President Trump's dialogue with the markets
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President Trump's dialogue with the markets
David Goldman assesses that the Trump administration's trial-and-error approach has shown that a proposed 145% on Chinese imports would be economically damaging to the US economy. Meanwhile, Beijing appears resilient, reducing its export dependence on US markets.
US patience wears thin as Russia-Ukraine ceasefire hopes fade
James Davis analyzes the worsening diplomatic impasse in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, highlighting that US patience with the stalled ceasefire talks is running thin. Though Putin cautiously keeps negotiations open, the Kremlin continues to pursue battlefield gains.
Japan slow-walking Trump's trade talks
Scott Foster unpacks Japan's increasingly tense trade negotiations with the United States, as Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and negotiator Ryosei Akazawa resist pressure for a quick deal despite mounting tariff threats and declining trust in the US as a reliable ally.
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Asia Times
an hour ago
- Asia Times
Li Qiang's realist pitch seeks to reset Sino-Japan ties
In a moment of diplomatic clarity that quickly gained traction across Chinese and international media, Chinese Premier Li Qiang recently remarked: 'China and Japan are neighbors who cannot be moved. Since we cannot move, we should be good neighbors.' This deceptively simple statement carries a deep sense of geopolitical realism. It reflects Beijing's awareness that proximity is not merely a geographical fact—it is a strategic condition that requires sober diplomacy, especially amid rising regional volatility and heated rivalry with the US. Few bilateral relationships in the Indo-Pacific are as fraught and intertwined as those between China and Japan. Rooted in centuries of interaction, marred by the horrors of 20th-century warfare and shaped by decades of economic symbiosis, the China-Japan relationship has historically and recently swung between wary competition and cautious cooperation. In invoking the idea of immutable geography, Premier Li also hinted at a basic truth: China wants stability with Japan, not out of sentimentality but strategic necessity. 'Cannot be moved' is a blunt admission of reality. From Shanghai to Fukuoka, the distance is less than 800 kilometers. Between them lies the East China Sea—an arena of resource disputes, overlapping air defense zones, and naval brinkmanship, but also a vital artery of commerce and energy transit. Despite maritime tensions, this shared body of water anchors both countries in an unavoidable relationship. Li's appeal to geography recalls the thinking of the late Japanese diplomat Yukio Okamoto, who argued that China and Japan are condemned by fate and physics to coexist—so they must learn to do so constructively. The remark also stands in contrast to nationalist or triumphalist rhetoric that often defines Cross-Strait and East Asian discourse. It acknowledges limits. Neither Beijing nor Tokyo can wish the other away. But geographical realism cannot alone extinguish historical angst. Chinese public opinion continues to be shaped by the memory of Japan's wartime occupation. The Nanjing Massacre, Unit 731, and other atrocities are not distant footnotes in Chinese historiography—they are actively remembered and politically relevant. Occasional visits by Japanese leaders to the Yasukuni Shrine or attempts to revise textbooks often rekindle nationalist anger. Conversely, Japan perceives a more assertive China with increasing alarm. Under former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and now Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Tokyo has accelerated defense reforms, increased military spending, and deepened security cooperation with the United States, Australia and the Philippines. Its participation in the Quad and increased patrolling of disputed waters signal that Japan is preparing for an era of intensified strategic competition. China interprets these developments as part of a US-led containment architecture. However, even as bilateral tensions simmer, China seeks to compartmentalize relations—keeping economic and diplomatic dialogues open even as strategic distrust lingers. It is impossible to discuss Sino-Japanese relations without referencing their vast economic interdependence. Despite all political turbulence, China remains Japan's largest trading partner. Japanese corporations remain deeply embedded in China's automotive, electronics, and high-end manufacturing sectors. Complex supply chains now stretch from Osaka to Chengdu to Southeast Asia. In this context, Premier Li's words also function as a reminder to safeguard economic engagement at a time when US-led decoupling pressures are mounting. The US is encouraging Japan to join the 'Chip 4' alliance to curtail Chinese advances in semiconductors. For Beijing, ensuring Tokyo does not fully align with Washington's techno-nationalist agenda is of paramount importance. Thus, Li's tone suggests both a pragmatic acknowledgment of tensions and an appeal to maintain economic pragmatism. Li's remarks should also be understood in a broader regional context. Both China and Japan are deeply invested in ASEAN—economically and diplomatically. While China promotes its Belt and Road Initiative and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), Japan continues to focus on high-quality infrastructure, vocational education and developmental aid. This competition is not inherently zero-sum. In fact, ASEAN can benefit from it—so long as it does not become a theater of strategic polarization. As chair of ASEAN in 2025, Malaysia has an opportunity to play the role of stabilizer. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's emphasis on multipolarity, civilizational dialogue and strategic equidistance aligns well with Li's tone. Track 1.5 diplomacy—semi-official dialogues involving academics, former officials, and policy thinkers—hosted in neutral venues such as Kuala Lumpur or Jakarta, could help China and Japan manage tensions. Such efforts would be particularly valuable on non-traditional security issues such as maritime environmental protection, climate governance and crisis communication protocols in the East China Sea. Ultimately, the future of the China-Japan relationship rests on whether the two sides can convert geographical inevitability into a foundation for stable coexistence. That requires strategic empathy, political maturity and a willingness to restrain nationalist impulses. Li's statement, stripped of bravado and couched in sober realism, offers a certain opening. It signals a potential shift away from US-led zero-sum thinking, at least in bilateral terms. For Japan, the challenge will be to balance its alliance with the United States under Donald Trump while maintaining open communication with Beijing. For China, the task is to build trust—not just through words but through consistent maritime behavior, diplomatic discipline and economic transparency. In the final analysis, the lesson is clear: China and Japan cannot ignore or outflank each other. They can either manage their rivalry or risk being overtaken by it. Geography offers no exit—but it does offer a starting point for dialogue. As Asia braces for an uncertain decade, the world will be watching whether two of its greatest powers can indeed become 'good neighbors.'
