易咖娜彌博士的大作長達5,000字以上；雖然她是一位頗負盛名的學者和中國經濟議題專家，我一時三刻也鼓不起讀完這麼長文章的勇氣。如果內容跟標題確實相稱，此文應該很有參考價值。轉載於此，謹供有興趣又有腦力消化的才俊們去慢慢K吧。

How China Wins the Future

Beijing’s Strategy to Seize the New Frontiers of Power

Elizabeth Economy, January/February 2026, Published on 09/12/25

When the Chinese cargo ship Istanbul Bridge docked at the British port of Felixstowe on October 13, 2025, the arrival might have appeared unremarkable. The United Kingdom is China’s third-largest export market, and boats travel between the two countries all year.

What was remarkable about the Bridge was the route it had taken—it was the first major Chinese cargo ship to travel directly to Europe via the Arctic Ocean. The trip took 20 days, weeks faster than the traditional routes through the Suez Canal or around the Cape of Good Hope. Beijing hailed the journey as a geostrategic breakthrough and a contribution to supply chain stability. Yet the more important message was unstated: the extent of China’s economic and security ambitions in a new realm of global power.

Beijing’s efforts in the Arctic are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. As early as the 1950s, Chinese leaders discussed competition in the world’s literal and figurative frontiers: the deep seas, the poles, outer space, and what the former People’s Liberation Army officer Xu Guangyu described as “power spheres and ideology,” concepts that today include cyberspace and the international financial system. These domains form the strategic foundations of global power. Control over them determines access to critical resources, the future of the Internet, the many benefits that derive from printing the world’s reserve currency, and the ability to defend against an array of security threats. As most analysts focus on the symptoms of competition—tariffs, semiconductor supply chain cutoffs, and short-term technological races—Beijing is building capabilities and influence in the underlying systems that will define the decades ahead. Doing so is central to President Xi Jinping’s dream of reclaiming China’s centrality on the global stage. “We can play a major role in the construction of the playgrounds even at the beginning, so that we can make rules for new games,” Xi said in 2014.

Beijing has positioned itself well for this contest. It approaches these frontiers with a consistent logic and playbook. It is investing in the necessary hard capabilities. It is partnering with other countries to embed itself in institutions and flooding these bodies with Chinese experts and officials, who then campaign for change. When it cannot co-opt existing institutions, it builds new ones. In all these efforts, Beijing is highly adaptive, experimenting with different platforms, reframing positions, and deploying capabilities in new ways.

American policymakers have only started waking up to the full extent of China’s success at building power in key areas of today’s world. Now, they are at risk of missing its commitment to dominating tomorrow’s. The United States, in other words, is not just abdicating its role in the current international system. It is falling behind in the fight to define the next one.

TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA

In 1872, the British sent a ship to retrieve the world’s first store of polymetallic nodules: clumps of ocean debris that can contain critical minerals such as manganese, nickel, and cobalt. But it was not until the early 1960s that scientists posited these nodules could have significant financial benefits. In the mid-1970s, the U.S. company Deepsea Ventures, a subsidiary of Tenneco, claimed that it could fill nearly all the military’s demand for nickel and cobalt by mining the Pacific Ocean floor.

Deepsea Ventures never got the permissions it needed to dredge up huge quantities of nodules, and eventually, it folded. But meanwhile, other international actors had begun negotiations over countries’ rights and obligations regarding the world’s oceans. These negotiations culminated in the adoption of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which came into force in November 1994. It included governance rules over the deep-seabed resources that lay beyond countries’ territorial waters. The parties to the convention established and, along with the world’s major mining companies, funded the International Seabed Authority to manage these resources.

China began its own research into deep-seabed mining in the late 1970s. Its scientists and engineers developed prototypes of submersibles and machines that can mine as well as survey the ocean floor. In 1990, Beijing established the state-controlled China Ocean Mineral Resources Research and Development Association to coordinate its seabed prospecting and mining in international waters. It built seabed mining capabilities into its five-year plans starting in 2011. And in 2016, Beijing passed a deep-seabed law designed to develop China’s scientific and commercial capabilities and to provide a framework for engaging in international negotiations regarding ocean floor resources. In the process, China created at least 12 institutions dedicated to deep-sea research and built the world’s largest fleet of civilian research vessels.

Xi has targeted the deep seabed as a priority area for Chinese leadership. “The deep sea contains treasures that remain undiscovered and undeveloped,” he said in May 2016. “In order to obtain these treasures, we have to control key technologies in getting into the deep sea, discovering the deep sea, and developing the deep sea.” China already dominates land-based global supply chains of rare-earth elements, and a lead in deep-seabed mining would only enhance its chokehold over these minerals. Deep-seabed mining would also advance another Chinese security imperative by facilitating the mapping of the seabed and the laying of undersea cables that can be used in support of naval and submarine warfare. “There is no road in the deep sea,” Xi said in 2018. “We do not need to chase [after other countries]: we are the road.”

As China’s domestic capabilities have expanded, so has its role in the International Seabed Authority. Since 2001, Beijing has served almost continuously on the ISA Council, the 36-member executive body that makes key decisions about mining regulations, contract approvals, and environmental regulations. China supplies significant support to the body, including by submitting papers and commenting on drafts. It has placed its own experts and officials in key ISA technical roles, and it provides more monetary support for the ISA than any other country. It has positioned itself to exert greater influence in shaping the rules and regulations that govern the exploration and exploitation of seabed resources. Chinese firms have already secured five seabed mining exploration contracts from the ISA—the most of any country.

China is actively courting emerging and middle-income economies with its deep-sea capabilities, encouraging countries and companies that need Chinese-built platforms, vessels, or processing capabilities to align themselves with Beijing’s interests. China has established a research partnership with the Cook Islands with an eye toward eventually exploiting the seabed minerals in the area, and it is exploring a similar agreement with Kiribati. In 2020, in partnership with the ISA, Beijing established a training and research center in Qingdao to provide officials from developing countries with practical experience, such as operating underwater vehicles, and with opportunities for joint research. And within the BRICS, a ten-country group named for its first five members (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), China has sought to build cooperation via a BRICS deep-sea research center in Hangzhou.

