Interview with the incomparable Leona Chen, eloquent on the work of living, representing and making Taiwanese identity and politics across generations and geographies. www.youtube.com/watch?v=v15T...

Honda's reusable rocket prototype.

Important piece from @heldavidson.bsky.social tracking a shift from Beijing's military warfare to political warfare against Taiwan, as military activity in the Taiwan Strait hit their current threat salience limit just short of a kinetic event. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Australia’s Understanding and Preparedness for a Taiwan Strait Contingency. From me, for Australian Outlook. www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianou...

Important and shocking report from Amy Hawkins in @theguardian.com Furthermore, foreign universities, including in Australia, have partnerships with inland PRC universities directly involved in the central government campaign against Uyghurs since 2017. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

"Our Al turned your paper into a shareable comic." Oh ... no.

Comments by me on the research report "Australian public and institutional responses to Taiwan Strait crises", on better coordination between the Commonwealth and state govts. and industry, and listening to the Taiwanese-Australian community. www.canberratimes.com.au/story/910142...

🚨 NEW REPORT 🚨 In ‘Australian public and institutional responses to Taiwan Strait crises’, Mark Harrison, Mei-fen Kuo, John Fitzgerald, Nathan Attrill & Marc Ablong PSM provide vital insights into how Australians understand & are likely to respond to crises in the Taiwan Strait. 🔖 : bit.ly/43BHggS

Good from @gideonrachman.bsky.social, getting a proper read on what an invasion of Taiwan by China actually means regardless of the US position and placing agency where it belongs, with Xi Jinping. In truth, the crisis would never end, as Japan learned in 1930. www.ft.com/content/f2de...

When pundits discuss Taiwan’s fate without recognizing its people’s voice, they are not describing geopolitics — they are performing it. The language of “strategic calculation” becomes a tool of erasure.

The self-ascribed progressive alternative to ABC's The Insiders, #SundayShot, @instanterudite.bsky.social and Bruce Wolpe with dreadful comments about Taiwan, bizarrely claiming the US could cede Taiwan to China as if it is it US territory, erasing 23m people with their own story.

Shocker from David Speers, taking Trump's comments with Albanese and spinning them into a misguided commentary on a "war over Taiwan" that has no meaningful understanding of Taiwan or its relationship to China. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

"‘Country could shut down’: Australia has just 28 days of petrol" Racking my brains trying to think of some possible regional crisis that could disrupt Australia's oil imports. www.afr.com/policy/forei...

Tasmanian Chinese Buddhist Academy of Australia Cultural Park, under construction for many years, vandalised with "中国统战部AUS HQ".

"...on the other is the Kuomintang (KMT) party, which has always been friendlier with China, and encouraged more dialogue." Has it, though? www.bbc.com/news/article...

"An absolute resolve to stand together and defend democracy itself." Australian PM Albanese on defending democracy. A line with far-reaching implications given the active threat to one particular democracy in our region. www.pm.gov.au/media/addres...

"Funding deal for research program about Australia's polar security rejected by Tasmanian government." A lot to unpack here.

"Classified US intelligence warns of China's preparations for Taiwan invasion." Yes.

Those were the days. A 594 page reading pack.

Call in the Hobart Mercury for "multipolarity", a codeword for great power spheres of influence and abandoning the liberal principle of universal human rights.

New regulations on transnational education, or 中外合作办学 Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools just released.

Important speech by University of Canberra VC Bill Shorten, with much to commend it, but still treating academic knowledge as a resource to be extracted, not a field to be tended. www.canberra.edu.au/about-uc/med...

ABC report on the Victorian state government delegation in China, with important comments from John Fitzgerald and the revelation that the Victoria-China MOU on public education cooperation is "confidential". www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzXb...

Tell me you don't understand Taiwan without telling me you don't understand Taiwan. "German reunification could offer lessons for Beijing on Taiwan: government adviser"

Imagine trying to teach about Taiwan at any Victorian education institution under this agreement, or being a student who identifies as Taiwanese-Australian.