Asia Times
2 hours ago
- Asia Times
Hot race for Pacific's deep sea mineral wealth
The seabed is legally designated as the 'common heritage of mankind,' but in practice, it has become a hotly contested frontier. This is exemplified by the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a vast expanse of international seabed located between Hawaii and Mexico rich in polymetallic nodules that contain critical minerals such as nickel, cobalt, copper, and manganese. These resources are more than mere commodities; they are vital components of national strategies for energy independence, technological leadership and strategic deterrence. Unlike land-based domains, where national borders delineate access, the seabed remains governed by a patchwork of international conventions and non-binding regulatory frameworks. This legal ambiguity, combined with the CCZ's sheer scale (approximately 4.5 million square kilometers), recasts geography as a determinant of power. Here, the terrain imposes its own rules: no nation can claim legal sovereignty, yet every technologically capable actor can exert functional control. The strategic function of the seabed lies not in symbolic possession, requiring engagement with multilateral bodies like the International Seabed Authority (ISA), but in continuous operational oversight enforced through submersibles, dredging platforms and state-backed maritime infrastructure. Through these instruments, nations could transform the legal status of the seabed from a global commons into de facto geopolitical claims, not to share, not to protect, but to secure. No rivalry illustrates the emerging dynamics of seabed geopolitics more vividly than that between the United States and China. These two powers approach deep-sea mining from fundamentally different institutional positions, strategic cultures and timelines. China, with its disciplined alignment of state power and long-term industrial planning, has embedded itself within ISA's multilateral framework. It holds more seabed exploration licenses than any other country and has cultivated influence within ISA rulemaking bodies. Chinese actors do not rely on rhetorical commitments to international law; instead, they utilize procedural participation as a mechanism to steer the outcome of regulatory frameworks. Their objective is clear: to shape the rules before they are finalized, ensuring that China's technological, legal and operational advantages are permanently encoded into the structure of global seabed governance. The US, in contrast, approaches the seabed from a structurally distinct position. Excluded from ISA by virtue of not ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the US has pivoted to a strategy of unilateralism, issuing domestic legal authorizations and executive directives to fast-track seabed mining. This approach reflects a response to structural vulnerability, namely, dependence on adversarial supply chains for critical minerals. Where China exerts slow, cumulative influence through institutional immersion, the US acts with urgency, deploying private capital and regulatory agility to compensate for its formal absence from multilateral governance. This creates a bifurcated architecture: China seeks to control the framework, while the US seeks to operate around it. Yet the underlying motive is the same: strategic insulation from resource dependence and competitive positioning in a rapidly hardening world order. Neither strategy is inherently more subversive, but each perceives the other as destabilizing. Thus, the arena of deep-sea governance becomes not a neutral venue for coordination but a contested space where procedural legitimacy and strategic autonomy collide. The Clarion-Clipperton Zone spans an area nearly equivalent to the contiguous US, lying beneath international waters between Hawaii and Mexico. It is home to the planet's richest known reserves of polymetallic nodules, mineral formations laden with cobalt, nickel, and manganese. What makes this zone strategic is not its legal status but its vast, flat and sediment-stable characteristics. It is ideally suited for industrial-scale extraction. The CCZ is administered by ISA, which has parceled the zone into discrete license blocks awarded to sponsoring states and corporate entities. On paper, this fragmentation allows for coordination and environmental oversight. In reality, it institutionalizes competition. Each block becomes a fiefdom of strategic value where companies and their state sponsors conduct exploration, environmental assessments and, soon, large-scale extraction. States and corporations with deep technological capabilities, including China, Canada (via The Metals Company), Belgium (GSR), and Norway (Loke), have already deployed robotic vehicles, data-gathering systems and prototype harvesting equipment in the CCZ. These activities are not speculative; they are strategic acts of presence. By maintaining operational continuity and exclusive data on their contract areas, these actors secure a level of control that resembles territorial influence, even in the absence of sovereignty. States with territorial assets proximate to the CCZ, such as France's Clipperton Island, gain further leverage by using these holdings as logistical hubs or jurisdictional springboards. Thus, the geography of deep-sea mining is simultaneously physical, institutional and infrastructural. It maps the extension of national strategy into an unbounded, submerged arena. Pacific Island nations occupy a pivotal yet precarious position in the geopolitical structure of deep-sea mining. These states are not themselves extractive powers, but their