China

The U.S. and China Are Talking Again. What Actually Changed?

In September, presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met at the White House amid ceremonial pageantry and the familiar list of hard questions: tariffs, chips, rare-earth minerals, Taiwan and artificial intelligence. The clearest result was…

Why Japan Matters More Than Most People Realize

When people talk about a crisis around Taiwan, the focus tends to land on Taiwan itself, China, and Washington. But the map tells a wider story. Japan’s southwestern islands sit near Taiwan and the East China Sea; U.S. forces operate from b…

Why Russia and North Korea Are Getting Closer

When Vladimir Putin arrived in Pyongyang in June 2024, he and Kim Jong Un signed a treaty that promised more than friendly declarations. It bound their governments to military and other assistance if either were subjected to armed invasion,…

Putin, Russia and the New Network Around North Korea

The train is the telling detail. North Korean ammunition leaves the port of Rajin, crosses the short border into Russia, then travels by rail toward depots nearer the war in Ukraine. A shipment that begins on one isolated peninsula becomes…

Why Taiwan Sits at the Center of the U.S.–China Relationship

A disruption in the Taiwan Strait would not stay in the Taiwan Strait. It could test the limits of U.S. policy, unsettle American allies, interrupt trade routes, and expose how much of the world’s advanced computing depends on production cl…

The Chip War Isn't Really About Chips

A chip smaller than a fingernail can hold up a car, a data center, or a weapons system. That sounds like a contradiction: how can something so tiny matter so much? Because the chip is only the visible end of a production system that spans d…