The author of this paper argues that Australia has performed better in curtailing the influence of China on media than most countries in East and Southeast Asia. It is suggested that these countries stay alert and work together to forge a cross-nation network in exchange...

This report explores how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses foreign social media influencers to shape and push messages domestically and internationally about Xinjiang that are aligned with its own preferred narratives.

This report analyses two Chinese state-linked networks seeking to influence discourse about Xinjiang across platforms including Twitter and YouTube. This activity targeted the Chinese-speaking diaspora, as well as international audiences, sharing content in a variety of languages.

This report provides a primer on the roots of the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) within China’s policy system, and sheds light on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) intentions to use cyberspace as a tool for shaping discourse domestically and internationally.

This project maps and analyses the governance mechanisms employed by the Chinese Communist Party-state in Xinjiang from 2014 to 2021 within the context of the region’s ongoing human rights crisis. For policy-makers, this report will provide an evidence base to inform policy responses including possible...

The Chinese Communist Party is at the peak of its power as it enters its second century. This paper examines its evolution over the last 100 years, before turning to its centenary celebrations in July 2021, with Xi Jinping at the helm.

After nearly nine years in office, Xi Jinping now stands as the overwhelmingly dominant figure in China’s political system. This paper assesses China’s possible leadership succession scenarios in the coming years and decades.

The 2020 edition of the China Story yearbook examines the downward-spiralling Sino-Australian relationship, the difficult ‘co-morbidities’ of China’s relations with the US, the end of ‘One Country, Two Systems’ in Hong Kong, the simmering border conflict with India, and the rise of pandemic-related anti-Chinese racism.

This report explores how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), fringe media and pro-CCP online actors seek to shape and influence international perceptions of the Chinese Government’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, including through the amplification of disinformation.

In order to better understand Chinese local-level governance, this report provides translation of an official notice by the town’s CCP committee on the eve of the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 2019.

This paper traces the elitist evolution of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under leader, Xi Jinping, before examining the gap between Party elites and the masses. The author then outlines how China courts foreign elites, arguing that many Australian corporate, university, state and local government...

General Secretary Xi Jinping’s speech on the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of the United Nations is a classic example of the Chinese Communist Party’s doublespeak. Almost every statement was hypocritical when examined in light of such CCP actions as the suppression...

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is increasingly deploying coercive diplomacy against foreign governments and companies. This report tracks the CCP’s use of coercive diplomacy over the past 10 years, recording 152 cases of coercive diplomacy affecting 27 countries, as well as the European Union.

As this paper argues, China’s failures in the early stages of the crisis, and in the overseas propaganda campaign it later mounted, were baked into the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) system. So too was the extraordinary mobilisation of the country’s resources to enforce lockdowns and...

This paper dissects the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP's) united front system and its role in foreign interference. It describes the broad range of agencies and goals of the united front system, rather than focusing only on the United Front Work Department (UFWD).

What kind of global power does China want to be? Communist Party leader Xi Jinping's 2017 speech to the 19th Party Congress should have ended the debate about Beijing’s ambitions, argues Freeman Chair Senior Associate Daniel Tobin.

This papers argues that much of the corona virus ‘blame game’, including the Australian government’s call for an international independent inquiry into China’s actions, is misguided and self-interested.

China has attracted international condemnation for its network of extrajudicial ‘re-education camps’ in Xinjiang. This report exposes a new phase in China’s social re-engineering campaign targeting minority citizens, revealing new evidence that some factories across China are using forced Uyghur labour under a state-sponsored labour...

As China rises, Chinese political elites are increasingly concerned about how it is perceived in the world, and how to shape that global public opinion. This report argues that despite heavy state investment, China Global Television Network (CGTN) has failed to emerge as a significant...

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is building links between China’s civilian universities, military and security agencies. Those efforts, carried out under a policy of leveraging the civilian sector to maximise military power (known as ‘military–civil fusion’), have accelerated in the past decade, according to the...

This report provides analysis of the global operations of Chinese company, Global Tone Communications Technology Co. Ltd (GTCOM), which is a subsidiary of an SOE supervised directly by China’s Central Propaganda Department. GTCOM is responsible for identifying 'risks to state security' - a concept that...

As Australia is compelled to engage with a more confrontational China, there’s a risk that political commentary and media reporting on Chinese influence and interference operations in Australia could affect Chinese-Australian communities adversely. This briefing paper offers some constructive suggestions to address the issue.

Millions of people in Hong Kong are protesting democratic deterioration and rights violations, amid increasing police brutality and other violence against them. This paper argues that the United States and other democracies must take strong, immediate action to stand with the people of Hong Kong...

The United Front has become much more prominent since Xi Jinping became Communist Party general secretary in 2012. Xi has been instrumental in raising its status in the Chinese political system and publicly supporting a dramatic expansion of its roles and target groups.

The rise of China has helped make Australia rich, but it is also posing challenges to its values, interests, alliances and thus its identity. This paper argues that Australia's approach should include a shift towards a much better understanding of contemporary China, as well as...