China

The past two years have witnessed several failures of deterrence – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and Hamas’ attack on Israel in October 2023. The invasion of Ukraine heightened global awareness that military force by a state actor is not a relic of the past and could occur in other flashpoints around the […]

“The United States as a nation has been severely kidnapped by political and other forces derived from Jewish capital,” thus said Dong Manyuan, the former Vice president of CIIS, the Chinese foreign ministry’s think tank, in a TV interview on November 1, in response to the interviewer claim that Jews “manipulate and control” 70% of […]

Africa struggles to climb American policymakers’ priority list, but it has no such problem with China.  For three decades, the Chinese government has expended immense energy courting African countries. With only two exceptions over the last thirty years, the Chinese foreign minister has made Africa his first overseas destination every year. Other senior Chinese officials […]

The difficulty in comparing America’s and China’s influence in the Middle East is that the two operate on entirely different planes. [Note: The Chinese use the term Western Asia, rather than the Middle East, to refer to a region that includes the Levant, Iraq, the Gulf, Turkey and Iran.] Despite China’s impressive naval construction program, China […]

The strategic complexion of Asia has shifted substantially in recent years. The United States is no longer the predominant military, diplomatic, and economic power across the region, as it was for the last half of the 20th century and the first decade of this century. China actively contests American leadership as it strives to restore […]

China’s evolving role in the Middle East is analyzed by US Ambassador Peter Pham.

“Japan is not now and will never be a tier-two power,” declared Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington in February 2013. He was there to champion the idea of a Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between Japan, the United States, India, and Australia. He succeeded in […]

[Note from the Editors: We have added parenthetical comments to the article for context in several places.] The United States frames its relations with China as a great power competition, in terms of the Biden administration’s national security strategy, for example. China claims to have a different view, having just emerged from three years of […]

The Biden administration does not view US–China competition in the Middle East as a zero-sum prize for one side to enjoy at the other’s expense. This measured response to China’s growing influence could change, however; outlined below are factors that could shift US policy toward great power confrontation in the region. China’s President Xi Jinping […]

A Letter From the Publisher

Does the growing importance of the psychological dimension in modern conflicts put the US and its allies at a disadvantage?

Will the roller coaster ride that is the US–Pakistan relationship become more “normal” now?

Much hinges on Beijing’s expectation that time is on China’s side, but is that really the case?

A view from Singapore: How will Asian countries respond to Biden’s foreign policy?

A practitioner’s perspective: Only a militarily strong Israel can sustain its regional position

America’s adversaries are not the only ones to respond to Washington’s changing regional priorities

The political winds are blowing in an anti-China direction. Biden needs a sophisticated foreign policy strategy