Category: The Diplomat

China’s recent 8th Silk Road Maritime International Cooperation Forum kept the spotlight on Chinese overseas ports, a subject of continuing attention in the news, among think tanks, and in scholarly circles. Although the bulk of commentary emphasizes a geopolitical angle, others devote attention to the economic value of China’s overseas ports presence, especially in countries that have welcomed Chinese investors, contractors, and terminal operators. Among other gains, they expect greater connectivity, employment growth, and shifts to higher value-added activities.  For its part, China touts economic returns from its ports such…

Managing bilateral relations with China has long been a topic of intense discussion and debate among top U.S. officials. From the beginning of the 21st century until the mid-2010s, the dominant approach favored a policy of “shared responsibility” for handling international affairs. However, over the last decade, an approach of strategic competition or great power competition has prevailed, across the tenures of both Presidents Donald Trump (2017–2021 and 2025–2029) and Joe Biden (2021–2025). Strategic competition is not new in the history of U.S. foreign policy, as it was the dominant…

Between July and September 2026, scientific and technological cooperation between Mexico and China gained new momentum. Rosaura Ruiz Gutiérrez, head of Mexico’s Secretariat of Science, Humanities, Technology, and Innovation (Secihti), first met with Chinese Ambassador to Mexico Chen Daojiang and later co-chaired, alongside Chinese Minister of Science and Technology Yin Hejun, the Ninth Meeting of the Science and Technology Subcommittee of the Mexico-China Permanent Binational Commission. Since the mechanism was established in 2004, no Chinese minister of science and technology had personally participated in its meetings. At the meeting, the…

China’s postponement of its Chang’e 7 lunar mission on August 23 came with a curt explanation from the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA): “China’s Chang’e-7 lunar probe does not meet launch conditions, and its launch therefore cannot take place during the planned window this year.” While there is speculation that the Chang’e 7 launch will take place in 2027, the CMSA has not made any official announcement to that effect.  Given that the Chang’e 7 and Long March 5 Y14 were moved to Launch Complex 101 at the Wenchang Space…

Learning Chinese Sign Language is a bewildering experience. To begin with, Chinese Sign Language (CSL) is in itself best understood as an umbrella term rather than a well-defined language.  You have Signed Chinese, shoushi hanyu, which is one-to-one transcriptions of the written standard Chinese into signs, replete with interpuncation such as signed question marks. Then there is Natural Sign Language, ziran shouyu, the language that is actually spoken between native deaf signers in China. It has syntax and grammar markedly different from Chinese, makes extensive use of abbreviations and, like…

The September 6 state election in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, resulted in a decisive victory for Alternative for Germany (AfD), which secured nearly 44 percent of the vote. It marked a stunning rise for the party, which is widely considered to belong to the far-right of the political spectrum. While the AfD’s performance is fundamentally a domestic political development driven by local grievances, energy costs, and other factors, this outcome offers an important, often overlooked perspective on the economic policy dialogue between the EU and China.  The rapid ascent of Chinese firms…

The Ebola epidemic spreading through the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) could become the largest Ebola outbreak on record if infections continue at their current pace. More than 6,700 people had been infected and more than 3,200 had died by September 2026. The outbreak is caused by Bundibugyo virus, a form of Ebola for which there is currently no licensed vaccine or approved treatment. The crisis is unfolding at a remarkable moment for global health. The United States is retreating from the global health system it once led. Beijing…

As the renewed tensions in the Middle East push the region to the brink, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Cairo couldn’t have been more precisely timed. This was the second time Xi visited Cairo – compare that to his counterpart, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who visited Beijing eight times since assuming power in 2014.  Xi’s visit from September 1-2 was significant for both sides, though for different reasons. For Egypt, it symbolized a broader shift among Middle Eastern states toward diversifying their foreign policy partnerships. The most obvious…

The robots lined up on the track. For a moment, it looked almost like an ordinary athletics meet. Then the race started. The machines lurched forward, their metal legs struggling to keep their balance as they sprinted toward the finish line. One of them, a Chinese humanoid robot called Tiangong Ultra, finished the 100 meters in 8.64 seconds – faster than Usain Bolt’s human world record. The scene took place this August at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, where more than 2,000 robots competed in 51 events. Some ran…

As rescue efforts have continued on both sides of the border following the devastating floods in Nepal and Tibet, a fight over how the disaster is being reported has been growing in intensity on social media. The dispute centers on the claims and counterclaims following a story by the BBC’s China correspondent, Laura Bicker, about how China is censoring videos of the floods. Bicker said videos of the landslide and flood surge sweeping through Gyirong Port on the border was scrubbed from the internet, in part, because Beijing fears instability…