Asia Rising

“The seabed is becoming a battlefield,” Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles warned at the Shangri-La Dialogue in May, and “we have been slow – collectively slow – to recognise [submarine cables] as the strategic targets they have become.” Some 16 privately operated submarine cables carry around 99 per cent of Australia’s international data – the financial ...

South Asian cinema shapes how millions of people around the world encounter the region’s cultures, languages, and identities. For many, film provides a gateway to South Asian languages and literature, and to cultural conversations that cross national, regional, and diasporic borders. But what does South Asian cinema say about the societies it represents? Beneath the spectacle, ...

From digital regulation and political pressure to economic influence and self-censorship, media freedom in Asia is being shaped by a range of subtle and evolving constraints. Rather than outright bans on reporting, many observers point to a process of “creeping censorship”—the gradual narrowing of space for independent journalism and public debate. How are these pressures play...

Almost every email you send, every video you stream, and every financial transaction you make travels not through satellites, but through a vast network of cables lying on the ocean floor. Submarine cables are the invisible capillaries of the global internet — and increasingly, they are at the centre of great power competition in the Indo-Pacific. Guest: Dr Samuel Bashfield (Re...

The AUKUS agreement between Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom is set to reshape Australia’s military and strategic future through the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. But the implications of AUKUS extend far beyond defence, with significant consequences for Australia’s economy, diplomacy, industry, and foreign relations. As the project moves from a...