Joe Biden will soon return to the White House, this time as President of the United States. Once inaugurated, the most important challenge he will face, the one that could leave the deepest legacy, for better or for worse, won’t be related to domestic politics, but foreign policy: China. The China challenge that the US [...]
More than 70 years ago, when the United States was facing the threat of Soviet Communism, George Kennan advised the U.S. to be the best it can be, in order to attract other countries into the democratic sphere and make democracy the most coveted political system. Today, the United States under Donald Trump seems [...]
In 2013, after the then-16+1 summit in Bucharest, Romania was bombarded with gushing headlines about a dozen Chinese investments and projects that would soon supercharge the Romanian economy, with the Cernavodă Nuclear Power Plant as the flagship project. Eight years later and nine governments apart, none of these projects were implemented, while disillusion with [...]
It’s difficult to think of a more famous piece of off-the-mark but still common wisdom about China than the idea that China’s government thinks and plans in generations, decades, or centuries, acting in its long-term interest. Today, especially in foreign affairs, China often lacks a long-term vision, while its short-term actions are sabotaging its [...]
The U.S. government has decided it is time to confront the People’s Republic of China, leading to what some have called “a new cold war” or the more benign and official “great-power competition.” But as many have pointed out, the United States currently lacks a coherent strategy about how to confront China. Busy giving [...]
Not long after the deadly border clash in June between China and India, observers were trying to ascertain the geopolitical consequences of the incident. Many focussed on how the clash would drive India closer to the United States, a popular view in the West. In India itself too, there is growing desire to abandon [...]
Huawei has steadily emerged as a 5G pioneer, showing how a Chinese company can become a global heavyweight. Yet it has also become a different kind of pioneer: the first victim of a foreign blockade of Chinese technology companies, which could upend Beijing’s plans to become a global tech leader. The argument underpinning [...]
The Chinese leadership’s decision to introduce national security legislation in Hong Kong has attracted global attention and condemnation. This move was unsurprising, as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been trying to tighten control of the autonomous city over the past years and the lack of a national security law has been a [...]
Thirty years of independence from communism and the Soviet Union have also meant 30 years of fear of a Russian invasion for Central and Eastern European countries. As a result, these countries have spent three decades consolidating relations with the United States and NATO — both of which they see as possible saviors in [...]
China is slowly losing Europe. This is happening even though transatlantic relations are at a low point and right when the European Union is finally aiming to become a global geopolitical player. Ursula von der Leyen, the new president of the European Commission, has made it clear over the past months that she wants [...]