legal status as coastal states and ISA members renders them indispensable intermediaries in the resource acquisition strategies of others. Countries like the Cook Islands, Nauru and Tonga act as sponsor states for foreign companies, enabling exploration contracts under ISA rules. In exchange, they receive royalties, infrastructure aid, and diplomatic engagement. Yet the leverage they wield, rooted in legal procedure rather than material capacity, is increasingly fragile. As major powers deepen their technological reach and begin to act outside ISA frameworks, the value of these sponsorships diminishes. The internal divisions within the Pacific region, between those pursuing economic opportunity and those advocating environmental caution, further fracture the negotiating position of these states. Their collective influence diminishes as they are drawn into opposing alignments. This allows external actors to extract favorable terms while offering minimal safeguards in return, rendering the Pacific not just a zone of opportunity but a laboratory for strategic experimentation by larger powers. These microstates thus find themselves navigating between alignment and autonomy. While they have used their position to secure economic rents and international attention, their ability to influence outcomes is limited by their institutional capacity and the asymmetry of power in these relationships. As multilateral governance erodes, their role risks shifting from active intermediaries to passive theaters of external ambition. Environmental damage from seabed mining is not only likely, but, under current practices and regulatory frameworks, virtually inevitable. The ecological consequences (destruction of benthic habitats, disruption of deep-ocean food chains, and disturbance of carbon sequestration processes) are well-documented yet remain politically unpriced. These effects unfold on spatial and temporal scales that transcend immediate accountability. Damage incurred in the hadal depths will not register in electoral cycles or quarterly earnings. This externalization of environmental costs is structurally embedded. States and corporations reap concentrated benefits (strategic minerals, technological primacy, economic gain), while the ecological liabilities are diffused across a global commons and deferred into an indeterminate future. The legal framework that will govern these activities, particularly ISA's provisional mining code, lacks both clarity and enforceability. In this vacuum, environmental safeguards function less as constraints than as negotiable instruments. Where conservation discourse exists, it is often instrumental. Calls for moratoriums or environmental safeguards serve as tools of diplomatic leverage or political differentiation rather than as expressions of systemic restraint. The logic of extraction, once engaged, prioritizes continuity; regulatory caution is outpaced by technological momentum. This is a structurally induced outcome of a system where access is governed less by rules than by capabilities. Control over seabed minerals is increasingly a function of who can act first, remain longest and extract most efficiently. Precedent supplants principle. The seabed will be shaped through deployments, licenses and machinery already descending into the depths. For states seeking mineral security and strategic autonomy, the calculus is clear: defer the ecological reckoning and secure the resource base now. Paulo Aguiar earned a master's degree in International Relations from NOVA University Lisbon, specializing in Realism, Classical Geopolitics and Strategy. As a professional in geopolitical risk analysis and strategic foresight, Paulo regularly shares his insights through various publications and on his own Substack.
South China Morning Post
3 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Ukraine bombarded by deadly Russian strikes as peace talks falter: ‘shocked I'm alive'
Russia struck Ukraine with a thunderous aerial bombardment overnight, further dampening hopes that the warring sides could reach a peace deal any time soon, days after Kyiv embarrassed the Kremlin with a surprising drone attack on military airfields deep inside Russia. Advertisement The barrage was one of the fiercest of the three-year war, lasting several hours, striking six Ukrainian territories, and killing at least six people and injuring about 80 others, Ukrainian officials said on Friday. Among the dead were three emergency responders in Kyiv, one person in Lutsk, and two people in Chernihiv. The attack came after US President Donald Trump said his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, told him Moscow would respond to Ukraine's attack on Sunday on Russian military airfields. It was also hours after Trump said it might be better to let Ukraine and Russia 'fight for a while' before pulling them apart and pursuing peace. Trump's comments were a remarkable detour from his often-stated appeals to stop the war and signalled he may be giving up on recent peace efforts. Ukrainian cities have come under regular bombardment since Russia invaded its neighbour in February 2022. The attacks have killed more than 12,000 civilians, according to the United Nations. 'Russia doesn't change its stripes,' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said. Advertisement The war has continued unabated even as a US-led diplomatic push for a settlement has brought two rounds of direct peace talks between delegations from Russia and Ukraine. The negotiations delivered no significant breakthroughs, however, and the sides remain far apart on their terms for an end to the fighting.