But Beijing has also faced troubles along the way. Despite its cooperative initiatives, China is in a small minority of countries that advocate for a more accelerated approach to mining. According to a Carnegie Endowment report, in 2023 Beijing “single-handedly” prevented the ISA from discussing marine ecosystem protection and a precautionary pause on mining licenses. This places it at odds with almost 40 other ISA members, which support a pause or moratorium on mining until rigorous monitoring and environmental safeguards are in place. China has also not convinced BRICS members: Brazil supports a ten-year precautionary pause, and South Africa wants strong environmental frameworks and economic protections. India favors faster development but is wary of China’s use of research vessels for military purposes. And many governments in the Asia-Pacific, such as those in Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Palau, and Taiwan, are worried about military-motivated incursions into their exclusive economic zones by China’s deep-sea survey vessels. Although Beijing has not yet won the rule-setting battle in the ISA, it is not sitting still. It is investing furiously in dual-use seabed mining technologies—those valuable for both civilian and military purposes—such as autonomous underwater vehicles and crewed submersibles that will enable it to dominate commercial seabed mining and, as one Chinese military analyst wrote, attack opponents’ large ship formations and naval bases.

OUT IN THE COLD

The deep ocean is hardly the only frontier that Xi wants to master. In 2014, he also declared his intent to make China a great polar power. Like the seabed, the Arctic is rich in natural resources, containing an estimated 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil supplies, 30 percent of its undiscovered natural gas, and significant stores of rare-earth elements. As the ice there melts, it will also be home to new shipping corridors—like the one used by the Istanbul Bridge. In a 2018 white paper on the Arctic, Beijing promised to build a “polar Silk Road” by developing such routes and investing in the region’s resources and infrastructure. It also reframed Arctic governance to include issues such as climate change and to advance the rights of non-Arctic countries. “The future of the Arctic concerns the interests of the Arctic states, the well-being of non-Arctic states, and that of humanity as a whole,” the paper declared. “The governance of the Arctic requires the participation and contribution of all stakeholders.”

Beijing’s interest in the Arctic is not new. In 1964, China established the State Oceanic Administration, a government agency whose mandate included conducting polar expeditions. Its Arctic-related research accelerated in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1989, the government founded the Shanghai-based Polar Research Institute, and it expanded its Arctic research capabilities and partnerships throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. In 2013, China became an observer to the governing Arctic Council, which consists of representatives of Canada, Denmark (which includes Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States, as well as indigenous peoples. Since then, China has become one of the council’s most active observer members, participating in a wide array of working groups and task forces. Chinese researchers continue to argue that China should play a larger role in Arctic decision-making because climate change has made the Arctic an issue of global commons and because Chinese companies are essential to Arctic shipping and energy.

Beijing’s efforts have encountered resistance. Arctic countries have grown concerned about becoming overreliant on Chinese investment and the resulting security risks. Canada, Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden all rejected or canceled a number of Chinese Arctic projects in their territories. According to a 2025 study by the Belfer Center, of China’s 57 proposed investment projects in the Arctic, only 18 are active.

But while democratic countries have mostly closed themselves off to new Chinese investment, a different kind of state has opened its doors: Russia. Since 2018, China and Russia have institutionalized their bilateral consultations on the Arctic. Their relationship became especially pronounced after Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022 and was economically isolated from the rest of the Arctic Council’s members. Since then, Chinese companies have signed agreements to develop a titanium mine and a lithium deposit, as well as to construct a new railway and deep-water port. Together, China and Russia’s capabilities for Arctic exploration, commerce, and patrol far exceed those of the United States. China has also used its partnership with Russia to enhance its military access to the region. Starting in 2022, the two countries have even conducted multiple joint exercises, including in the Bering Sea, the Chukchi Sea, and the greater Arctic Ocean, as well as a joint bomber patrol near the coast of Alaska. Beijing and Moscow have also teamed up to bring the BRICS more directly into Arctic discussions. They established a BRICS working group on ocean and polar science and technology, and Russia has invited the body to develop an international scientific station on the Svalbard archipelago.

China’s outreach, however, has come up short. Brazilian and Indian engagement with the Arctic has been primarily through bilateral partnerships with Russia. Some Indian analysts have expressed outright concern about China’s expanding role in the region. And despite the seeming alignment between China and Russia, Moscow has not supported Beijing’s pitch for an expanded role in Arctic governance. Their shared military exercises are largely performative. In 2020, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s special envoy to the Arctic Council, Nikolai Korchunov, agreed with then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s comment that there are two groups of countries, Arctic and non-Arctic, and suggested that China had no Arctic identity. That same year, Moscow charged a Russian professor who studies the Arctic with high treason after he provided China with classified materials relating to submarine detection methods.

BOLDLY GO WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE

Then there is the final frontier: space. As early as 1956, China deemed space exploration a national security priority. On the heels of the Soviet and U.S. satellite launches in 1957 and 1958, Chinese leader Mao Zedong pronounced, “We too shall make satellites.” The country then followed through, launching Dong Fang Hong 1 into orbit in April 1970.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, China created an extensive space program driven by scientific, economic, and military imperatives. In 2000, the government published its first white paper outlining its priorities in outer space. They included making use of the resources of space, achieving crewed spaceflight, and undertaking space explorations centered on the moon. Space is also a particular priority for Xi. “Developing the space program and turning the country into a space power is the space dream that we have continuously pursued,” he said in 2013. In 2017, China laid out a road map to become a “world-leading space power by 2045,” with planned major breakthroughs. It has delivered: in addition to its advancing commercial space program, China has developed sophisticated space warfare capabilities, including a growing constellation of reconnaissance, communications, and early warning satellites. Of the more than 700 satellites that China has placed in orbit, over one-third serve military purposes. The country’s 2022 white paper heralded all this progress. Some U.S. space officials and experts believe that China will surpass the United States as the leading space-faring nation within the next five to ten years, including by being the first to return humans to the moon since the U.S. Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

As with the deep seabed, China’s significant technological capabilities and the frontier’s more open governance enable Beijing to play a significant leadership role in space. Beijing has become an important partner for other less developed countries interested in space research and exploration. It boasts bilateral agreements with 26 states. It also collaborates with the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs to carry out experiments from its Tiangong space station.

