The U.S.-led West is struggling to deter China, Russia and other powers. Allies’ dwindling trust in America is one reason, but not the only one. My column, The Telegram economist.com/internationa... from The Economist

Interesting lessons from the Korean War for current 🇷🇺🇺🇦 conflict but I think the parallels with Dayton 🇧🇦 90's peace talks are most pertinent in this pragmatic #telegram from @dsorennie.bsky.social Continuation of the conflict: 'peace by other means' neatly sums it up.

Polls show Trump is unpopular in most of Europe and the rich world. Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, is positioning himself as leader of the anti-Trump progressive resistance. That’s not translating into greater international clout: why? My column, The Telegram economist.com/internationa...

Alongside the tech race for AI leadership there’s a global contest underway to set rules for AI governance. For all the Western predictions that Chinese AI will be hobbled by censorship and political control, China thinks its model has wide appeal economist.com/internationa... from The Economist

Telling detail in @dsorennie.bsky.social’s column. “Fully 45% of American casualties [in the Korean war] occurred after talks began. Veterans recalled deadly night-time skirmishes on hills overlooking the floodlit negotiation compound.” www.economist.com/internationa...

Ending conflicts is hard, especially when belligerents use a peace process to advance war aims by other means. My column, The Telegram, on historical lessons from Korea and Bosnia for the Ukraine war - and how Putin grasps them better than Trump economist.com/internationa... from The Economist

José Ignacio Torreblanca, Senior Policy Fellow and Head of ECFR's Madrid Office, on the challenges Europe faces in protecting its democracy and markets from external influences at this year's Annual Council Meeting #ACM25 🔗 https://bit.ly/4fIuDW5

“Some of the clearest thinking about this swot’s predicament can be heard in Singapore, a paternalist city-state that has risen from poverty to great wealth with the help of hard work, diligence and lots of rules about civilised behaviour—like a giant prep school with its own army and airport.”

Singapore is the model pupil of the world economy. It grew rich by studying hard, doing its homework and riding the wave of late 20C globalisation. Now it fears a global economy where FDI and trade flows follow politics and tariffs set by Trumpian caprice. My column economist.com/internationa...

Delighted #TheRuleofLaws gets a mention in The Economist though the laws of war don’t feature highly. Tricky subject!

The post-1945 liberal order is crumbling. Time to study the long history of laws regulating war for alternatives that might work. My column, The Telegram economist.com/internationa... from The Economist

Our cover this week. economist.com/briefing/202...

Meanwhile, South Africa’s China-induced attempt to downgrade and push the Taiwanese representative office out of Pretoria has led Taipei to threaten export restrictions on its advanced chips…

South African leftists long to play the China card and tell the West to get lost. Centrist political & business leaders say Chinese trade and investment is too skewed in China’s favour to replace the West for now. My column, the Telegram, reported from S Africa economist.com/internationa...

What Europe means to China in a changing world – Matthias Hackler’s Cross Purposes: ‘Tellingly, [MSS-linked CICIR’s] Zhang Jian’s first point in this section is Europe’s market, specifically its consumption capacity, which he emphasizes as crucial to China’s development.’

Lots of juicy details in here about - Kallas-Wang post-Brussels meet in Malaysia - Wang Yi's lecture on Chinese vs Western museums - An important linguistic change in EEAS' docs on China - What the new EU budget means for Beijing

Some America Firsters seem tempted to let allies go nuclear, to let the U.S. off the hook for their security. Cold War history suggests that’s a grave mistake. My column, The Telegram, with lessons from Sweden’s secret cold-war nuclear weapons programme economist.com/internationa...

Big news in EU China relations this morning. The EU has passed its 18 package of sanctions after Slovakia dropped its veto. 2 Chinese banks to be listed. In Brussels this month, Wang Yi repeatedly warned Kallas that China would retaliate if this happened. Watch this space...

India has done brilliantly by balancing America, China and Russia. But the second Trump term has Indian policy-makers off balance. My column, The Telegram, reported from Delhi and Mumbai. Cynical realism won’t save India from Donald Trump economist.com/internationa... from The Economist

HM the King; Idris Elba; something called Youth Futures Hubs, a pilot of "new multi-agency Prevention Partnership Panels" and a very, very small amount of money. If there is such a thing as Starmerism, this is it.

Some 120 years on, few remember the outrage provoked by the awarding of the Nobel peace prize to Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th American president and, to his critics, an America First bully. That fuss offers lessons for the present

If Presidents Trump, Xi and Putin were to carve the world into spheres of influence, they would be unstable and unsafe. My column, The Telegram, on how the world has changed since the 1880s, and why Donald Trump is no Teddy Roosevelt economist.com/internationa... from The Economist

The Telegraph obit for Lord Lipsey is excellent and contains this corker www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2...

An honour to moderate a crunchy, slogan-free and rigorous China panel at #Aspenideas with @mikefroman.bsky.social Elizabeth Economy and Jim Baker, formerly dir. Office of Net Assessment at the Pentagon. www.aspenideas.org/sessions/the...

Might useful, growth-promoting reforms be advanced by bad-faith claims about “white genocide” in South Africa? Moderate political and business leaders hope so. My column, The Telegram economist.com/internationa... from The Economist

“In foreign policy a useful principle is: that which cannot be changed must be welcomed, says Steven Everts, the director of the EU Institute for Security Studies. Even so, he concedes, Europe’s response “speaks to our weakness”. Smart column by @davidrennie.bsky.social:

The United Nations is turning 80 "in an advanced state of disarray." Me @foreignpolicy.com 👇 foreignpolicy.com/2025/06/25/u...

If Europe cannot have America as a global policeman, it will settle for Donald Trump as the Lone Ranger. That, in effect, is the message from the leaders of Britain, France and Germany https://econ.trib.al/7d9Vr5J

If Europe and the West can’t have America as a global policeman they’ll settle for Donald Trump as the Lone Ranger. That’s the remarkable message sent by France, Germany, the UK et al as their leaders welcome US strikes on Iran. My column, The Telegram economist.com/internationa...

A real honour and pleasure to give some talks on China at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and to speak to their East Asia Now podcast with David Fields on.soundcloud.com/7ogvxMmw3JaC...

Why Donald Trump is serious when he calls for Iran to return to talks and cut a deal. Former Trump aides describe his deep aversion to regime change, a horror of power vacuums and an ultra-realist “club of leaders” worldview. My column, The Telegram. economist.com/internationa... from The Economist

Tracking the Israel-Iran war economist.com/interactive/...

Opinion: The real aberration in the American conservative tradition is not the current president, but his predecessors Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, says Adrian Wooldridge

For years Taiwan was told it needs to hold off any Chinese attack for a month until the U.S. turned up. Now the island sees Ukraine’s agonies and realises it needs to prepare for a longer, lonelier fight, in case Trump withholds military support. My column, The Telegram economist.com/internationa...

A great column that also makes the obvious point: the EU was not founded to "screw" America. It was founded at America's urging (Marshall, Eisenhower and so on), to rebuild Europe's economy, to solve the German question, etc. Then as today, an integrated and free Europe is good for America.

Why Trumpworld loathes Europe. In part, Europe is caught in US culture wars. Trumpism is also bad history. The EU wasn’t set up to “screw America” as Pres Trump claims. European unity was pushed by America as a way to avoid WW3. My column, The Telegram economist.com/internationa...

"Good old American know-how, as provided by good old Americans like Dr Wernher von Braun." - Tom Lehrer

Making choices is what strategy is all about. Risks and opportunities are boundless, resources are finite. Unless the NSS/SDR package tells us what priorities the Gov’t has set and why, including what it will do less of, it won’t be a strategy, but a wish list. That’s the key test I will apply. End

Would you like to spend six months writing for The Economist’s business desk in London? Apply for the 2025 Marjorie Deane internship by July 31st

China blames U.S. interventions for turmoil in the Middle East and offers trade partners no-lectures, values-free commercial deals. “Snap!” says Donald Trump. “I agree!” My column, The Telegram, about transactional China meeting its match in Trump’s USA - 1/2 economist.com/internationa...

👇 @dsorennie.bsky.social

A draft pandemic treaty adopted this week shows countries trying to keep global health cooperation alive without America. Donald Trump’s hostility provided the shock to get the core compromise between rich and poor nations agreed. My column, The Telegram economist.com/internationa...

A radar image of a speed offender caught doing 52 kms (32 miles) an hour in a 30-km zone in Switzerland revealed that the culprit was not only a duck, but likely a repeat offender, local authorities said ➡️ u.afp.com/Sc3C

It might seem odd for an America First president to be so keen on tackling far-flung disputes from Ukraine to Gaza, Iran and Kashmir.But there’s a logic to Donald Trump’s zeal for global deal-making, starting with his faith in the power of greed. My column, The Telegram economist.com/internationa...

ICYMI: The terrible secrets of Taiwan’s Stasi files, by @aliceysu.bsky.social:

Great column on why America is unlikely to win this trade war: “China…has developed a particularly Darwinian version of capitalism, in which companies must tolerate unending rounds of brutal price competition, political meddling, and unclear rights to their own property”

The judge the president called a "Radical Left Lunatic" is not a radical left lunatic. My new weekend profile of James Boasberg @economist.com www.economist.com/united-state...

V interesting Rubio intv with Hannity. Hints at two separate China ambitions. A de-escalation of tariff war - “a short-term accommodation” - presented as a PRC ask. Then hopes for a longer-term decoupling/rebalancing. Are these ambitions being delinked? www.state.gov/releases/off...

Why Trump will lose the ‘pain war’ he’s started with China. “Chinese companies, investors and workers are not impervious to pain, but they are used to it…Mr Trump has undermined his case by bullying his allies, chaotically. If America loses this trade war, its pain will be self-inflicted.”

Donald Trump is waging an economic pain-war with China. That's risky: pain, including brutal price competition, are daily costs of business in China. An economic encirclement war could be devastating, but Trump has alientated and frightened trade partners. economist.com/internationa...