The Passport Problem: Can ASEAN Control Critical Minerals It Cannot Fully Trace?

Economic power eventually has to become physical. Apoorba Banerjee is an industrial strategist, writer and doctoral researcher examining the industries, infrastructure and supply chains through which geopolitical competition takes shape. Her experience across heavy engineering and manufacturing grounds her work in the realities of industrial capacity: what economies can build, maintain, move and scale.

Focusing on Southeast Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific, she is particularly interested in how industrial knowledge can strengthen public institutions, sharpen national strategy and improve the decisions states make.