Beijing’s most meaningful bid for space leadership, however, is the planned International Lunar Research Station, a joint effort between China and Russia first announced in 2017. It is slated to begin as a permanent base at the moon’s south pole and eventually expand into a network of orbital and surface facilities supporting exploration, resource extraction, and long-term habitation. China aims to get 50 countries, 500 international research institutions, and 5,000 overseas researchers to join the ILRS by offering them opportunities for scientific training, cooperation, and access to some Chinese and Russian space technologies. To that end, it has pitched the ILRS through multilateral organizations, such as the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Beijing and Moscow have positioned the ILRS as an alternative to the U.S.-led Artemis program—Washington’s attempt to get back to the moon—and to the Artemis Accords. The accords, established in 2020 by the United States and seven other countries, set forth nonbinding principles and guidelines for peaceful space exploration, the use of space resources, the preservation of space heritage, interoperability, and the sharing of scientific data. The accords are designed to be consistent with existing international space treaties and conventions; as of early November, 60 countries have signed on.

One senior Chinese expert described the accords as an American attempt to colonize and establish “sovereignty over the moon.” But China has been relatively unsuccessful at drawing countries into its venture. The ILRS has attracted only 11 states in addition to China and Russia, several of which have either no space program or only a nascent one. Two of the countries that joined the ILRS, Senegal and Thailand, later also joined the Artemis Accords. The broader appeal of the latter stems from several factors. Unlike the ILRS, the accords build on existing scientific, security, and commercial relations between NASA and other countries. They provide smaller states with opportunities to advance their own space industries. They offer clear norms of transparency, interoperability, and data sharing, and they do not entangle countries in Russia’s isolation from much of the world’s economic and scientific endeavors. Finally, unlike with the ILRS, countries that sign the Artemis Accords will have an opportunity to send their astronauts to the moon through NASA’s lunar program.

China’s broader approach to governing space has also run into difficulties. In 2022, only seven other countries joined it in voting against a UN First Committee resolution to halt direct-ascent antisatellite missile tests, which produce destructive space debris. In 2024, China abstained from a UN Security Council vote condemning the placement of nuclear weapons in outer space—a motion supported by all other members except Russia. Beijing and Moscow’s attempts to draft their own treaty on preventing and placing weapons in space have garnered support from only a limited number of countries, such as Belarus, Iran, and North Korea.

But Beijing has plowed ahead. It continues to push its governance frameworks and invest in space-related technologies. And if Beijing does return humans to the moon first, it will gain a powerful symbolic edge over the United States that will boost its efforts to shape norms and technologies in the space race.

HARDWIRE AND HARD POWER

China wants to dominate more than just physical domains. Xi also wants Beijing to rule the cyber realm. Over the course of his tenure, China has become a telecommunications powerhouse. His 2015 Digital Silk Road initiative has enabled two Chinese telecommunication companies, Huawei and ZTE, to earn approximately 40 percent of the market in global telecommunications equipment, measured by revenue. China’s Beidou satellite system boasts greater positioning accuracy than does GPS in many parts of the world. Chinese undersea cable technologies are also rapidly increasing their share of the global market.

Beijing also wants to set the global standards for future strategic technologies. Its initiatives, such as the China Standards 2035 strategy, have dramatically increased the number of Chinese participants in and proposals before standard-setting bodies. In 2022, according to Nature, Huawei alone submitted over 5,000 technological standard proposals to more than 200 standards organizations. (Some outside observers have reported that Beijing has undermined best practices by insisting that Chinese companies vote as a bloc for Chinese proposals and by offering companies financial incentives to make them, leading to a large number of poor proposals.)

For China, setting standards is not only about securing commercial wins. It is also about establishing favorable political and security norms. China’s proposal for a new Internet architecture, called New IP, is a case in point. In 2019, Huawei, China Mobile, China Unicom, and China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly submitted New IP to the International Telecommunication Union’s telecommunication standardization advisory group. According to the Financial Times, Chinese officials argued that the 1970s-era Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, today’s system for routing and delivering data, will not be able to support the demands of the future Internet—such as the widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles. Beyond technical practicalities, Chinese leaders believe that the current Internet, built on a U.S.-designed protocol, reflects an American-led governance system that does not align with Beijing’s interests. New IP, by contrast, embeds state control, including by making it easier for central authorities to shut down parts of the network. New IP is thus China’s bid to hardwire its own technical and political preferences into the global Internet.

The negative reactions to China’s proposal from Japan, the United States, and Europe, as well as from leading Internet engineers, were swift. Experts argued that the existing system was flexible enough to evolve and that New IP would fragment the Internet into state-controlled networks. Europeans pointed out that the current protocol had not hindered the development of AI or other important technologies. They also argued that established technical bodies, not the International Telecommunication Union, should set standards.

China worked hard to recruit support for its vision from emerging and middle-income economies. It created a BRICS Future Network Research Institute to coordinate R & D in 6G, AI, and new Internet protocols. It also made the case that its proposed Internet protocols, combined with its Digital Silk Road financing, equipment, and training, would help close the digital divide with emerging economies. A handful of African states—Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe—stepped up to support the New IP proposal. But enthusiasm elsewhere was muted. Notably, as the China analysts Henry Tugendhat and Julia Voo have observed, there was no correlation between a country’s receipt of Digital Silk Road assistance and its support for New IP.

