ISDP Voices

When news broke that Samoa’s prime minister elect, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, would suspend a multi-million-dollar port project financed by the Chinese government it added fuel to the flames of an already existing political crisis. Mata’afa, who is set to become the country’s first female leader, denounced the project as “excessive”. Although she noted that she […]

In a recent episode of the Chinese TV drama “A Love Dilemma”, two husbands in the central story share a personal moment contemplating the essential problem tormenting China’s youth in education and career possibilities. The Theatre Effect (剧场效应) one explains, is the phenomenon where a group of people are watching a play in a theatre […]

(This is the second blog post in a series of similar posts on HMS Queen Elizabeth’s maiden voyage to Asia – Click here for the first post the series) Rebirth of Global Britain The UK’s new aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, has just set sail on her maiden voyage, meant to reclaim the position of […]

Chloé Zhao’s 2021 Oscar wins were historic. At the ceremony she became the first non-white woman and the second woman ever to win to the award for Best Director, and her film Nomadland was honored as Best Picture. Katheryn Bigelow is the only other woman in history to take home the Oscar for Best Director […]

Amid the invasion of Capitol Hill four months ago, social media giants Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube banned then-President Donald Trump from their platforms, citing repeated violations of the Terms of Service and incitement to violence. The unilateral decisions to de-platform a world leader – long-overdue argued some – sent shockwaves reverberating across the globe, stirring […]

Every ten years the Chinese government dispatches teams of census takers throughout the country to compile data on its population. Accurate information about the people who live in the country is vital for any state, but it is particularly important for the Chinese system with its party-state structure and five-year plan system. Knowing the country’s […]

In the late 1950s China experienced one of history’s most devastating famines when an estimated 35-45 million of its people perished. Since then, China’s population has more than doubled to 1.4 billion in 2020. Not only does the Chinese landmass need to feed twice the people it did in 1950, but rising living standards have […]

Ever since its inception in 1971, the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) has had numerous obstacles to overcome in developing and strengthening cooperation across the world’s largest ocean. These include the yawning physical distances between many Pacific nations, which traditionally posed unique communication challenges and the need to juggle the diplomatic interests of several outside actors, […]

Semiconductor chips have quickly become strategic resources for China and the U.S. to leverage in their race for digital dominance. This is in large part due to the close association between semiconductor chips and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Global shortages are coinciding with increasing demand and geopolitical turmoil, forcing states to redraw their supply chains and […]

On March 12, 2021, U.S. President Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Suga, Australian Prime Minister Morrison, and Indian Prime Minister Modi held a quadrilateral summit meeting (the Quad) to discuss pressing issues of the Indo-Pacific region. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Quad forms a multilateral strategic alignment vis-à-vis rising Chinese power. Shortly thereafter on […]