


Will it be Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow?
How Donald Trump’s about-turn in Europe will affect Asia
FOR EUROPEANS at the Munich Security Conference the talk was all about betrayal and “appeasement”. President Donald Trump’s looming abandonment of Ukraine raised fears that America was renouncing its role as the guarantor of European security. Yet the earthquake in relations across the Atlantic seemed to cause barely a ripple in the Pacific, where America’s generals and securocrats at the Honolulu Defence Forum waxed about the importance of boosting Asian allies. Perhaps, suggested one South Korean attendee, cutting a deal with Russia will allow America to focus on deterring the might of China.

Donald Trump’s assault on Europe
His invitation to Vladimir Putin to make a deal over Ukraine has thrown the transatlantic alliance into turmoil

China’s stunning new campaign to turn the world against Taiwan
Seventy countries have recently backed “all Chinese efforts” to take the island

Xi Jinping swings his “assassin’s mace” of economic warfare
China is weaponising its supply chains, but risks blowback if it goes too far
Allies will not appease Donald Trump for ever
If Trump convinces partners that the post-1945 order really is dead, things will get ugly
As adoptions collapse, demand for international surrogacy is soaring
Yet it is facing a growing backlash from religious conservatives and some feminists
A big, beautiful Trump deal with China?
Washington hawks puzzle over calls for China to help in Ukraine, and hints of a possible TikTok reprieve