Asia Rising

The United States has, over recent years, significantly deepened its engagement with Pacific Island nations — reopening embassies, renewing funding compacts, and positioning itself as a committed partner in a region of growing strategic importance. Since the return of the Trump administration in January 2025, questions have been raised about the continuity of that commitment, and what a changed US...

An escalating crisis faces the Uyghur in China. The newly enacted Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress legalises forced assimilation, erases linguistic rights, and expands state surveillance. It provides a permanent legal framework for the ongoing campaign of mass re-education camps, long-term imprisonment, and cultural erasure of China's minorities. Guest: Yalkun Uluyol (China Researcher, H...

Over the past decade, China has launched a remarkable number of multilateral initiatives — from the Belt and Road to BRICS to a suite of so-called Global Initiatives covering development, security, and civilisation. Western analysts have tended to read these as evidence of a Chinese project to displace the existing international order. Guest: Dr Joel Ng (Senior Fellow and Head of the Centre for Mu...

In an increasingly contested global environment, the international community faces growing pressure to respond to current and emerging wars and instability across the full conflict spectrum: from prevention, to managing active conflict, to post-conflict reconstruction. Effective conflict prevention requires states to draw on a broad toolkit of policy levers, including security and defence initiati...

Over the past two decades, China and India have undergone one of the most dramatic expansions of engineering education in human history. In 2020 alone, India awarded 1.5 million science and engineering degrees, and China awarded 2 million. In China, engineering now makes up a third of all university degrees, and this rate far outpaces the United States. China and India are producing engineers at a...

Tibet's story is one of the most profound of the modern era — a civilisation forced into exile, carrying its language, philosophy, and sacred texts across the Himalayas in an act of collective survival. Preserving that heritage, while also engaging the modern world, has become one of the defining challenges for Tibetans in diaspora. Few people embody that challenge more personally than Geshe Lhakd...

China's new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress mandates Mandarin as the language of education, encourages the breakup of minority-majority neighbourhoods, and criminalises expressions of ethnic separatism — including by Chinese citizens living abroad. Critics say it formalises a decades-long push toward assimilation that has already reshaped the lives of Uyghur, Tibetan, Mongolian and othe...

China’s rise is often framed as a challenge to the Western-led international order, with attention focused on how Beijing works within — and pushes back against — liberal institutions. Yet a more consequential shift is underway. China is increasingly shaping global politics through new, Sino-centric forms of multilateralism, building parallel forums that operate alongside, and sometimes beyond, ex...

Across the Asia-Pacific, people are living longer than ever before. From rapidly ageing societies in Northeast Asia to younger but fast-transitioning populations in South and Southeast Asia, countries across the region are confronting the social and economic implications of longer lives. These shifts are generating diverse challenges — and innovative responses — as governments, communities and fam...

Traditional security debates focus on maps, borders, naval deployments, and treaties. But increasingly, territory in Asia is also constructed through narratives, media coverage, digital platforms, and public emotion. Journalists are not just observers — they help shape how territory, sovereignty, and security are understood by the public and policymakers. Guest: Dr Lupita Wijaya (Research Fellow a...

Asia’s modern resurgence has transformed the global economy, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty through globalization, supply chains and market integration. Yet this success has also generated new geopolitical rivalries and nationalist tensions, placing the region at a critical crossroads between continued prosperity and growing risk. What powered Asia’s economic transformation — and are...

The far north-eastern Indian state of Nagaland has a distinct history, and the Naga communities who call it home face a range of complex dilemmas. Preserving cultural rights and traditions within the framework of the Indian state presents ongoing challenges — particularly in relation to the intricacies of land ownership and governance. Guest: Menokhono Sakhrie (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Tata I...

The global trading system is under growing strain. Security risks are increasing, free trade is in decline, and a new economic order is emerging in which nations increasingly view trade as a tool for gaining strategic and political advantage. Long-standing assumptions about openness, efficiency, and interdependence are being challenged by rising protectionism and geopolitical rivalry. How will cha...