Some of China’s other digital efforts, however, are making more progress. Many BRICS countries, including Brazil, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates, are cooperating commercially with Huawei. And China is trying to lay the foundations for a state-controlled Internet through a succession of new proposals and technologies. Huawei, for example, has rebranded China’s New IP proposal as “Future Vertical Communication Networks and Protocols.” As a group of Oxford University researchers has noted, China “forum shops” its proposals, often presenting the same or similar ones in multiple bodies, looking for buy-in. At a March 6G workshop before a standard-setting organization, Chinese participants pushed for a “completely new 6G core network” technology that enables greater control, which Huawei is already developing. Moreover, China continues to advance a routing system for Internet data that would grant network providers and governments more control over data traffic. Experts say that Beijing has rolled this system out in several African countries.

A RENMINBI FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

One of the last remaining pillars of U.S. global predominance is the central role of the dollar in the world economy. The dollar remains both the most traded currency and the dominant reserve currency. This grants the United States several advantages: lower borrowing costs for its government and corporations, the ability to restrict access to dollar-denominated transactions, and the continued primacy of U.S. financial markets.

China, however, is committed to expanding the international use of its currency, the renminbi, and to knocking the dollar off its pedestal. In the wake of the global financial crisis, China piloted a renminbi trade settlement scheme in 2009 with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Hong Kong, and Macau. China’s initial efforts to internationalize the renminbi did not gain traction, but it persisted. It introduced renminbi-denominated bonds, expanded currency swap lines with more than 30 countries, and established clearing banks to facilitate renminbi transactions in major financial centers. In 2015, it launched the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, which is designed to provide an alternative to the U.S.- and European-dominated Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, better known as SWIFT. Today, China’s payment system connects more than 1,700 banks globally.

Global finance, more than in any other frontier domain, has been fertile ground for China’s efforts to advance its interests through multilateral frameworks. Beijing has used the Belt and Road Initiative to push partner countries to accept renminbi in contracts. Some Chinese economists have even advocated requiring Belt and Road participants to settle in renminbi. These endeavors have worked: by June 2025, the share of China’s bilateral goods trade settled in renminbi reached almost 29 percent.

China’s efforts have been bolstered by U.S. and European sanctions. In a speech before the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Finance Work Conference in October 2023, Xi underscored the point. “A small number of countries treat finance as tools for geopolitical games,” he said. “They repeatedly play with currency hegemony and frequently wield the big stick of financial sanctions.” Iran and Russia, among the world’s most sanctioned countries, have obviously abandoned the U.S. dollar in bilateral trade. But Brazil, India, and South Africa have also supported the adoption of local currencies and a connected BRICS payments system, even if they have not expressed interest in undermining the dollar’s central role.

As with its other strategic endeavors, China’s efforts to promote its currency have faced setbacks. The renminbi accounts for only 2.9 percent of global payments by value, and its share in global foreign currency reserves actually peaked in 2022, at 2.8 percent. Today, it is hovering around 2.1 percent. Full renminbi internationalization requires greater capital account openness, financial liberalization, and less government intervention in monetary policy—steps that would risk undermining the Communist Party’s control over the economy.

But China is also willing to move away from the dollar and expand the use of local currencies without increasing the use of the renminbi. And at that, it has succeeded, thanks in part to Washington’s weaponization of the dollar and other countries’ concerns about the sustainability of American debt. Foreign ownership of U.S. treasuries has declined from 49 percent in 2008 to 30 percent in 2024.

RACE TO THE TOP, RACE TO THE BOTTOM

Xi has made it clear that he wants to reform the international system in ways that reflect Chinese economic, political, and security interests. He wants China to lead in the exploitation of the deep seabed, the Arctic, and space. He wants to create a new Internet protocol that cements state control. He wants to create, invest in, and trade within a global financial system that the United States and the dollar do not dominate. To realize these objectives, Beijing has spent years—in most cases decades—marshaling an extraordinary level of state and private resources, developing human capital, trying to capture existing institutions, and developing new ones. Perhaps most important, Beijing has persisted. It bides its time, adapts its tactics, and seizes opportunities to make gains as they arise.

China has not won yet. In fact, in many respects, the country’s efforts have come up short. The world has not fully embraced China’s vision of change in any domain. Even middle-income and emerging economies, which China often purports to represent, have been wary of Beijing’s proposals. But China’s strategy has yielded notable success in each frontier. The government holds a leading position within the ISA. It has established itself as a leader in commerce in the Arctic, gained military access to the region, and is reframing narratives about who gets a seat at its decision-making table. In space, it has transformed itself into a top scientific and military power. It is making headway in standard-setting bodies that will help create and govern the world’s technological infrastructure. It has diminished the role of the dollar in the international financial system, increased the role of its own currency in foreign trade, and expanded the reach of its alternative payment system. And the capabilities China has accumulated in each of these domains, whether scientific, diplomatic, military, institutional, or physical, position it to keep advancing its vision. That means despite its failures to date, Beijing is unlikely to change course, and it will continue to make progress.

To respond, the United States has three options: step back and grant China the space it wants, try to find common ground, or actively compete. Option one is untenable; stepping back would impose material costs on the United States’ ability to ensure its political, economic, and national security. Option two is attractive, and the two countries could expand scientific cooperation in the deep sea and in space. But in most domains, the gap between the countries’ respective visions is too vast to bridge, at least in the near term.

That leaves only option three. But to compete, defend, or improve current governance in frontier domains, the United States will need to rebuild its capabilities and reclaim its reputation as a responsible global leader. Washington’s hard capabilities—including polar icebreakers, deep-seabed mining prototypes, financial payment innovations, telecommunications technology, and lunar exploration and other space technologies—either already lag well behind those of China or soon will. To fix that, the United States will need to invest in each.

