis reviews the evidence surrounding China’s debt practices in the Pacific and the extent to which they have contributed to rising debt sustainability risks in the region.

The huge numbers of international students are unprecedented in the history of Australian tertiary education. We are educating swathes of the Chinese middle class at a time of geopolitical tension.

A region long paid little attention by Washington, it is now arguable that the South Pacific has the potential to morph into the next theatre of strategic competition between China and the United States, aided by Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and Japan.