Despite differing geographies and security pressures, Australia and the Republic of Korea face shared challenges arising from intensifying strategic competition and growing regional uncertainty. Both countries have an opportunity for a closer collaboration to promote regional stability and help shape a resilient multipolar order. How can Australia and Korea move beyond defence-industrial cooperati...

The United States — and indeed the world — is now one year into Donald Trump’s second presidency. While many developments were foreshadowed during his first term, 2025 has nevertheless been an eventful year, marked by decisions and dynamics that have had wide-ranging global consequences. Guests: Professor Nick Bisley (Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research), La Trobe University) Professor Bec Strating (Dir...

The Indo-Pacific is often described as a maritime region, but the oceans here are far more than geography. They are trade corridors, food sources, energy highways, and increasingly, sites of strategic competition. How states think about security at sea—what some now call blue security—is becoming central to regional order. Dr Troy Lee-Brown (Research Fellow, University of Western Australia Defence...

Russia has long imagined itself as a great power looking westward while sitting firmly in the east. That tension—between geography and identity, ambition and capability—shapes the way it approaches Asia. Guest: Dr Ian Storey (Senior Fellow at the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore)

China’s presence in Latin America has expanded rapidly over the past two decades, reshaping the region’s economies, politics, and strategic landscape. From major infrastructure projects and digital ecosystems to shifting patterns of trade, finance, and influence, Beijing’s role is becoming both more complex and more contested. Guest: Margaret Myers (Managing Director, Institute for America, China,...

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has upended global geopolitics — and its ripple effects have reached deep into Southeast Asia. How has the Kremlin’s “pivot to Asia” evolved under Vladimir Putin and has Russia been able to advance its economic and geopolitical interests in Southeast Asia? How did regional states react to Russian aggression against Ukraine and what explains their differing r...

Across the Indo-Pacific rising geopolitical tensions, democratic backsliding, and climate-related instability are increasing the risk of violent conflict. Yet far less attention — and funding — is devoted to preventing crises before they occur. Early-warning, multi-track diplomacy, locally grounded peacebuilding, and whole-of-government coherence are all strategies that can be employed to develop...

For more than a thousand years, India stood at the heart of the ancient world — a confident exporter of ideas, art, religion, science, and philosophy that travelled from the Red Sea to the Pacific. In his new book, "The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World", respected historian and author William Dalrymple traces this extraordinary flow of culture and knowledge, showing how Indian...

Over the past decade, China has moved from maintaining a relatively modest nuclear deterrent of around 300 warheads to constructing hundreds of new missile silos and expanding toward a projected 1,000 warheads by the 2030s. This is happening alongside breakthroughs in nuclear energy and technology, positioning China as both a nuclear power and nuclear supplier on a global scale. Guest: Dr Rajeswar...

Join La Trobe Asia, in partnership with Asia Society Australia, Kubernein Initiative and Girls Run the World, at our 'Women in Leadership: Asia-Australia' event, featuring Ambika Vishwanath, Dr Premesha Saha, Dr Avery Poole and Asha Clementi. How have our speakers’ lived experiences impacted how they approach geopolitics? How has leadership in the Asia-Australia space evolved in the last ten years...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rohingya refugees in Malaysia faced a surge of hostility. Online campaigns portrayed them as disease carriers, social burdens, and even threats to national security. This backlash didn’t just stop at refugees themselves—it expanded to target the organisations, institutions, and humanitarian norms that supported them. Guest: Ruji Auethavornpipat (Politics and Internati...

South Korea has unique security challenges when compared to many of its neighbours. Like many it lives in the shadow of giants like China and Russia, but the ever-present threat of North Korea is less than 50km from its capital, Seoul. While its alliance with the United States remains important to Korea’s security and foreign policy outlook, there are many possibilities for stronger ties to allies...