The U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding is only a political commitment and carries no legally binding force. What truly matters is whether the two sides can conclude a formal peace agreement within the 60-day negotiating period. Three formidable hurdles stand in the way.

The policy is turning the world from a rules-based order to a strength-based one. January’s intervention in Venezuela may have seemed like a great success for the Trump Corollary, but it was actually a self-defeating gamble—physically controlling Venezuela in a short time but damaging U.S. soft power, its alliance system and its global strategic interests in the long run.

China-U.S. relations face both opportunities and challenges. At least within this year, and particularly given the three forthcoming meetings between the two heads of state, the opportunities outweigh the challenges as relations continue to move forward.

Great powers can explore paths toward peaceful coexistence. The most important lesson of the Reykjavik Summit in 1986 was not that competition can be eliminated but that it requires clear boundaries. The real challenge is not the removal of differences but preventing their escalation into conflict.

At the recent Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pressed America’s Asian allies to spend 3.5% of their GDP on defense, fueling anxiety across the region and beyond. His brow-beating call to arms may well bring about a regional defense build-up on a scale unseen since the Cold War’s end.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming an indispensable part of the military relationship between China and the United States, with both countries viewing it as a key factor in shaping the future balance of military power.

In recent years, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) has re‑emerged as a central theme in artificial intelligence research and technology policy debates. In contrast to “narrow artificial intelligence” tailored for specific tasks or application scenarios, AGI is conventionally conceptualized as a general‑purpose intelligent system capable of cross‑domain learning, reasoning and adaptation. Its potential impacts are regarded as extending far beyond individual industries or technological spheres, and will profoundly reshape economic structures, social governance, and even international power configuration. For these reasons, AGI is no longer merely an engineering or academic problem, but has gradually evolved into a political‑economic issue of paramount strategic importance.

After years of observing U.S.-China dialogues on artificial intelligence, one pattern is hard to miss. The agenda has actually expanded over the past two years. From military AI to frontier model risks, from biosecurity to cybersecurity, the topics under discussion are not few. Disinformation, however, has barely entered the conversation, let alone become a subject of cooperation. In existing international discussions, it usually surfaces as accusation. I want to ask whether it can move from being a topic of accusation to being a problem the two countries handle together.

The recent Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore offered a window into the evolving realities of power in the Indo-Pacific. U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s address struck a notably more measured tone than his previous interventions. Gone were the sharper edges of 2025 rhetoric. In their place emerged a focus on securing a “favourable but durable balance of power,” preventing any single hegemon — implicitly China — from dominating the region. Allies were urged to shoulder greater burdens, with familiar calls for increased defence spending. Conspicuously absent was any direct reference to Taiwan.

The startling breakthrough moment in artificial intelligence and the commensurate concentration of power into the hands of a few tech giants may lead to an intensification of geopolitical competition. China is positioned to play a major constructive role for the well-being of humanity.