Hello, everyone. Today at WPR, we’re covering the case for overhauling Washington’s fragmented approach to the Indo-Pacific, and the uneven policy response to the explosion of nonconsensual AI deepfakes. | But first, here’s our take on today’s top story: |  | Anna Kwok, executive director of the Washington-based Hong Kong Democracy Council, at a rally in Washington, Nov. 19, 2024 (SIPA photo by May Yeung via AP). |
| “Today, my father was convicted simply for being my father.” | Those are the words of U.S.-based pro-democracy campaigner Anna Kwok, who is wanted by authorities in Hong Kong for allegedly violating a draconian national security law. On Wednesday, a judge in the territory found Kwok’s father, Kwok Yin-sang, guilty of violating that law by allegedly trying to withdraw funds from his daughter’s insurance policy. | He is the first person to be tried in Hong Kong for “attempting to deal with, directly or indirectly, any funds or other financial assets or economic resources” belonging to an “absconder”—the regime’s term for someone who has opted to go into exile rather than become a political prisoner. Kwok will be sentenced on Feb. 26 and could face up to seven years in prison. | His daughter fled Hong Kong in 2020 amid a crackdown on the massive pro-democracy uprising that had started the previous year. Anna Kwok is now based in Washington, where she directs a non-profit advocacy group called the Hong Kong Democracy Council. She continues to speak out against repression in her native territory while openly discussing the rising personal costs of her activism. | “They really want this to be a source of pain for my family,” she told The New York Times following her father’s conviction. “I have to remind myself … Purchase a subscription now to read the rest and get the full top story in your Daily Review email every day. |
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| | Sponsor | | | The U.S. government has undergone a major shift in its strategic conceptualization of Asia in recent years. The term “Indo-Pacific,” which was first introduced nearly two decades ago, has become mainstream in policy circles and strategic documents in both Washington and allied capitals. But despite the ubiquity of this framework—which views the security and economic dynamics of the Indian and Pacific Oceans as fundamentally linked—Washington’s bureaucracy still struggles to organize itself accordingly, with multiple, dissonant approaches to the region across government agencies. The moment to realign strategy and structure is now, Chris Estep and Connor Fiddler argue. | | | Artificial Intelligence has been heralded as a game-changer, with advocates promising that in the future it will transform the way we work, relax and solve problems. But when it comes to one old problem, there’s no need to wait: AI has already turbo-charged the exploitation and harassment of women online by making the production of deepfakes as easy as entering a prompt into a generative AI platform. Despite the astonishing scale of this issue, the legal and policy response to nonconsensual AI pornography has been muted, Hilary Matfess writes. | | | Israel, Iran, United States: Ahead of his meeting Wednesday at the White House with Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the United States should expand nuclear talks with Iran to include limits on its ballistic missile program and its support for militant groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. Tehran has previously refused to negotiate those issues, arguing it would violate the country’s sovereignty. | Also on Wednesday, Iran commemorated the 47th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution with government-orchestrated rallies around the country. The commemoration comes even as the regime continues its harsh crackdown on anti-government protests. “As supporters of the government took to the rooftops to shout ‘God is great,’ the sound of other residents shouting ‘Death to Khamenei’ and ‘Death to the dictator’ could also be heard in video from Tehran,” The New York Times reported. | North America: Trump is privately weighing whether to exit the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement, the trade pact that he negotiated and signed during his first term, Bloomberg reports. The USMCA is due to be reviewed and potentially renegotiated later this year, but Trump has been asking aides why he shouldn’t simply withdraw from it, according to Bloomberg. | Brazil: The adoption of Pix, an instant digital payment system created by Brazil’s central bank in 2020, has expanded rapidly and is poised to capture half of all ecommerce transactions in Brazil by 2028, according to a new report by payments company Ebanx. | As Jeremy McKey and Jordan Sandman explained in WPR in April 2025, U.S. firms Visa and Mastercard process the vast majority of digital retail transactions outside of China, a situation which has come to be viewed as a geopolitical risk by many countries. “Central banks and other public payments corporations have begun to deploy homegrown systems in an effort to bring critical payment infrastructures under local control,” McKey and Sandman wrote. Brazil’s Pix and India’s Unified Payment Interface are two of the leading such “digital public infrastructure” payment systems in the world. | | | The paid edition of today’s newsletter includes additional On Our Radar items on Bangladesh, Congo, Guatemala and more. | Purchase your all-access subscription now to make sure you don’t miss important news and analysis. | | More from WPR | Charli Carpenter on the meaning of anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis. Matthew M. Kavanagh on Trump’s self-defeating withdrawal from the WHO. James Bosworth on whether Mexico’s Sheinbaum can maintain her status as “Trump whisperer.” Jared Ward on the implications of Maduro’s ouster for China’s influence in the Caribbean.
| Read all of our latest coverage here. |
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Welcome to my geopolitics blog site. This is a Hawaii Island news site focusing on geopolitical news, analysis, information, and commentary. I will cite a variety of sources, ranging from all sides of the political spectrum.