Opening up New Horizons for Major-Country Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics at a Crucial Historical Juncture

Wang Yi

In the heavy-loaded, historic year of 2025, the world once again came to a crucial juncture and had to decide which way to go. China held high the banner of building a community with a shared future for humanity, followed the strategic guidance of head-of-state diplomacy, united progressive forces across the world with utmost sincerity, and built the momentum for peace and development with greatest efforts. With the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan in 2026, China’s relations with the rest of the world will enter a new stage, and its major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics will accomplish more.

China’s Neighborhood Diplomacy in the New Era: Strategic Positioning, Conceptual Innovation, and Major Practices

Wei Ling

The Central Conference on Work Related to Neighboring Countries in April 2025 marked another highest-level meeting of China dedicated to its neighborhood diplomacy. Given the profound changes in the surrounding environment, a new strategic positioning of the neighborhood was articulated at the conference, and major innovations emerged in the conceptual framework of China’s neighborhood diplomacy. The subsequent head-of-state diplomacy to neighboring countries and recent diplomatic initiatives in different directions have demonstrated how China’s approach toward its neighborhood is emerging.

China’s Evolving Role and Institutional Contributions in Global Sovereign Debt Governance

Huang Meibo & Ying Lingrong

The global sovereign debt governance architecture is undergoing a substantial reconfiguration from Western dominance toward more pluralistic governance. China has played a constructive role in post-pandemic global sovereign debt governance, making institutional contributions to debt management concepts, mechanisms, and instruments. Looking ahead, China needs to deepen its evolving role and institutional transformation while finding a more stable balance between institutional co-construction and rules-shaping, thereby translating its institutional influence into stable and sustainable international public goods.

From Benevolent Leader to Predatory Hegemon: Shift of US Alliance Strategy in the Trump 2.0 Era

Liu Feng

Far from being merely transactional, the US alliance policy in Trump’s second term is predominantly predatory, raising demands on allies without offering new material compensation or credible long-term commitments. Instead of a drastic departure, the extortionate approach reflects the enduring hierarchy of the US alliance system, where security guarantees coexist with coercion and reward. Leveraging the deeply rooted hierarchical relationship, Trump’s recalibration of US alliance strategy aims to make US international primacy more directly and effectively serve the domestic objectives embodied in “America First.”

Evolution of the European Union’s Perception of China and Its Implications

Zhao Huaipu

The rise of “hard diplomacy” has given the EU’s external policy a sharper geopolitical focus and a stronger attention to security, under which its approach to China has moved away from an emphasis on engagement and cooperation toward a more assertive stance marked by distancing, competition, and even confrontation. Although the EU claims it has no intention of “decoupling” from China or of entering into conflict, signs of a tougher approach are already visible, albeit with limited impact and the worsening trend is not irreversible.

Economic Cooperation between India and the United States under the Modi Administration: Characteristics, Drivers, and Prospects

Ning Shengnan

India-US economic cooperation has accelerated under the Modi administration, with both countries’ status and influence in each other’s global economic strategies steadily rising and their trade and investment ties gradually strengthening. This development stems both from India’s robust growth momentum and the US desire to tap into the Indian market and leverage India to serve its own global strategic objectives. In the long term, the pace and trajectory of cooperation will hinge on the two countries’ perceptions of shared strategic interests, coordination of their trade policies, as well as India’s ability to sustain high growth and quickly expand its manufacturing exports.