The US and China remain strategic rivals, while Moscow and Beijing deepen a partnership built on long-term geopolitical interests The current choreography of great-power diplomacy has prompted a familiar round of speculation. Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives in China only days after his US counterpart Donald Trump’s own high-profile visit to Beijing, and commentators are already speaking of a new “great triangle” between Russia, China and the United States. The timing, however, is largely coincidental because Putin’s visit was planned long in advance. Meetings between the Russian and Chinese leaders are now routine and form part of an increasingly institutionalized partnership. Trump’s trip, by contrast, had already been postponed several times, most recently because of the war with Iran. The American president was clearly reluctant to arrive in Beijing while trapped i...
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As Xi hosts Trump and Putin, Beijing is proving it can engage both powers at once without turning global politics into a zero-sum game These days all the world is closely following the high-level international meetings in China. US President Donald Trump just completed his first state visit to China since his trip in November 2017. On May 19, another top foreign guest will arrive on a two-day state visit: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Unlike his American colleague, Putin has always regarded Beijing as one of his preferred international travel destinations; the last time he was here was less than a year ago, in September 2025. The two sequential trips symbolize the growing importance of China as a global player; Beijing has become an indispensable actor in critical dimensions of world politics and economy. More than ‘business as usual’ The two summits are not a sudden and unexpected ...
The bloc has the means to destroy the military bases in Kaliningrad Region, Lithuania’s top diplomat has claimed NATO should strike Russia’s Kaliningrad to make a point to Moscow, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys has said. Kaliningrad Region is a Russian exclave of over a million people, which sits on the Baltic Sea coast and borders NATO member-states Lithuania to the north and Poland to the south. In his interview with Swiss newspaper Neue Zurcher Zeitung on Monday, Budrys insisted that the Europeans “need to turn our fear of the [Russian] threat into a sense of self-empowerment.” “We must show the Russians that we can penetrate their small fortress that they have built in Kaliningrad,” he said. The minister claimed that “NATO has the means to raze the Russian air defense and missile bases there to the ground in an emergency.” The Kremlin has repea...
Fertility dropped sharply across several countries following the widespread adoption of the devices, the outlet said Smartphones and weaker face-to-face relationships could be contributing to plunging birth rates worldwide, particularly among young people, as global fertility is declining at a record pace, the Financial Times has reported, citing researchers and demographic data. An analysis spanning population records and Google search data found that birth rates declined sharply across multiple countries following the widespread adoption of smartphones, regardless of earlier demographic trends, the outlet wrote on Saturday. The FT cited Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde, an economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a researcher on demographic change, who described falling fertility as “the big question of our time.” He argued that many of today’s economic and social problems ...
Tensions continue to rise in the Middle East as negotiations remain deadlocked Tehran could respond militarily to US naval forces enforcing a blockade of Iranian ports, a senior Iranian official has said, warning that the Gulf of Oman could become a “graveyard” for American warships. Speaking on Iranian state television on Sunday, Mohsen Rezaei, who serves on a senior advisory body to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said Iran’s patience with the ongoing maritime restrictions was running out after weeks of disrupted shipping activity. “The longer they continue the naval blockade of Iran, the greater the damage to the world economy will be,” Rezaei stated. “We advise the US military to lift the siege before the Gulf of Oman turns into their graveyard.” Rezaei, a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), argued that Tehran would be justifie...
“There won’t be anything left” of the country if it doesn’t agree to American demands, the US president has threatened US President Donald Trump has threatened Iran with a new attack if Tehran doesn’t agree to make swift concessions to Washington. Indirect talks between the sides have remained stalled since a fragile ceasefire was established in early April after a month of hostilities initiated by the US and Israel. Both Washington and Tehran have repeatedly dismissed each other’s demands, with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi earlier this week singling out the Trump administration’s “maximalist approach” and provocative rhetoric as main obstacles to reaching a deal. Meanwhile, disruptions continue in the Strait of Hormuz, which has heavily affected global shipping and sent oil prices soaring. While Tehran has announced its own mechanism to regulate maritime traffic t...