U.S. President Donald Trump has taken some initial steps in this direction by issuing executive orders that support the construction of Arctic security cutters, that deregulate space-related industries, and that support sending astronauts to Mars. Trump’s orders also support the development of seabed mining technologies. And Washington is backing stablecoins and other digital assets to enhance demand for the dollar, as well as promoting the American AI technology stack globally. But these steps do not provide the type of long-term road map that China has given its officials and industries. The United States needs a comprehensive strategy in each domain that includes a clear vision of U.S. economic and security objectives, significant investment in critical near-term hard capabilities, and sustained support for research and development to ensure long-term competitiveness. Financing these investments will require innovative forms of government–private sector cooperation, along the lines of the Biden administration’s CHIPS and Science Act on semiconductors and Trump’s Defense Department partnership on rare-earth minerals with MP Materials. The United States will also need to work with allies and partners to ensure that these domains’ governing institutions reflect values of transparency, openness, and market competition. Otherwise, the United States will not be able to match China’s ability to change a domain by simply claiming it.

以下是《National Security Strategy of the United States of America》(November 2025)全文中，最核心、最重要的重點整理(濃縮到最精華的25條)，直接反映了這份「川普第二任期」國安戰略的真正精神與優先順序：

總體指導思想

1  美國國安戰略的唯一目的：保護美國核心國家利益(American National Interests)，不再追求全球霸權或永久統治全世界。
2  明確宣稱「美國優先(America First)」是唯一指導原則，取代過去30年的「自由國際秩序」幻想。
3  徹底否定冷戰後美國精英的「全球化、自由貿易、永遠承擔全球責任」路線，認為這掏空美國中產階級、工業基礎與軍事實上削弱美國本身。

美國要什麼(核心目標)

4  美國要成為世界上最強、最富、最安全、經濟最強、軍事最強、科技最先進的國家，並世代保持下去。
5  完全控制邊境、終結大規模移民時代，邊境安全＝國家安全第一要素。
6  重建強大工業基礎、能源霸權、國防工業基礎，實現再工業化與供應鏈回流。
7  維持美元霸權、金融市場霸權、高端科技(AI、量子、生物)標準制定權。

戰略原則(11條中最重要幾條)

8  和平來自實力(Peace Through Strength)，實力不足就沒有和平。

Restoring Europe’s Social Contracts

Ana Palacio, 11/18/25

Since World War II, liberal democracies have built and sustained their social contracts on three mutually reinforcing pillars: freedom, prosperity, and the rule of law. If Europe is to thrive in the 21st century and continue to serve as a model of democratic values, it must reinvigorate all three.

BRUSSELS – The European Parliament Committee on Constitutional Affairs recently held a high-level symposium on the “Quest for the Rule of Law.” Legal scholars, academics, and practitioners gathered for an in-depth dialogue on the principle’s meaning and implementation within the European Union. But the challenge ahead is more fundamental: the rule of law is backsliding in Europe, jeopardizing democracy itself.

Since World War II, liberal democracies have built and sustained their social contracts on three mutually reinforcing pillars: freedom, prosperity, and the rule of law. Individual freedom unleashed innovative dynamism; the rule of law ensured a level playing field; and the resulting prosperity bolstered confidence in both. This dynamic shaped the Cold War, and it has been the European project’s primary source of legitimacy from the start.

Today, this system is in crisis. Far from “lifting all boats,” globalization has left many European households sinking rapidly. As wealth has become increasingly concentrated, and the middle class has been hollowed out, things previous generations took for granted, such as being able to afford housing on a full-time salary, are out of reach for many, especially young people. Upward social mobility looks increasingly like a chimera.

Without shared prosperity, freedom is perceived as a charade. A widespread sense that the social contract has been broken has undermined faith in the rule of law – a central function of which is to limit power – and fueled popular anger. Populist politicians, capitalizing on this growing frustration and resentment in many countries, have often used their power to weaken or politicize the judiciary. Meanwhile, EU institutions have often proven to be too fragmented or unwieldy to act decisively and efficiently, including when it comes to defending the rule of law.

表單的頂端

表單的底部

天方夜譚！

The West’s Three Options in a Multipolar World

The sunset of Western hegemony does not entail the disappearance of the West.

Peter Slezkine, 11/08/25

According to the “global majority” (as the Russians call it), the sun is finally setting on the West. After 500 years of dominance, the West is showing signs of relative decline across almost every dimension. A protracted period of historical anomaly is passing, and the world is entering an age defined by a reassertion of sovereign interests and a resurgence of ancient civilizations.

At a certain remove, this image seems a reasonable enough representation of new realities. But as a roadmap for navigating international politics, it is far too rough a sketch.

First, “decline” does not mean “displacement.” The West may lose its power to rule by diktat. Its institutions, culture, and moral fashions may lose their charm. But we will continue to live in a profoundly modern and globalized world of Western origin. Our systems of education and science, our forms of government, our legal and financial mechanisms, and our built environment will continue to rest on a Western foundation. A weakening West is unlikely to find itself in a post-Western world. 

Second, “the West” is a fluid concept. It has shifted shape before, and may reconfigure itself once more. Before considering what the West might become going forward, we need to figure out what sort of power is passing from the scene.

The history of Western hegemony can be split into two separate eras. Until 1945, the West may have ruled the world, but it did so as a collection of competing states rather than a single entity. In fact, it was precisely competition within a fractured West that provided a major impetus for outward expansion.

After 1945, the picture changed dramatically. For the first time, a politically united West emerged under the American aegis. But while American officials consolidated the West, they did not organize U.S. foreign policy around it. Instead, they claimed leadership of the “free world,” which they defined negatively as the entire “non-communist world.” The Western core of the postwar American order was thus doubly effaced: It was identified with a lowest-common-denominator global liberalism that depended, in turn, on the presumption of an existential external threat for any semblance of internal coherence. 

The collapse of the Soviet Union did not change this underlying logic. The West began to refer to itself as “the international community,” and when liberal democracy failed to spread to the ends of the earth, it returned to the business of defending the “free world,” first against “radical Islam” and then against its familiar Cold War foes—Russia and China. 

