China in the World | China's Foreign Policy Discourse in December 2025
US-China | Europe (Ukraine) | Taiwan | Japan | South China Sea | Global South
This month’s round-up begins with two pieces from the Fudan scholar Wu Xinbo—one a Chinese-language interview and the other an English-language article in Foreign Affairs—on the possibility of a strategic accommodation between China and the US. Sharp-eyed readers will notice a not-so-subtle disparity in the framing between the English-language and Chinese-language pieces, but the idea that influence in the international system can be formally traded remains a constant.
In contrast to this transactional view, Da Wei of Tsinghua’s CISS reappropriates the logic of the Cold War “Long Peace” to characterise a messier equilibrium of “mutually assured disruption”, which could eventually develop into a situation of more stable coexistence between the US and China. More confrontationally, Renmin University’s Jin Canrong frames the US-China competition in terms of a contest over networks of “friends”, emphasising the importance of China leveraging trade links for political influence and the central importance of neighbourhood diplomacy in Asia.
Unusually for articles on Europe, December contained some fairly substantial commentaries, all due to changes in the strategic environment stemming from US-Europe tensions over Ukraine. In an FT Chinese article, the scholar Wang Peng encourages Europe to take a radically realist approach to China, recognising that the two sides share a key interest in preventing a Ukraine settlement dominated by Russian and US interests. On the other hand, Peking University’s Jia Qingguo argues that although conflict in Europe has benefitted China in some ways, any form of peace in Ukraine—including a Trump-orchestrated deal—will ultimately be more advantageous by increasing China’s room for diplomatic manoeuvre.
Takes on Taiwan concentrate on a perceived shift to greater strategic ambiguity in the US National Security Strategy, as well as the signals sent by the announcement of an unusually large arms sale to Taiwan shortly after stabilising talks between Chinese and US officials.
Meanwhile, analyses of Japan and the Philippines note an increasingly hostile Pacific environment for China, moderated by the somewhat tokenistic presence of Russia in the North Pacific and faith that China’s regional heft will decide political trends in the long term.
— James Farquharson
Wu Xinbo on using the midterms as a strategic opportunity to obtain a deal from Trump on guardrails.
Wu Xinbo on why a US-China “grand bargain” is in both sides’ interests.
Da Wei on “mutually assured disruption” and a path to peaceful coexistence.
Jin Canrong on neighbourhood diplomacy and leveraging trade for influence via Hainan opening.
Zhang Jiajun on the theory and practice of US civilisational framing of international relations.
Wang Li & Xu Qiyuan on the visible fracture in China policy within the US state.
Wang Peng on Europe and China’s common interest in preventing a Ukraine peace dominated by US and Russian strategic interests.
Jia Qingguo on why peace in Ukraine is overall more beneficial to China than continued conflict.
Jian Junbo on why Europe’s trade deficit with China is structural, not the result of policy distortion or unfair trade practices.
Qiu Changgen on intensified US strategic ambiguity in its 2025 National Security Strategy.
Wang Yingjin on the Taiwan arms package as a reciprocal bargain between the DPP and the US defence industry.
Jin Canrong interpreting China-Russia signalling on Japan in the northern Pacific.
Hu Bo on the peacetime gains and limited wartime utility of US-Philippines defence cooperation.
Wu Shicun on anti-China alignment in the South China Sea and managing frictions.
Jia Qingguo on decentralisation in the global order and Beijing’s Global Governance Initiative.
1. US-China
Wu Xinbo (吴心伯): Potential damage to Trump’s domestic position after the midterms may push him to place greater emphasis on his foreign-policy legacy, creating a strategic opening that China can choose to exploit. By engaging him in terms of a “grand bargain” [大交易], China can appeal to his self-identification as a “deal-maker” [交易者] and advance the construction of guard-rails on trade, security and Taiwan—for the mutual prosperity of the two countries. At the global level, US strategic repositioning creates a rare historic opening for China, with advances on global governance, energy transitions and the digital economy—focused primarily on the Global South, as Europe is likely to continue “clinging” to the United States—emerging as key strategic avenues. - Director, Centre for American Studies, Fudan University (观察者网, Part 1, 29 December and Part 2, 31 December)
Wu Xinbo (吴心伯): A US-China grand bargain is uniquely feasible and necessary now as China’s rising capacity to shoulder global responsibilities coincides with America’s declining interest in sustaining its international burdens, creating a basis to reset relations toward pragmatic power-sharing. Both sides increasingly recognise the escalating risk of sliding toward conflict, especially over Taiwan and in the Pacific. The grand bargain would involve reform rather than overthrow of the international order, enabling the US to reduce its international burdens without risks to international stability, while allowing China to secure continued access to technology and markets. - Director, Centre for American Studies, Fudan University (Foreign Affairs, 31 December)
Da Wei (达巍): In 2025, US policy reflected a strategic shift away from liberal internationalism toward economic and security nationalism, while China’s strong response has produced a stalemate based on “mutual assured disruption” [确保相互干扰]. This “reconfiguration within resilience” [韧性中的新局] suggests a potential inflection point in which the two powers compete on a more symmetric footing and with greater mutual strategic autonomy, widening the space for stable coexistence. - Director, Centre for International Security and Strategy, Tsinghua University (《世界知识》, Issue 24)
