New: Why Should We Care if AI Agents are On the Loose Across the Indo-Pacific? An AI agent was told to find Australian government health statistics. When it couldn't, it went through a Medicare portal it had no authorization to use. Our guest says that wasn't a cyberattack, and explains why that should worry us even more than if it had been. Heidi Mah, Director of Technology at @BowerGroupAsia and co-author of the new report Agentic AI in Asia: The New Cybersecurity Frontier, joins @GordianKnotRay and Jim to explain what "agentic" artificial intelligence means and why it matters. Unlike the chatbots most of us use, an agent is given a goal and takes "several steps to achieve that goal," improvising when blocked and acting "with very little human intervention." Heidi describes how this lowers the time, cost and skill needed to mount a serious attack, pointing to Anthropic's discovery last November that a hacking group was using a Claude Code tool to run near-autonomous operations against at least 30 targets. The same technology can defend networks, but she warns that even a defensive agent could "go rogue" or leak the vulnerabilities it finds. Jim presses on the supply chain: how does one small vendor's weakness become everyone's problem, and Heidi recalls the 2022 attack on a single plastic-parts supplier that halted Toyota production of more than 13,000 vehicles. India now expects large firms to make sure their suppliers can defend themselves, and a senior minister in Singapore has asked AI companies to notify the government when something goes wrong. The conversation turns to China's new export controls on advanced AI tools and Washington's own temporary restrictions on frontier models. Heidi's test for government is not whether they have the best technology today, but "whether you are able to still access that technology tomorrow." Heidi also discusses whether there is a right way to organize a government for cyber defense and what a "guardrail" looks like. Her bottom line: the risk isn't that AI turns evil. It's that it does exactly what it was asked by whatever means it can find. Links to the full episode below.

Why There Is No One-Size-Fits-All Solution in Cybersecurity Heidi Mah, Director of Technology at @BowerGroupAsia and co-author of the new report Agentic AI in Asia: The New Cybersecurity Frontier, joins @GordianKnotRay and Jim to explain what "agentic" artificial intelligence means and why it matters. Unlike the chatbots most of us use, an agent is given a goal and takes "several steps to achieve that goal," improvising when blocked and acting "with very little human intervention." In this clip, Heidi describes why there is no one size fits all in solving cybersecurity, as each country has different starting points, domestic circumstances and bureaucracy. She emphasizes the need for these countries to have: 1. Greater coordination between government ministries to prevent a cyberattack 2. Continuous international cooperation to respond to cyber threats.

Southeast Asia's individual approach to military cooperation When it comes to how Southeast Asia approaches QUAD military cooperation - No One Size Fits all. Under the right conditions, there is a nuanced level of variability that is often overlooked. Instead of a blanket rejection or acceptance, these partnerships must be examined on a case-by-case basis to understand the specific conditions driving each state's response. Watch our latest episode, as Arzan Tarapore (@arzandc), Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, returns to join @GordianKnotRay and Jim to preview a white paper built by experts he convened from Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore, asking how those countries would react if the Quad stepped up maritime security cooperation.

The QUAD Dilemma: Capacity vs. Provocation in the Indo-Pacific Arzan Tarapore (@arzandc), Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, returns to preview a white paper built by experts he convened from Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore, asking how those countries would react if the Quad stepped up maritime security cooperation. He explains why the controversial grouping cut its agenda to just four lines of effort at its July 2025 foreign ministers’ meeting, and why a more modest Quad may be a more credible one. Geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific often comes down to a delicate strategic trade-off. As Arzan discussed, Southeast Asia must balance partnering with QUAD members- the United States is seen as a high-capacity actor in providing security in the region, while it is also the most provocative, versus a QUAD member like India, which may offer lower provocation alongside more limited capacity.

Rethinking Quad's Security and Capacity Building in Southeast Asia Arzan Tarapore (@arzandc), Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, returns to preview a white paper built by experts he convened from Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore, asking how those countries would react if the Quad stepped up maritime security cooperation. He explains why the controversial grouping cut its agenda to just four lines of effort at its July 2025 foreign ministers’ meeting, and why a more modest Quad may be a more credible one. The common sense was that activities that helped to build capacity of SEA countries are good, whereas activities that are seen as provocative or divisive are bad. When the Quad contemplates security activities in Southeast Asia, the automatic reaction is that Southeast Asia will reject it. But according to Arzan, when you unpack what "capacity building" really means, you find plenty of space for constructive collaboration without triggering automatic resistance.

Taiwan's Growing Challenges to Combat China's Influence Operations @kwangliu, deputy managing editor of CommonWealth Magazine in Taipei and host of Taiwanology, joins SeaLight Executive Director @GordianKnotRay and the @IndoPacPodcast to discuss "Broken Chain," her newsroom's investigation drawing on 1.8 billion vessel-tracking records. In this clip, she revealed a meeting with some members of Taiwan's National Security Council about a growing wave of fake accounts and bots posting about Taiwanese leaders, with many traced back to Hong Kong, China, and Malaysia. The objective is simple: use coordinated attacks to sow doubt in the public's mind and erode trust in Taiwan's government and political system.

