As China has increasingly positioned itself as a global leader and foremost champion of the Global South, Xi Jinping and other top Communist Party officials have been vociferous in their critiques of the U.S.-led international order. Through a bevy of initiatives and proposals — like Xi’s Global Security Initiative — offered in recent years, Beijing has made clear that it wants to see a wholesale reform of global governance. At the June 2022 BRICS summit, for example, Xi called for a “new type of international relations” that rejects hegemony and zero-sum thinking. What this ultimately amounts to is Beijing’s effort to undermine U.S. global leadership as the U.S.-China rivalry intensifies.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Global Policy

Maritime security is a critical issue for Southeast Asia and the geopolitical underpinnings of this topic cannot be underestimated. This is especially the case for small powers as they navigate a maritime domain that is caught in the middle of — and driven by — great power politics. While maritime security in Southeast Asia is often the stage on which the U.S.-China competition plays out, this extends beyond the competing claims of regional states in the South China Sea, with important environmental and resource issues also at stake. Within this context, the Philippines is in a unique position for three reasons.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Environment;  Global Policy

In early August, a Chinese coast guard vessel fired a water cannon at a Philippine supply boat, in what was yet another example of Beijing’s so-called “gray-zone” tactics in the South China Sea. These gray zone activities are a form of slow intensity conflict that China has increasingly employed over the last year to assert its territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Conflict Analysis & Prevention

Amid growing distrust and an intensifying systemic rivalry, U.S.-China relations are at the lowest point in decades. In Washington, the last three U.S. administrations have sought to balance, challenge and counter China’s rises in Asia. In Beijing, revisionist leader Xi Jinping’s regime has an ambitious plan for “national rejuvenation” and views the United States as the major strategic threat to China’s ambitions. Countries like Cambodia are caught in between.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Global Policy