The Biden administration represented both the climax and culmination of this foreign policy approach. Biden entered the White House declaring a global divide between democracy and autocracy and sought to create linkages between Europe and Asia as part of a global alliance against Russia and China. But the result, especially after the start of the war in Ukraine, was not unity of a global “liberal order,” but a rapidly growing and increasingly obvious gap between the West’s universalist claims and its limited reach. Europe moved in lockstep; the rest of the world mostly went its own way. Ultimately, the “liberal order” was rejected not only by the non-West, but also by the American electorate, which last year voted for America First for a second time. 

So where does this leave the West? I see three paths forward.

The first is a limited liberal restoration. One can imagine European elites beating back domestic opposition, outlasting Trump, and finding a champion in the Democratic Party, which promises a partial return to the status quo ante. The Atlanticist infrastructure is strong, and inertia is a powerful force. But even in the case of a post-Trump restoration, popular antipathy to the liberal internationalist program will result in considerable counterpressure, and resource constraints will continue to limit Western reach.

Another possibility is a radical retrenchment, understood as an abandonment of empire in favor of the nation. Politically, such a move would be broadly popular. Promising to put the interests of American citizens first has obvious appeal to the American voter. Calls to reprioritize the nation also resonate across much of Europe. Nationalism naturally fits the frame of democratic politics. It also represents the seemingly self-evident alternative to the previously dominant frame of liberal universalism. A more nationalist policy is the basic premise of MAGA, and a growing number of right-wing “influencers” are actively pushing this agenda. The neutering of USAID, Radio Free Europe, and the National Endowment for Democracy represents a substantial step in this direction. A new national defense strategy that prioritizes homeland security may force a further shift away from a foreign policy dedicated to leadership of the “liberal order.” 

But existing entanglements will be difficult to undo. Atlanticist elites remain entrenched in key positions inside and outside of government, and complex structures like NATO and the European Union may endure, even if populist parties gain power across the West. Just as importantly, nationalist leaders in the West seem to understand that the single-minded pursuit of national sovereignty will produce countries too weak to possess true autonomy on the international stage. If the United States withdraws to the Western Hemisphere, then the project of European integration will almost assuredly collapse. And in a world of massive great powers, individual European nations will no longer be able to punch above their weight (as they did before 1945). Although nationalist parties in Europe may oppose the transatlantic structures of the “liberal order,” they tend not to envision a total split from the United States. The United States, meanwhile, is large (and secure) enough to maintain a relatively strong position in the international system even if it abandons empire entirely. But most members of the MAGAverse do not envision a retreat so complete. At minimum, they tend to imagine maintaining U.S. dominance from Panama to Greenland. 

At most, they would prefer to keep control of the entire West. The third and final option, then, is a new transatlantic consolidation that replaces a liberal universalist logic with a self-consciously civilizational frame, with the United States as the acknowledged metropole and Europe as a privileged periphery. If American leadership of the liberal order does represent a net resource drain (as Trump and his allies claim), then the new transatlantic arrangement would reverse the flow. At the same time, it would afford European nations membership in a club with sufficient population and resources to compete in the global arena. Finally, membership in the Western club would not require the sacrifice of national identity at the altar of global liberalism. In fact, it would require the reassertion of national identity within a pan-Western frame at the expense of policies favoring limitless immigration and never-ending expansion.

The construction of a self-consciously “collective West” would constitute an embrace of multipolarity and an attempt to create the most powerful pole in the system. It would also probably result in a reorientation—moving away from the tanks-and-troops logic created by the Cold War standoff with the Soviet Union, and toward a focus on tech and trade more suited to competition with China. Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech at the AI Summit in Paris, his broadside against the Atlanticists at the Munich Security Conference, and President Donald Trump’s recent speech at the United Nations have all pushed Europe to reorganize along these lines. Efforts to burden-shift in NATO, along with recent trade deals with Britain and the EU, represent practical steps in this direction.

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The problem is that the West has spent decades dissolving itself within the liberal order and has little civilizational content to fall back on. The Western canon has been mostly destroyed in higher education, and religious practice has been on the wane throughout the West. Christianity is still a powerful force in American politics (as we saw at the revival-style memorial for Charlie Kirk), but the West can no longer claim to be Christendom. In the current moment, the idea of the West mainly appeals to a small number of influential New Right intellectuals, and to geopoliticians and tech titans who desire scale (but realize that the globe is too big to swallow).

There are obstacles on all three paths. And they are not, in fact, alternatives. The likeliest outcome is probably a combination of all three. Bureaucratic inertia favors the first option, limited liberal restoration; the logic of domestic politics favors the second, nationalist retrenchment; and geopolitical imperatives favor the third, the creation of a real “collective West.” 

In any event, the United States is poised to maintain a favorable position in a multipolar world. The legacy institutions of international liberalism have largely lost their purpose, but retain residual power (which, ironically, the U.S. can leverage most effectively against other members of the “liberal order”). Going forward, the Trump administration should continue to push for a reconfiguration of the transatlantic relationship as a self-consciously Western coalition united by a common approach to trade, technology, and resource management. And if Europe fails to accept its new role, or play it well, then Washington can cut bait and retrench to prepared positions in the Western Hemisphere.


About The Author

Peter Slezkine is Director of the Russia Program at the Stimson Center and host of The Trialogue Podcast, a series of one-on-one conversations featuring guests from the United States, Russia, and China. He is completing a book on the ideological origins and political impact of the American concept of the “free world.”

Articles by Petertrending_flat

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阿恰瑞阿教授立論相當中肯；分析也很深入、周到、和細緻；他並引用許多史實來支持其論點；相當值得一讀。

索引(就下文「脈絡」而言)：

Agency：主導權，主導身份
Amarna system：阿馬爾那時期國際關係
de-globalization：「國家本位傾向」
multilateralism：多方合作關係，多方協同政策
multiplex：多層次世局
multipolarity：多極世局，多主宰中心形式下的世局
re-globalization：「新型全球化」，「全球化」的新形態

The decline of the West and the rise of ‘the Rest’ will lead to a new world order

The United States’ withdrawal from its international role will not result in global collapse, argues Amitav Acharya. Instead, we are on the verge of a ‘multiplex’ order, in which ‘re-globalization’ is led by Asia and Global South nations increasingly deploy non-alignment to get what they want.