Taiwan's Growing Challenges to Combat China's Influence Operations @kwangliu joins @GordianKnotRay and Jim for this week's episode. She revealed a meeting with some members of Taiwan's National Security Council about a growing wave of fake accounts and bots posting about Taiwanese leaders, with many traced back to Hong Kong, China, and Malaysia. The objective is simple: use coordinated attacks to sow doubt in the public's mind and erode trust in Taiwan's government and political system.

🇨🇳China's Imperial Proconsul Speaks: 🇵🇭Filipinos should feel "fortunate" because, "If we want to use force, we may easily win." #China's ambassador to the #Philippines, Jing Quan, told Filipino journalists yesterday that they should "feel fortunate that you have a neighbor like China," explaining that "if we want to use force, we may easily win, but no, we will not choose to use force." This is not the language of a diplomat sent to respectfully negotiate with a sovereign nation, but of a proconsul sent to pacify an unruly colony. In the Roman Empire, a proconsul governed a conquered province, and his job was "pacification"--the Latin word for peace. The empire meant it literally: a province was only "at peace" only when its people stopped resisting imperial rule. A pacification campaign follows a familiar pattern: remind the people how much force you have and present your "restraint" as a gift; demonize those who resist as "troublemakers"; praise and reward the "grateful" locals who cooperate; blame unrest on outside "agitators"; and preach the virtues of accepting the imposed "peace." Observe how Beijing is following its pacification program for the West Philippine Sea: ✅ Threats of force: China says it "will not choose" to use force, yet its coast guard and militia routinely do so. Last October a coast guard ship water-cannoned and rammed a Philippine fisheries vessel anchored off Pag-asa, an island with a civilian population. In July, a Chinese officer struck a Philippine Navy sailor on the head with a baton near Ayungin Shoal. Last month a coast guard ship rammed another fisheries vessel delivering fuel to fishermen just 54 nautical miles off Palawan. Beijing calls this "law enforcement", but the message is explicit: be grateful we're *only* injuring your sailors and damaging your ships. In this narrative, you see, restraint is not a duty under the UN Charter or even the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, but a favor the imperial power grants and can punitively withdraw from ungrateful subjects. ✅ Blaming the troublemakers: Every pacification campaign needs a few rabble-rousers to demagogue and discredit, so it picks a vocal few and makes silencing them the price of “peace.” Foreign Minister Wang Yi laments how "certain forces ... deliberately stir up trouble". The embassy calls Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro the "real troublemaker" and accuses Rear Admiral Jay Tarriela of "poisoning public opinion," even asking whether he has "something wrong with his head." The Global Times dismisses them as "a handful of buffoons" and wants Manila to "exercise stricter discipline" over their remarks. ✅ Naming the outside agitators: Empires routinely attribute indigenous resistance to nefarious foreign forces. Moscow called Hungary's 1956 uprising a Western imperialist plot. Beijing blamed Tibet's 2008 protests on the "Dalai clique" and Hong Kong's 2019 protests on America's "black hand." The charge turns patriotic citizens who resist colonial rule into foreign agents & their legitimate grievances into foreign schemes. In the West Philippine Sea, the colonial troublemakers are "parroting external talking points" to "serve the interests of their masters" and "act on the instructions of external forces." ✅ The cooperative locals: A benevolent proconsul rewards “friends” who help pacify the resistance. "Friends of the Chinese Embassy" awards honor cooperative local media figures as well as other civic, business and education leaders. Last year, officials of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Associations of the Philippines took their oaths of office directly from China's previous ambassador. His successor, Jing Quan, summoned executives from 8 Chinese-language news outlets to the embassy just after arriving, where they pledged to "cooperate closely" with the embassy. At Ateneo University just days ago, Ambassador Jing urged the assembled representatives of universities, Confucius Institutes, Chinese-language schools and community groups to "resolutely do the right thing". ✅ The promised peace: "We love peace," Jing proclaimed, just a week after his coast guard spent nearly 10 hours forcibly obstructing a medical evacuation from Ayungin Shoal--before graciously giving the Philippines "permission" to evacuate its own sailor from its own outpost inside its own exclusive economic zone. Beijing has long pledged to make the South China Sea "a sea of peace, friendship and cooperation," and now calls for a "new narrative" of peace. But peace, in the new-narrative imperial vocabulary, means exactly what it meant for Rome: Philippine waters will be "at peace" when Filipinos stop resisting China's claims to its waters and the legions deployed to pacify them. A diplomat seeks to persuade a sovereign government through respectful negotiation. A proconsul pacifies a population under the ever-present threat of violent action. The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs noted that the ambassador's "poor choice of words" would "seem to convey a thinly veiled threat of the use of force." The DFA was being very diplomatic. Jing's words were hardly a one-off slip of the tongue. In January, the embassy warned Filipinos to "think about Ukraine, Venezuela, Gaza, and Greenland," and said "the Philippines should feel fortunate to have a neighbor like China." In May, Jing himself made the same argument in print, and this month he said it on camera. That's because in a pacification campaign, the threat of force is central to the message. Pacification follows occupation, and China's occupation of the West Philippine Sea is real and accelerating. The attached maps clearly show the China Coast Guard's sovereignty assertions blanketing the sea across the West Philippine Sea, and now even enveloping the Philippines' northernmost province of Batanes. Beijing is turning to the population on shore to persuade them to accept this maritime occupation as permanent, and to be grateful it isn't even more violent. The Philippines is a sovereign country with its own internationally recognized exclusive economic zone and a binding UN-sanctioned arbitration ruling that upholds its maritime entitlements. Officials who defend these rights are not troublemakers, and Filipinos owe no gratitude to the imperial power that stole their sea. "The Chinese Embassy is not a guest," the embassy wrote this week. "It is the representative of China." I’ve worked in embassies, and we always understood that we were always to speak and behave accordingly, as guests of the countries that accepted our credentials. President Marcos accepted Jing Quan's credentials last December. He was accredited as ambassador to a sovereign nation, not appointed as imperial proconsul to pacify a renegade province.

