China & Taiwan

China has been increasing pressure on Taiwan below the threshold of a traditional military attack throughout the past decade. These gray zone tactics include diplomatic, economic, and security measures as well as the deployment of ships and aircraft across...

Africa’s global role is constantly evolving. Demographically, Africa is poised to occupy a dominant position in the world over the coming decades. By 2050, Africa’s share of the global population will have grown from its current 19 percent to...

In a disturbing, though predictable, move, Burkina Faso severed diplomatic relations with France on June 26, 2026, accusing its former colonial ruler of pursuing “neo-colonial ambitions,” and maintaining “subversive networks,” and even supporting terrorist groups against the Burkinabè state....

The latest round of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration was hardly unexpected, but that does not make them any less unsettling for some of America’s staunchest allies in the Indo-Pacific. With even more tariffs expected to be introduced by...

A series of high-level meetings between leaders and visits by prominent politicians from the United States, China, and Taiwan has roiled chronically fraught issues of Taiwan policy and cross-Strait relations. The May summit between President Donald Trump and Xi...

At the Fourth China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing on June 22, 2026, South Africa’s deputy president Paul Mashatile signaled a renewed partnership with China amid a complex geopolitical global environment.  Speaking at the event, he emphasized that...

The Wake-up Call for the US to Counter Chinese Economic Coercion – Shihoko Goto The much-anticipated meeting in Beijing between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping ended without any significant tangible breakthrough in relations between the United States and China....

Executive Summary China’s latest Five-Year Plan signals that it has become more pessimistic about the global environment, seeing it as uncertain and unstable. However, the Chinese Communist Party sees opportunity in that instability to promote the Community of Common...

Introduction For much of the post–Cold War period, Central Asia was framed as a space of Sino-Russian coordination, institutionalized through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and underwritten by a tacit division of labor: Russia provided security, and China delivered...

Some argue that the goals of the attacks on Iran are ambitious: to eliminate the Iranian threat, delegate Middle Eastern security to regional partners, and redirect strategic bandwidth to the Indo-Pacific. At the same time, the demonstration of sheer...