Jin Canrong (金灿荣): The new competitive frontiers in the Sino-US relationship involve domestic governance capacity—“only China and the US can defeat themselves” [只有中美自己才能击败自己]—, a productivity race centred on AI, and expansion of one’s “circle of friends” [朋友圈]. On the latter point, Hainan’s closed-customs free trade port presents a controlled experiment in economic opening that tightens China’s linkage to regional markets. In line with the strategic elevation of “neighbourhood diplomacy” [周边外交] in East Asia to a central priority following the convening of the Central Conference on Work Related to Neighboring Countries in April 2025, this strategy involves translating market networks into political influence and strategic advantages. - Professor, School of International Studies, Renmin University of China (观察者网, 30 December)
Zhang Jiajun (张佳俊): Trump’s second term can be understood through the ideological framing of Samuel Huntington, prioritising domestic identity repair and fusing “America First” with a conservative framing of “the West”. In this logic, “civilisation” functions as a “friend-foe classifier” [区分敌我] designed to repair internal cohesion and prevent the West from self-sabotage [自毁长城], while relying on transactional interest-bargains to discipline allies and exploit divisions among non-Western states. However, Trump’s blunt execution prioritises US renewal over Western cohesion, deepens US-Europe fractures and externalises domestic turbulence. - Researcher, Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (《读书》, Issue 12)
Wang Li (王丽) & Xu Qiyuan (徐奇渊): Contradictions between the December 2025 US National Security Strategy (NSS) and the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) for 2026 reveal cross-currents between the White House and Congress, and within the Republican Party. While the NSS signals a pragmatic turn toward “flexible realism” [灵活现实主义] and prioritisation of the Western Hemisphere, the NDAA entrenches an Indo-Pacific focus that casts China as an adversary and enshrines tougher value-based foreign policy initiatives. For China, this split both offers room for executive-led transactional stabilisation in the short term, while amplifying uncertainty over the stability of bilateral ties after Trump’s influence wanes. - Researchers, Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (澎湃新闻, 23 December)
2. Europe
Wang Peng (王鹏): Europe’s strategic autonomy is being eroded by a rigid misreading of China that reduces Beijing’s calibrated posture on Ukraine to “taking sides” [选边站队]. Rather than hoping China will dramatically cut ties with Russia, Europe should adopt a radically pragmatic approach to “using China” [使用中国]. While tension in Europe benefits China by constraining US power projection, the current context of Trump’s tilt toward a peace deal on terms favourable to Moscow is causing Chinese and European interests to converge, since neither wants excessive US-Russia accommodation that jointly sets Europe’s security order and sidelines other players. – Research Fellow, Institute of State Governance, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (FT中文网, 5 December)
Jia Qingguo (贾庆国): The Russia-Ukraine war has become a double-edged constraint for China: while its continuation can divert US attention and deepen Russia’s reliance on Beijing, it also locks Europe into a China-sceptical security stance and amplifies sanctions spillovers. However, a peaceful end delivers the larger net gain by opening the way to a meaningful China-Europe reset and lowering the risk premium on Russia-linked commerce and creating a more favourable environment for China’s development. In this sense, China’s interests in Ukraine are aligned with those of Trump, who seeks a quick end to the war in order to prevent resource drain, lower nuclear risk and pave the way to a Nobel Peace Prize. – Professor, School of International Studies, Peking University (观察者网, 9 December)
Jian Junbo (简军波): The EU–China trade “imbalance” [“失衡”] is primarily structural and systemic, rather than the result of Chinese unfair practices, arising from comparative advantage rather than subsidies, dumping or so-called overcapacity [产能过剩]. Europe’s deficit reflects China’s role as a comprehensive manufacturing hub, supported by integrated supply chains, infrastructure advantages and a more diligent work culture, while EU “de-risking” policies and export controls have constrained European exports to China. Addressing the imbalance thus requires European adjustment—through innovation, reindustrialisation, investment openness and deeper supply-chain integration—rather than pressuring China to alter lawful trade practices. – Director, Centre for China-Europe Relations, Fudan University (澎湃新闻, 26 December)
3. Taiwan
Qiu Changgen (仇長根): The 2025 US National Security Strategy reformulates American strategic ambiguity through a more flexible Taiwan policy and a regional burden-sharing posture, aiming to avoid US-China military confrontation while still preserving leverage over China. Replacing the usual formulation of “one-China policy” with “our longstanding declaratory policy” heightens strategic ambiguity, revealing a degree of US anxiety and restraint. However, the shift from “opposing” to more ambiguously “not supporting” unilateral changes to the status quo risks sending permissive signals to “Taiwan separatists”. - Director, Institute for Cross-Strait Exchanges and Regional Development, East China Normal University (中评社, 14 December)
