The current U.S. policy toward Southeast Asia is generating a range of negative effects. If the United States fails to adjust its competitive, confrontational and self-serving foreign policy, its influence in the region is likely to face further decline.

For the United States and China, the very concept of a rules-based international order, once a topic of agreement, has turned into disagreement. That is the current distorted reality in their relationship. It is not only power that is at stake but the meaning of order itself.

China neither seeks nor intends to replace the United States in filling any so-called “vacuum”, nor should it be expected to play such a role, says leading Tsinghua IR scholar Da Wei in the recent interview with The Paper.

Canada and the five Nordic countries have vowed to seek closer “middle power” cooperation, a strategic effort to preserve national sovereignty. The move exposes a rift in the U.S.-led alliance system, which faces multiple uncertainties, including internal coordination challenges and U.S. pressure.

The messy crisis in the Strait of Hormuz has clarified how power works in the 21st century. It reminds us that the greatest long-term threat to the United States is not China’s military buildup or Russian aggression, but the gradual fragmentation of the alliance system that has underwritten its global leadership since World War II.

Donald Trump has not destroyed a legitimate rules-based international order; rather, his actions have exposed the long-standing hypocrisy of a system in which the United States and its allies have frequently ignored international law while enforcing it selectively against their adversaries.

The Munich Security Conference reveals a shift in transatlantic ties as AI security becomes central to global debate. Europe is increasingly linking AI policy to technological autonomy, seeking to balance cooperation with the United States while strengthening its own strategic capabilities.

Germany’s renewed engagement with China reflects deep shifts in the international system. As alliance cohesion weakens and multipolar trends advances, Berlin is exploring interest-based cooperation beyond traditional Western frameworks, signaling a broader transition from ideology-driven alliances toward pragmatic international partnerships.

Growing instability in the global order and rising uncertainty in relations with major powers are driving countries such as India, Canada, Brazil, and European states to deepen cooperation with one another. These middle powers are increasingly pursuing strategic partnerships, trade agreements, and supply-chain coordination to preserve autonomy and stability amid great-power rivalry.

Donald Trump’s second-term foreign policy has accelerated the collapse of the postwar liberal international order by abandoning its institutions, norms, and sources of legitimacy. Economic integration is now widely used as a tool of coercion, placing middle powers in an unstable interregnum defined by great-power rivalry, forced alignment choices, and a widening contrast between U.S. unilateralism and China’s defense of globalization and multilateralism.