British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s China policy aims to balance economic engagement with security concerns while ending the UK’s tendency to swing between confrontation and accommodation, but mixed signals have drawn criticism from both China hawks at home and officials in Beijing. Meaningful progress in UK-China relations will depend on delivering concrete cooperation rather than rhetoric or symbolic high-level visits.

Donald Trump’s renewed focus on critical minerals has returned Central Asia to the U.S. strategic agenda, highlighted by a C5+1 summit that prioritized investment pledges, resource access, and bilateral dealmaking over regional coordination. The engagement signals a notable U.S. reentry into a region long shaped by Russian and Chinese influence, but its transactional and extractive emphasis risks reinforcing fragmentation and leaves the durability of benefits for Central Asia uncertain.

China’s Global Governance Initiative contains some clear structural and cognitive differences compared with the West. Global governance has entered a post-Western era and requires the building of a new governance regime that features consultation and sharing.

Donald Trump’s foreign policy is either following a disruptive logic to reshape the global power landscape, or it is merely a series of impulsive actions that undermine the foundation of American diplomacy carefully constructed through the postwar decades.

The new White House National Security Strategy provides a critical window for understanding America’s view of the roles of major powers and the international order. But Donald Trump’s brash and unpredictable personal characteristics are a wild card that will keep the world in suspense.

The Trump administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy reframes the U.S.-Europe relationship from a partnership based on law and institutions into one judged through identity, heritage, and demographic loyalty. This “Trump Corollary” marks a decisive break from the post-1949 transatlantic order and deepens the risk of a lasting rift between Europe and the United States.

The first Trump–Xi summit since 2025 brought high hopes and headline deals on trade, fentanyl, and rare earths, but diverging goals and ambiguous promises hint at the fragility of this latest U.S.–China rapprochement. The United States secured pledges on curbing fentanyl flows, increased agricultural purchases, and the removal of export controls on rare earths, while emphasizing symbolic gains in respect and stability.

ASEAN’s leadership has now been passed onto the Philippines during a time when traditional world powers like the U.S. and China are courting new relationships in rising regions.

Timor-Leste’s accession to ASEAN underscores its expanding but still limited relationship with China, marked by significant infrastructure and trade cooperation alongside ongoing institutional and investment challenges. Deeper and more coordinated Chinese engagement would enable Timor-Leste to play a meaningful role in strengthening Sino-ASEAN cooperation.

Neither China nor the U.S. can change the other. They can only choose peaceful coexistence, meet each other halfway, increase mutual trust and cooperation and pursue common prosperity. Bilateral ties for the foreseeable future will follow the pattern of “fighting but not breaking up.”