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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Many observers believe China is building up its military, especially its navy, to break through the first and second island chains and push the United States out of the Asia-Pacific. China’s military expansion in the region is thus seen as a major threat against U.S. interests and security. But there’s a big problem with the language [...]
There is an old myth in Romania that during the communist era, dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu systematically avoided developing infrastructure in the eastern part of the country because he feared a Soviet invasion. Today the tension between connectivity and security is playing out in a different way. The problem of critical infrastructure was highlighted recently [...]
“For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.” – John Greenleaf Whittier *** On the first day of January 2039, in Washington, the presidents of China and the United States stood on the South Lawn, for a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the establishment [...]
North Korea’s newest test, of the Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile, brought back into public attention an issue that never seems to go away. But each and every time, the threats coming from Kim Jong-un and North Korea have been met with heads turning towards the United States, awaiting a new declaration, a renewed policy, more [...]