Amitav Acharya, 09/17/25

As Donald Trump rampages through the global economic system with his tariff war and throws the United States’ commitment to NATO into serious doubt, fears – even panic – are mounting about the collapse of world order. Part of the anxiety stems from how suddenly these changes appear to have unfolded. In the aftermath of the 2008 global economic crisis, what was often described as the US-led liberal international order seemed alive and well, though not without challenges.

Leading liberal internationalists believed not only that US primacy would endure, but that the world order it built would, in the words of the Princeton professor John Ikenberry, ‘survive and thrive’, and co-opt even its challengers, like China. Now, Trump’s second presidency gives fresh ammunition to the argument that he is destroying not only the liberal order, but the very notion of world order itself. It would be a mistake, however, to see things in such extremes.

As I argued when he first entered the White House, Trump is not creating this crisis – he is accelerating forces that had already undermined the old order. Yet, any new order emerging from the present crisis will retain some features of the old. For now, some comfort is to be found in the fact that no other country is as yet emulating Trump’s ‘reciprocal tariffs’ or supporting his contempt fo multilateralism. 

Globalization, too, is not disappearing, but taking a new, eastern turn. Traditional forms of global governance were already growing rusty. Now they are being joined by new forms which will become more salient in the post-Trump era. Global governance, however, is not going to disappear or be radically altered.

Beyond the West

Let’s start by challenging the assumption that the fate of world order depends on the US and western global dominance. Many of the key ideas underpinning world order – and the rules and institutions sustaining it – have come from a range of nations and regions, not just the West. These principles include the independence and territorial integrity of states, free trade and freedom of the seas, diplomacy and peace treaties, and moral values and humanitarian norms. Neither the decline of the West nor America’s withdrawal alters this historical reality.

Moreover, these realities have also shaped the post-Second World War international order, many of whose foundational and progressive elements – economic openness, international cooperation and humanitarian values – were developed with active leadership beyond the West.

While the western contributions were critical, so too were those of the Global South, which, beyond larger nations such as India, South Africa and Indonesia, has been both a contributor to and upholder of the norms and institutions at the heart of the world order. For example, a majority of Global South nations condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, despite the abstentions by China and India; they have also been even more outspoken than western nations in condemning Israeli actions in Gaza, increasingly being seen as ‘genocide’.

So what kind of world order might avoid global chaos and how might it arise? The default answer from policymakers, media and think tanks is ’multipolarity’ – a distribution of military and economic power across several major states. Yet this concept does not capture the role of ideas, norms and leadership, some of which come from non-great powers. Nor does multipolarity’s European history before the Second World War fit neatly into the 21st century context. In that era, the main players were western imperial powers, colonizing most non-western nations, with few multilateral institutions globally or regionally and no nuclear weaponry to temper rivalry and war among major powers. 

A broader way to frame the emerging world order is multiplexity, which has three defining features.

First, no single nation, or cluster of powers, will dominate. The US is likely to remain the most powerful nation, especially militarily, financially and technologically. But China will become pre-eminent in development and trade, if not in financial power. The European Union will remain a force in regulating trade and ecological threats. 

Regional powers, acting through regional bodies, such as Indonesia in ASEAN and South Africa in the African Union, could become more important in managing political, security and trade affairs. These need not be limited to BRICS members but include states such as Mexico, Nigeria and Turkey.

Second, power and alignments in a multiplex world will be issue- and time-specific. Countries will avoid rigid alliances and instead ‘hedge’ or avoid taking sides in great power rivalries. As Malaysian analyst Elina Noor observes about Southeast Asia’s response to US–China rivalry, states may favour one power on a specific issue at a given moment but still enjoy solid ties with another in different though sometimes related areas. For example, countries might receive economic and infrastructure aid from China yet look to the US and its allies for security. 

The tendency towards a more non-aligned foreign policy will grow. For this reason, I don’t believe the idea of a return of the great power sphere of influence is credible.  

Third, no single nation will lead across every issue area. For example, as already stated, while the US might retain security allies, China might dominate as a trading partner; the EU could shape climate rules; while the Global South nations will draw security, economic, technological and public health support from a variety of partners – from the UK, Germany, India, Turkey, South Africa, Brazil and Saudi Arabia, depending on issue areas. In so doing the Global South may be able to exert great agency over what they get and how.

Re-globalization, not de-globalization

A multiplex world order would shape globalization and global cooperation differently than multipolarity or the passing era of western dominance. Globalization is a much older and broader phenomenon than is recognized in the conventional ‘Davos view’, which traces it back to the invention of the steam engine and economic changes in the 19th century. In fact, there have been many globalizations. These include the Eurasian Silk Roads and the vast non-Sinic Indian Ocean commercial and cultural networks that lasted from antiquity to the arrival of European imperial powers and linked Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

The era of hyper-globalization – when it was celebrated as a guarantor of prosperity and peace – is past, ended by the weaponization of trade and geopolitics. This has led to calls for de-globalization by decreasing reliance on foreign trade and attaining more national self-reliance – but also for re-globalization. In the multiplex world, such re-globalization will be led less by the West than by the East, especially Asia.

Asia is regarded not only as the centre of global growth, but as a new ‘global connector’. The region accounted for 57 per cent of global GDP growth between 2015 and 2021 and 42 per cent of world GDP (at purchasing power parity). Asia also accounts for more than half of global trade, and its intra-regional trade is second only to the European Union, representing 57 per cent of its total trade in 2022.

Trump’s tariff wars may yet undercut Asia’s growth, since a good deal of Asia’s economic rise was built on access to the American market. There will be new winners and losers. Countries too dependent on exports to the US – such as Vietnam, Korea, Taiwan, Mexico and the EU – are particularly vulnerable. Yet this does not mean the ‘end of globalization’, as some have said, but rather that it is entering a new phase.

