For China-U.S. relations today, the realistic question is not how to construct a G2 but how the two countries can find a workable mode of coexistence under conditions in which cooperation and competition can coexist.

Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie went on a long trip far away from home. They were away for about half a year, so when it was finally time to return, they couldn’t wait. But alas, they had to wait, as they had some trouble with their vehicle. In the end, the group had to hail another ride. They phoned it in and waited nine days. They discarded their malfunctioning vehicle and got to where they needed to go in a conveyance specially dispatched to pick them up and take them home. They had to wait a while for the pick-up, but it was well worth the wait given the stakes involved, and the perils of the journey.

Acquiring nuclear weapons would not only undermine the global nuclear non-proliferation framework but also deal a fundamental blow to the postwar international order—a prospect that must be met with deep concern and strong opposition from its allies and neighbors.

On Saturday 3 January U.S. President Donald Trump announced a large-scale US strike on Venezuela and the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. He also plans to allow "very large United states oil companies" into Venezuela. This military operation essentially constitutes armed intervention aimed at seizing another nation’s oil resources. The Trump 2.0 administration aims to pragmatically consolidate U.S. resource hegemony across the Western Hemisphere while alleviating the burden of sustaining global order.

In the waning days of 2025, the United States unveiled its National Security Strategy (NSS), a document that reads less like a blueprint for global dominance and more like the confessions of a fading hegemon. Penned in the shadow of economic strains, industrial atrophy, and military overstretch, the NSS trumpets “America First” while subtly shifting the burdens of empire onto allies.

The new US National Security Strategy is not, in any meaningful sense, a strategy. A strategy connects means to achievable ends. What President Donald Trump’s White House published last week is something else: a 33-page confession that this administration does not believe in the future – and therefore sees no point in investing in it.

Last week, the Trump administration released its new national security strategy. It was quickly condemned by the neoconservatives — perhaps because it is more realistic about multipolarity.

The success of the Manhattan Project was the result of specific historical conditions. Its model of concentrating resources to achieve a single technological breakthrough doesn’t fit the characteristics and competitive landscape of the AI era.

Negotiations on Ukraine’s peace plan reveal more than technical differences. They show a calculation by all parties related to the cost of war, the capacity to endure over time and the sequencing of strategic priorities.

China and the U.S. must avoid both the Thucydides trap and the Cold War trap. This is not only in their strategic interest but also that of other countries in the region and around the world. Both sides must make major efforts jointly and in a sustained manner.