"The landmark Memorandum of Understanding between Victoria and China’s Ministry of Education will establish the Working Group, driving educational cooperation from the primary to the tertiary level." This is an abrogation of Australia's national sovereignty. www.premier.vic.gov.au/historic-agr...

More troubling is how the policy statement actively conflates the People's Republic of China with the diverse communities in Victoria that can be ascribed the label "Chinese".

"Victoria’s China Strategy: For a New Golden Era" Released coincident with dire economic data for China, a new "China strategy" for the Victorian state government that, typically for these sorts of documents, has little to say about China itself. www.vic.gov.au/victorias-ch...

With a combination of malice and ignorance, it looks like ICE managed to activate decades of trauma in South Korea from its history of authoritarian violence.

"Representation of the CCP's Concept of the United Front as Part of the the Theory of Contradictions." This from Lyman P. Van Slyke in 1967 still lands.

Excellent commentary in the China Daily on the Japan–Australia 2+2 Foreign and Defence Ministerial Consultations. www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202509/07/...

Come for the pop philosophy, stay for the Wade-Giles. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Extreme example of cognitive dissonance on ABC Insiders, from Raf Epstein and AshleighRaper, vehemently asserting it is unacceptable to be seen with Putin and Kim, et al, but explicitly excluding Xi Jinping himself - who hosted them - from that judgement.

Nice save.

Powerful piece about the Tiananmen Square Massacre, democracy and solidarity, and Daniel Andrews. www.smh.com.au/world/asia/i...

Heroic effort by @heldavidson.bsky.social to push back against the tidal wave of historical revisionism coming from Beijing and being channeled by enablers in Australia.

“Trade is one thing, and tourism, but military parades … I would honestly stop and think seriously about that,” she said. Important comments by fmr Queensland premier Palaszczuk, trying to define one of the most poorly defined concepts in 🇦🇺 foreign policy, "engagement".

PRC ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian rewrites Australian history on our behalf in his call for joint commemoration of WWII between Australia and the People's Republic of China. www.afr.com/policy/forei...

"Why cognitive warfare is Beijing's greatest weapon" From Lavina Lee and John Lee, on China's nuclear weapons and how Beijing has deeply internalised its ideology and outlook into foreign systems, including Australia's, for strategic advantage.

Racers kidnapped with giant nets and ransomed. Others smuggled on to high-speed trains to get to the finish line faster. Performance enhancing drugs. Millions in alleged gambling. Our story on the wild world of Taiwan's pigeon racing, with pics by An Rong Xu www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Thank you so much Lev from me and Catherine.

I am honored to have reviewed @catielila.bsky.social and @mhar4.bsky.social's book "Revolutionary Taiwan: Making Nationhood in a Changing World Order" for The China Quarterly. I highly recommend this book, and I hope my review convinces you to check it out! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Powerful piece from John Fitzgerald, responding to the PRC ambassador's call for Australia to commemorate what the CCP defines as the World Anti-Fascist War and reminder of the importance of defending the telling of Australian history. www.aspistrategist.org.au/where-were-y...

Very good from Richard McGregor, except for the headline. Whether it is political warfare or military warfare (in practice a combination), China will always need a war to take Taiwan and the destruction of Taiwanese society will always be the outcome. www.afr.com/world/asia/s...

Another piece in an Australian newspaper by the PRC ambassador, this one pushing Beijing's efforts to conflate PRC and ROC history for tactical purposes. But if you appropriate the ROC and the KMT completely, they'll never get back into power in Taiwan, and then what, ambassador?

"Taiwanese Views of National Identity" is a graph of post-authoritarian democratic state-building.

Latest TPOF survey on identity and politics in Taiwan, including capturing some of the complex views in the electorate on the recall elections. www.tpof.org/wp-content/u...

This timeline.

From ASIO director Mike Burgess, 2025 Annual Hawke Lecture, identifying Antarctic research as a target for espionage, and much else.