Publications

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. 

Indo-Pacific Monitor No. 41

January 6, 2025 Michael Sobolik

South Korea martial law debacle leaves U.S. regional priorities in doubt;
Signs of a thaw between Washington and Phnom Penh;
Thailand has it both ways on space exploration;
North Korean soldiers confirmed dead in Ukraine;
Pacific Island nations tentatively open protected seabeds