The day her BYD rideshare driver told her the dashboard screen was a “national secret” … that's when Wall Street Journal correspondent Yoko Kubota knew China had really changed, and maybe it was time to think about leaving.

What does the world lose when fewer foreign journalists are reporting from inside China? In this episode, hosts Ray Powell (35-year military veteran) and Jim Carouso (former senior U.S. diplomat) sit down with Yoko Kubota, who spent eight years in Beijing before leaving China and writing a striking farewell column about a society growing alarmingly suspicious of outsiders.

From that small, telling BYD moment, Yoko traces how a tightening espionage law, national-security messaging, and rising nationalism seeped into everyday life. As a Japanese reporter for an American paper, she also describes the anti-Japanese sentiment she and her family encountered, from a parents' school chat group to the phrases her young son began repeating, and how the 2024 attacks on Japanese children in Suzhou and Shenzhen deepened her fears.

The conversation also digs into her business beat:

• Why on-the-ground reporting from inside China still matters and what we lose as it dries up
• Why China can be both increasingly confident and deeply wary of outside scrutiny
• How China's EV industry went from a punchline to a global powerhouse, and the "zombie" carmakers left in its wake
• Why the race for self-driving cars may come down to regulation as much as technology

With the press corps thinning – underscored by the recent expulsion of New York Times reporter Vivian Wang – this is an on-the-ground account of an increasingly inaccessible country that still, as Yoko puts it, "won't go away from our lives."

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• Follow Yoko Kubota on her page at the Wall Street Journal, on LinkedIn or on X, @Kubota_Yoko
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• Sponsored by BowerGroupAsia, a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific

Washington is engaging plenty with its Indo-Pacific allies these days … just not always on the things they want, and too often on things they don't. So how do savvy allies steer that relationship when the world's most powerful partner feels less predictable than ever?

To find out, Ray Powell and Jim Carouso sit down with Marise Payne, Australia's former Defence Minister and Foreign Minister. Marise helped launch AUKUS and grow the Quad, and navigated the first Trump administration from both chairs. Now a distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, Payne brings rare insider perspective on how middle powers keep America engaged and what they must build for themselves when it drifts.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Payne unpacks:

• Why "fewer Shangri-Las, more submarines" sets up a false choice, and why showing up still matters
• The AUKUS reality check: what the shift from the "optimal pathway" means, and the social license challenge facing Canberra
• Whether Pillar One is now on a "suboptimal pathway," and the case for driving Pillar Two harder
• How the Quad found its feet again after COVID, and why the New Delhi foreign ministers' meeting matters
• Reassuring a skeptical ASEAN on nuclear submarines, and the relationship-first diplomacy that made it work
• China's "do as I say, not as I do" stance on Japan's remilitarization
• The contrast between leading Defence and Foreign Affairs: "straight lines" versus "grasping at wisps of smoke"

It's a practitioner's masterclass in alliance management for an era of strategic uncertainty. Essential listening for anyone tracking US-China competition, AUKUS, national defense, diplomacy and the future of the Indo-Pacific.

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• Follow Ray Powell on X, @GordianKnotRay, or LinkedIn, or check out his maritime transparency work at SeaLight
• Follow Jim Carouso on LinkedIn
• Sponsored by BowerGroupAsia, a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific

Is Vietnam quietly drifting into China's orbit, and what does that mean for the United States and the future of Southeast Asia? Dr. Nguyễn Khắc Giang explains why Hanoi is hedging harder than ever because, as the Vietnamese saying goes, "when the buffaloes and oxen lock horns, the mosquitoes and flies suffer."

In this episode, Ray Powell and Jim Carouso sit down with Dr. Giang, Visiting Fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, to unpack his provocative Carnegie essay, "Why Vietnam Is Swinging in China's Direction." Giang argues that Vietnam isn't becoming pro-China, it's hedging in a world where US policy feels unpredictable and China is offering concrete benefits: market access, infrastructure, technology, and political reassurance.

The conversation moves from geopolitics to economics: US tariffs, transshipment concerns, Vietnam's export boom, and the risk of being crushed between Washington and Beijing. Giang explains Vietnam's delicate formula: stay close enough to China to manage the relationship, but distant enough to preserve its independence.

Ray and Jim also dig into Vietnam's defense strategy and its slow move beyond Russian weapons, then go inside Vietnamese politics under General Secretary Tô Lâm, whose consolidation of power is making foreign policy faster, more personal, and more ambitious.

In this episode:

• Why Vietnam is one of Asia's most important "swing states"
• US tariffs, transshipment, and Vietnam's export boom
• China's high-speed rail and technology offer
• Vietnam's arms diversification beyond Russia
• Tô Lâm's consolidation of power and the "Blazing Furnace" anti-corruption campaign
• Vietnam's reaction to the Trump-Xi summit

Subscribe for weekly Indo-Pacific analysis from a former US military officer and a former US diplomat who've spent their careers in the region.

• Follow Dr. Nguyễn Khắc Giang on LinkedIn or on X, @khacgiang
• Follow us on X, @IndoPacPodcast, LinkedIn, or Facebook
• Follow Ray Powell on X, @GordianKnotRay, or LinkedIn, or check out his maritime transparency work at SeaLight
• Follow Jim Carouso on LinkedIn
• Sponsored by BowerGroupAsia, a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific