Recent US Navy drills in the South China Sea invited old friends like Japan and the Philippines, but also new partners like India. An expanded US military presence in these disputed waters is part of America’s “Indo-Pacific Strategy” to block Chinese military expansion — and perhaps to apply pressure during ongoing trade talks.

As Taiwan’s 2020 presidential election approaches, both the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the opposition Kuomintang Party (KMT) face divisive, close-fought primary battles among multiple candidates. Growing political volatility in Taiwan poses a major threat to Washington’s cautious balancing between Taipei and Beijing.

In an echo of the Arab Spring of 2011, societal earthquakes in Algeria and Sudan shocked North Africa, ousting strongmen who had ruled for decades. The fallen presidents’ fate reveals the importance of the military in Arab societies and the central role of economic development as the foundation of political stability.

In the contested South China Sea, there are increasing concerns about public agendas fueled by private interests. The structures of Albert del Rosario's think-tank and its many bedfellows are a case in point.

Despite rising tension across the Taiwan Strait, Tsai has not rushed to seek independence, while the mainland has maintained its patient policy. Thus no crisis has yet emerged — still, Taiwan, mainland China, and the US should all strive to relax tension and resume peaceful cross-strait development to avoid a new cold war.

As it wrestles with Brexit, Britain is recommitting itself militarily to the Asia-Pacific, where it once had numerous colonies and today has key trading partners. But the UK’s naval actions, part of an effort to assert itself as “Global Britain,” may serve to rankle China and the broader region.

Economic clout shifting to emerging economies, combined with great power peace, have begun to challenge the United States’ alliance strategy: for many longtime allies, the military aspect of national interest no longer comes first.

Whenever the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and National People’s Congress (NPC) hold their annual sessions in March, the subject of Chinese military spending features prominently in US media as evidence of the growing “China threat.” This year is no exception.

On January 2nd this year, after President Xi Jinping delivered a speech at a gathering to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the “Message to Compatriots in Taiwan” that called for Chinese unification, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait set off to explore the two-system solution to the Taiwan question.

The new cold war against China will be won not through ideology or even weaponry, but through the deployment of economic incentives to wage a geopolitical struggle.