This report argues that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been a mixed bag for China, in terms of its outward investments and economic and strategic outreach plans.

New data suggests East Asia is no longer as reliant on US or Western markets as it once was. Instead, led by a huge expansion in Chinese demand, the region has become far more internally driven, making it somewhat less vulnerable to current global trade tensions than commonly thought and, more importantly, giving it much...

Darwin is now on the front line in managing tensions between Australia’s most important strategic ally and partner and its major trading partner.

Does China seek to nurture and develop its ties to the Middle East as a prerequisite towards supplanting the United States as the security guarantor and primary extra-regional power there?

As it is doing with Saudi Arabia, and in keeping with President Xi Jinping’s political dictum of demonstrating to the world that China’s great rejuvenation has begun and that it is prepared to take its rightful place at or near the very top of the international order, China is moving beyond a mere transactional relationship...