Wang Yingjin (王英津): The $11bn-plus US arms package for Taiwan—announced on 18 December—operates as a reciprocal bargain between Taipei and the US military-industrial complex, taking up Lai Ching-te’s “pledge of allegiance” [投名状] in a November Washington Post article that proposed a US$40bn special defence procurement budget. The deal is unprecedented in scale for a single arms sale to Taiwan and demonstrates that the US is “saying one thing and doing another” [“说一套，做一套”], having announced the deal shortly after a meeting between China and US military officials focused on risk management and preventing escalation. - Director, Research Centre for Cross-Strait Relations, Renmin University (中评社, 31 December)
4. Japan
Jin Canrong (金灿荣): The China–Russia Strategic Security Consultation between Wang Yi and Sergei Shoigu signals “position alignment” [战略对表], explicitly naming the risk of resurgent Japanese militarism at the political level, while a routine joint missile-defence drill and a strategic air patrol establish deterrence while keeping the target of the exercises open to interpretation. Sino-Russian convergence on Japan is founded not just in present strategic trust, but also in a shared history of conflict with Japan during WWII (in 1938-39 for the Soviet Union). Even so, the scope of Russian support for China in a hypothetical conflict with Japan would likely be limited and carefully calibrated. - Professor, School of International Studies, Renmin University of China (金金乐道编辑部, 12 December)
5. South China Sea
Hu Bo (胡波): US military cooperation with the Philippines is a “mixture of appearance and substance” [虚虚实实], with measures that have limited wartime utility but yield peacetime gains by reducing US operating costs and using Manila to “drain” [消耗] Chinese attention. The US is widening its military footprint under the 2014 Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) through intensified rotational deployments, the forward positioning of missile systems, and a sharp increase in joint exercises and interoperability activities. However, EDCA build-out and hardening have lagged, constrained by the Philippines’ capacity limits, domestic political uncertainty and the high cost of converting sites into resilient forward bases. - Director, Centre for Maritime Strategy Studies, Peking University (《现代舰船》, Issue 12)
Wu Shicun (吴士存): South China Sea tensions are increasingly shaped by the coalescing of opposition to China: US policy “follow-through” [萧规曹随] since 2020, Japan’s shift from diplomatic activism to direct military enabling of the Philippines, and the growing alignment of the Philippines itself with these external powers due to domestic pressures. Although the deterrence effect of China’s regional presence should prevent serious instability over the next five to ten years, even as localised frictions persist, a definitive settlement will be a generational task that hinges on building marine cooperation mechanisms to incentivise claimant states to “move in line with China” [和中国相向而行]. - Chairman, Huayang Centre for Maritime Cooperation and Ocean Governance (北京日报, 14 December)
6. Global South
Jia Qingguo (贾庆国): The global order is undergoing a process of “decentralisation” [去中心化] as Western relative power wanes, disrupting multilateral rules and heightening great power confrontation, while also creating a rare opening to rebuild governance on more inclusive and equitable foundations. China’s Global Governance Initiative [全球治理倡议] is a timely effort to steer this transition by anchoring global cooperation in a more plural balance that gives greater weight to emerging great powers and the sovereignty and economic rights of developing countries. – Professor, School of International Studies, Peking University (《现代国际关系》, Issue 11)
SINIFICATION’S DECEMBER POSTS IN REVIEW
Sanctions and Economic Warfare in the US–China Contest: The "Renmin School" Playbook
“Once sanctions end, the initiating country should proactively rebuild economic relations with the targeted state to mitigate any chilling effect. Such compensation and assistance not only help realise the aims of the sanctions, but also prevent the targeted country from developing sanctions immunity. This lays the groundwork for maintaining the credibility of future economic-coercion threats, sending a clear message: resistance incurs heavy costs, whereas compliance brings tangible benefits.” — Di Dongsheng, Ji Xianbai and Wei Zilong
From Darling to Discarded: Trump’s Second-Term Shift on India
In this essay, Mao Keji writes about the possibility of a future “battle for second place” (亚军之争) between the US and India. The piece echoes the supreme confidence running through much Chinese commentary on the trajectory of US–China relations—American decline and China’s continued rise. That decline is, for Mao, the main driver of Trump’s India policy, and of India’s transition from being Washington’s “darling” (宠儿) to a “discarded” actor (弃子). Preoccupied with its own relative decline, Mao argues, the US is increasingly reluctant to pay the costs of geopolitical competition—and instead prefers to bleed its allies dry.
Briefing: Trump's National Security Strategy
One major strand in China reads the NSS as “strategic retrenchment” (战略收缩): a period in which the US recuperates and rebuilds, laying the foundations for a later counterattack. One author explicitly likens this to a Nixon–Reagan sequence during the Cold War. A related view suggests the retreat is in name only: a shift in the method of hegemony, characterised by the US “reining in its aggressive language” (收敛了攻击性词汇). While noting the toned-down language on China, nearly all the authors caution Beijing against mistaking softer wording for softer intent—one argues it is “aimed at China everywhere, just less explicit”.
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