China is the greatest strategic challenge the United States faces in this century, and this tag brings together the reporting on that threat. The articles follow Beijing’s naval buildup, its pressure on Taiwan, its arms for Russia and Iran, its trade coercion, its theft of American technology and the ports, railways and loans through which it buys influence across Latin America and Africa. Readers will find analysis of the geopolitics of the rivalry, the summits and the deals, the blacklists and tariffs, and the foreign policy President Trump uses to answer each move. Every piece measures the threat by its cost to American power, the American economy and the nations caught in between.
On October 21, Sanae Takaichi completes her first year as Japan's prime minister. Takaichi's first year reached 2 percent of GDP on defense two years early, ended the ban on lethal arms exports and said out loud that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could pull Japan into war. China answered with sanctions. Washington got the ally it wanted.
In one month, non-aligned Indonesia trained with the US military and the Chinese navy. One suitor can protect her; the other claims her waters but pays the bills. Nickel, sea lanes, the Uyghur silence, and two revealing surveys explain the double romance of the flirting Garuda, and why Taiwan is the clock ticking on her choice.
The Financial Times exposed C430L, a covert program in which Russia's top missile engineers help Iran build supersonic cruise missiles designed to threaten US warships. Russia arming Iran means two wars are merging into one axis, while American interceptor stockpiles shrink and China watches for a window of opportunity on Taiwan.
The Indo-Pacific alliance is no longer a theory: Japan sells 11 Mogami frigates to Australia, the first Japanese F-35s fly over Darwin, and AUKUS submarines will operate from Western Australia in 2027. From Tokyo to Canberra, the free world is arming while America leads, and the think tanks agree the strategy is finally working.
China Naval Expansion is reshaping the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific. China is rapidly expanding its navy and shipbuilding capacity while the United States retains key advantages in nuclear-powered carriers and global experience. The challenge is whether America can sustain its long-term maritime edge.
A Chinese officer clubbed a Filipino sailor at Second Thomas Shoal just two days before Beijing promised peace at the ASEAN summit in Manila. ASEAN weak diplomacy produces careful documents while China escalates and the whole region quietly arms itself. Here is what happened, who attended, and why deterrence is the only answer.
The Africa integration crisis deepens this week as the US and China race for cobalt, lithium, and rare earths across the continent. From AFRICOM's faith outreach to Djibouti's mounting debt to China, see the forces shaping Africa's future, and why America's investment model differs sharply from Beijing's extraction approach.
The Pentagon has studied real military options against Cuba, including an air assault by the 101st Airborne Division. The Cuba military threat is no longer theory: 300 Russian and Iranian drones, advisers from Tehran in Havana, and China's protection. We report the facts, then evaluate the reasons and consequences of US action.
The China-Palau conflict sounds like an exaggeration until you hear Palau's own president say his nation is already at war with China. Missiles fired with no warning, tourism bans, cyberattacks, and a Chinese mafia boss leasing land next to a US radar. Discover how a tiny island of 18,000 people keeps defying the communist red giant.
Germany accuses Beijing of manipulating the yuan, and the fight exposes a contradiction in China currency goals. Beijing wants the world to trade in yuan and save in yuan at the same time, but a weak currency helps exports while destroying the trust that savings require. China is winning one race and clearly losing the other.
The US missile shortage is real. America fired half its THAAD and Patriot interceptors and 30 percent of its Tomahawks in just weeks of war, but factories only replace 15 Tomahawks and 20 Patriots a month. Congress stalls new funding while China quietly expands its own missile stockpile by 50 percent in just four years.
China warns Japan on remilitarization while operating the world's largest navy and fastest-growing nuclear arsenal. Japan's defense buildup is a rational response to Beijing's expansion. Prime Minister Takaichi is leading the most consequential shift in Japan's defense posture since 1947. Japan remilitarization is not the threat.