The infrastructure and policy regimes built up by Asian nations such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Bangladesh to support their growth and trade will still be useful as countries adapt to the new global trade reality. And new supply chains, which are more localized, minimalist and virtual, will emerge, responding not just to the changing geopolitics and the Trump tariffs but other factors such as automation, sustainability concerns and technological advances.

China is already developing supply chains less dependent on the US and which target markets in the Global South more directly. This re-globalization could enhance the agency and economic potential of Global South nations that remain relatively non-aligned. A recent Economist Group survey found that a non-aligned strategic position increases a country’s attraction to global investors. While US tariffs might complicate this hedging posture, they are unlikely to prevent diversification. Indeed they might encourage South–South globalization.

End of the West vs the Rest

A multiplex world undercuts the idea of the West vs the Rest divide. Trump has dealt a powerful, possibly terminal blow to the idea of the West by questioning NATO, but also by imposing ‘reciprocal tariffs’ on US friends and rivals alike. As Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, put it in April: ‘The West as we knew it no longer exists.’ This need not be bad for world order, as it opens up new avenues of cooperation that cut across the West–Rest divide. This multiplexity has major implications for traditional ways of organizing global cooperation, groupings and institutions.

Exclusive groups such as the G7 will become obsolete, if not extinct, unless they expand and adapt. This does not mean that groups of non-western nations, such as the much-hyped BRICS+, will take over multilateralism. While the BRICS bloc has symbolic importance, there are internal rivalries, such as China and India’s, the likely divergence of Indonesia and Egypt from China’s agenda and the question of what resources new, wealthier members such as the United Arab Emirates will commit to the grouping. 

Nonetheless, the BRICS+ as well as regional and ‘minilateral’ groupings could provide non-Western nations avenues for global influence, as could be seen in China’s assertion of its geopolitical heft when Xi Jinping brought together Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi and Kim Jong Un, among other leaders, at the recent Tianjin Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Students of multilateralism have increasingly recognized that the United Nations, 80 years old this autumn, is no longer the only game in town when it comes to organizing global cooperation and governance. Yet traditional multilateralism is not dead. It is important to note that the UN is a vast and complex system, not a singular entity.

While some institutions, such as the World Trade Organization, may be moribund, specialized agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and Unesco are still going to matter in managing financial crises and cultural preservation. And potential remains for repurposing: for example, a greater visibility and role for the General Assembly as the Security Council remains polarized and ineffective.

Meanwhile hybrid forms of cooperation – between governments and private agencies, corporations, foundations and NGOs – are increasingly important. Fruitful examples include the Gates Foundation in global health, the Forest Stewardship Council, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, and the Colombian Climate and Agricultural Sector.

Trump may continue to bully states into bilateral trade deals favouring the US; but other bilateral, minilateral and regional arrangements will persist, often complementing multilateral cooperation. There is no reason to discount the possibility that the norms of multilateralism, reciprocity, humanitarian assistance and environmental protection, though weakened, would survive and could be revived and strengthened post-Trump.

International cooperation might move to a ‘world-minus-one’ mode where more multilateral deals will emerge without US participation while leaving the door open for its return after Trump. Trumpism would also encourage western nations to seek out more trade partners in the Global South as we have seen with the UK–India trade agreement.

Amid the gloom that marks much thinking about world order today, it is useful to recognize that it is not ending but changing. Short of a nuclear catastrophe, a new international order will emerge on the back of the old, with important differences to correct its failings, but also with continuities.

One shouldn’t fall victim to the self-fulfilling prophecy that the world order will collapse because the US has gone rogue. Instead, take into consideration the forces not just of disruption and chaos but also of continuity and consensus, and explore the possibilities, in the words of 14th-century historian Ibn Khaldun, to witness the ‘world brought into existence anew’.

The dawn of state relations

A network of independent states and the principle of territorial integrity – the foundation of the modern world order – first emerged in Sumer, in what is now Iraq, around 2500 BC, well before Greece, Maya, India and Europe. The first multipolar system involving the major powers of a region – the ‘Amarna system’ – which kept peace through diplomacy, communications and norms of reciprocity, originated a millennium later in the ancient Near East among Egypt, Hatti, Assyria, Babylon and Mitanni. Records survive for the Amarna system and for the first peace treaty; the latter has matching texts from each side and was concluded in 1259 BC between Egypt and Hatti. It provided for non-aggression, non-interference in internal affairs and mutual support against common threats.

The emergence of ‘just war’ conventions

Ancient India’s ‘just war’ humanitarian principles took shape around the first century AD, anticipating the Geneva Conventions nearly two millennia later. They included protection of civilians and non-combatants, injured or surrendered soldiers and prohibition against poisonous weapons. The rules were meant to regulate unlawful combat, protect the rights of civilians and non-combatants, reduce the intensity of violence and destruction in war, and improve the prospects for rebuilding war-devastated areas.

The first rules-based trade

The foundations of economic interdependence were laid in the Indian Ocean, not by empire but by private traders and small port-city states of Indian, Chinese, Arab, Javanese, African and other origins. The Indian Ocean system was open, rules-based and the world’s largest maritime trading network until the arrival of European powers in the 16th century AD. It brought prosperity, fuelled by spice and textile – especially cotton – trade and was sufficiently lucrative to attract European predatory attention. At the same time, the pre-established nodes of the Indian Ocean network enabled European voyagers and companies to acquire knowledge and advance colonization.

The post-Second World War multilateral system

It is often overlooked that 30 of the 50 countries that participated in the San Francisco Conference to draft the United Nations charter were from what is known today as the Global South – excluding China, South Africa and Turkey but including India and the Philippines, which attended as colonies of Britain and the US respectively. Post-colonial nations advanced self-determination beyond the selective and fledgling European norms, introduced racial equality and contributed to universal human rights, as well as institutions to promote economic development, free trade, disarmament and peacekeeping.


Amitav Acharya is the Distinguished Professor, American University, Washington, DC

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