Virtual Event | Powering Innovation: Advanced Batteries and Critical Supply Chains

An employee works on the production line of a lithium-ion battery factory on November 14, 2020, in Huaibei, Anhui Province of China. (Getty Images)

In the Made in China 2025 Plan, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) outlined its bid for centrality in key technology supply chains, including renewable energy and electric vehicles (EVs). Changing consumer preferences and government policies have increased demand for EVs, driving up demand for advanced batteries. Batteries also have a variety of defense applications that can help enable distributed operational concepts, reducing reliance on legacy energy supply chains. What does this mean for America’s ability to secure its access to these crucial products at a time of rising tensions with China? Join the Hamilton Commission on Securing America’s National Security Industrial Base for this timely discussion.

Azerbaijan's Defiant Message to Iran

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev poses with a Harop drone in Jabrayil, Azerbaijan. (Press Service, Republic of Azerbaijan)

A picture is worth a thousand policy briefs. On Oct. 4, Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, posed for a photo embracing an Israeli Harop drone, highlighting Baku’s increasingly close ties with Israel and sending a clear message of defiance to neighboring Iran. Unintentionally, he was also sending a piece of sage advice to Washington: New challenges require new friends, Michael Doran writes in The Wall Street Journal.

Virtual Event | Evergrande and the Chinese Economy

An aerial view shows the Evergrande community on September 26, 2021, in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. (Getty Images)

Tune in this Thursday at noon to watch a discussion with Senior Fellow John Lee and China Beige Book CEO Leland Miller on the ongoing crisis facing Chinese real estate developer Evergrande and its implications for China’s economy.

Will the Fallout from Afghanistan Undermine America’s Indo-Pacific Alliances?

The Royal Australian Navy submarine HMAS Rankin is seen during AUSINDEX 21, a biennial maritime exercise between the Royal Australian Navy and the Indian Navy on September 5, 2021, in Darwin, Australia. (Getty Images)

The Biden administration’s bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan was roundly condemned by a number of America’s most important allies. Will this have long-term consequences for the increasingly critical alliance-based security architecture in the Indo-Pacific? While assets from Afghanistan can be re-deployed to the Indo-Pacific, the Biden administration’s primary challenge will be to restore its claim to competence and its perceived commitment to U.S. alliances and effective multilateralism, argues James J. Przystup for Hudson Institute. 

Xi Jinping's Two-Track Foreign Policy

Chinese President Xi Jinping attends the ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the return of Macau to China on December 20, 2019, in Macau, China. (Getty Images)

Xi Jinping’s speech on October 9 left no doubt about his commitment to the ultimate incorporation of Taiwan into the People’s Republic of China. But it was what President Xi didn’t say, and the context in which he didn’t say it, that mattered most, writes Walter Russell Mead in The Wall Street Journal.

BEFORE YOU GO...

On the latest episode of Making a Killing, Miranda Patrucic, a senior editor at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project who worked on the Pandora Papers, speaks to Nate Sibley and Paul Massaro about her work on this landmark investigation into the nexus between offshore finance and kleptocracy. Listen and subscribe to learn how corruption is reshaping global politics and fueling some of the deadliest security threats facing the world today.