Publications

A Wrong Turn In The Indo-Pacific

September 5, 2025 Ilan I. Berman Newsweek

Just a few months ago, U.S.-India relations were on an upswing. But that was then, and this is now. Ties between Washington and New Delhi have deteriorated dramatically since, for both political and economic reasons.

Indo-Pacific Monitor No. 47

August 19, 2025 Thomas S. Sexton

Pyongyang deploys to Russia's frontlines;
Pacific power shifts toward Beijing;
Chinese ships collide in Scarborough Shoal;
Tokyo diversifies its defense portfolio;
South Korea's population problem

The Nine Gates of Power: China’s Passageways to the World Ocean

June 6, 2025 Kyle Kinnie American Foreign Policy Council

In December 2010, the Asahi Shimbun published a remarkable roadmap laying out the future trajectory of Chinese maritime expansion. In its analysis, the Shimbun outlined a geographically contingent thesis of Chinese geopolitical strategy—one on which the scholar Tetsuo Kotani elaborated further in a 2019 academic paper. Both publications argue that Chinese maritime access to the Pacific and Indian Oceans is effectively constrained through a series of islands and straits in the First Island Chain. These potential chokepoints constitute the “Nine Gates” through which Chinese maritime commerce and sea power must flow.