What does "hedging your bets" actually mean for Taiwan's geopolitical strategy? @kwangliu joins @GordianKnotRay and Jim for this week's episode. In this clip, she breaks down the argument that Taiwan needs to navigate relations with both China and the U.S. to secure economic benefits and maintain peace. Additionally, she explores how this rhetoric would increase if Donald Trump continues to call out Taiwan over chip manufacturing, which will eventually lead to questions about whether Washington would truly step in when push comes to shove.

‼️I THINK THAT'S HOW LOW THEY HAVE BECOME Listen to Philippine Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro as he explains 🇨🇳#China's personal attacks against him, led by the newly appointed Chinese ambassador earlier this year. These attacks have been a big failure. Beijing knows they can't attack the 🇵🇭#Philippines' position in the West Philippine Sea; instead, they resort to personal attacks against Philippine officials to tarnish their reputation. Watch the full interview: piped.video/owDFvzvspqQ

Is Taiwan's opposition party shifting away from the traditional status quo? @kwangliu, deputy managing editor of CommonWealth Magazine in Taipei and host of Taiwanology, joins @GordianKnotRay and Jim to discuss "Broken Chain," her newsroom's investigation drawing on 1.8 billion vessel-tracking records. In this clip, we break down the reception of KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun's closer alignment with Beijing. Kwangyin said the DPP views this as selling out, while the KMT is internally divided. Younger KMT supporters are expressing concern, noting that Cheng's current position goes far beyond the approach of former KMT Chair Ma Ying-jeou, strengthening relations with China while adhering to the 1992 Consensus.

China's Recent Patrols East of Taiwan Are the Start of Quarantine Operations @kwangliu, deputy managing editor of CommonWealth Magazine in Taipei and host of Taiwanology, joins @GordianKnotRay and Jim to discuss "Broken Chain," her newsroom's investigation drawing on 1.8 billion vessel-tracking records. In this clip, Jim shares his analysis that China's recent patrols east of Taiwan are the beginning of quarantine operations in Taiwan, which aim to isolate Taipei without firing a shot. Kwangyin agrees with Jim's analysis, and we explore how Taiwan's recent Han Kuang exercises incorporated blockade scenarios for the first time—testing logistics on the East Coast amid rising regional tensions. Plus, we look at the surprising contrast between intense concern within national security circles and the surprisingly muted reaction from the general public.

Why Is China Patrolling the Waters East of Taiwan? @kwangliu, deputy managing editor of CommonWealth Magazine in Taipei and host of Taiwanology, joins @GordianKnotRay and Jim to discuss "Broken Chain," her newsroom's investigation drawing on 1.8 billion vessel-tracking records. In the past few months, China has begun its patrol in the waters East of Taiwan. Kwangyin points to the maritime boundary talks between Japan and the Philippines as the trigger for the June operation, and considers whether those talks simply gave Beijing a pretext for a move it already intended to make.

BRICS is in the same category as the Non-Aligned Movement Retired Singaporean Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan joins @GordianKnotRay and Jim for our latest episode. Bilahari argues that while BRICS represents an important "mood" of the Global South, it lacks a true convergence of interests. Pointing to significant internal divergences, such as those between India and China, or Iran and Saudi Arabia. He suggests that as BRICS expands, it becomes less coherent and largely performative.

The Case for Why Washington's Pivot to America First Policy Retired Singaporean Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan joins @GordianKnotRay and Jim for our latest episode. Bilahari discussed Washington's current Pivot to an America First policy. The United States' attitude toward becoming relatively open and generous rules of trade, is not out of altruism; it's a search for economic advantage to defeat the Soviet Union during the Cold War. With no existential threat anywhere in the world, Washington now must prioritize itself. These historical circumstances have passed and are not going to be recreated. Every country prioritizes itself first, but when America does it, the rest of us are uncomfortable.