India’s Critical Minerals Strategy: Deciphering Between Two Dependencies on China

By Nishant Rajeev and Hu Xinyue

China’s dominance in critical minerals rests on both access to the resources and control over processing, creating two types of dependencies in critical minerals supply chains. Although India is proceeding coherently on the first dependency, it faces several challenges on addressing the second.

Strategic Autonomy Starts Beyond the Mine

By Angela Tritto

Southeast Asia's strategic autonomy in critical minerals cannot rest on linear extraction and conventional downstreaming alone. It will depend on shifting from green extractivism to strategies that move away from linear extraction models and keep minerals in the region through repair, reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling.

India-ASEAN Relations in an Evolving Strategic Landscape

By Srinath Raghavan

India and ASEAN are marking 2026 as the “Year of Maritime Cooperation”. The two sides are keen to promote and deepen maritime exchanges in both commercial and defence domains. They had held the first ASEAN-India Maritime Exercise (AIME) in 2023; a second edition is currently in the works. Such targeted initiatives are aimed at imparting momentum to a relationship that is perceived as flagging—even in comparison to India’s own bilateral ties with countries in the region. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision not to attend in-person the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur in October 2025 was seen as underlining the dip in New Delhi’s interest.

Who Controls AI? Nationalising Trust in the Indo-Pacific and Beyond

By Max Cappuccio

Without transparency, contestability, and institutional checks, nationalisation may “accelerate the corporate-government fusion we’re already sliding toward,” promoting state monopolies that pursue surveillance and militarisation without factually reducing tech oligarchies’ influence. State ownership is not rewarding in itself but only insofar as it promotes publicly accountable technological sovereignty. Nationalising trust, not merely assets, will prove key to secure sovereign capability while ensuring that technological power remains politically legitimate, socially beneficial, and open to public scrutiny.