Fdd's overnight brief

Israel

As President Trump worked in recent days toward a deal to end his war with Iran, he threw a curveball: Arab states as well as Pakistan and Turkey should consider it mandatory to welcome the agreement by establishing diplomatic relations with Israel under the president’s Abraham Accords. – Wall Street Journal

Israel expanded its military invasion of Lebanon, moving deeper into the country and capturing the strategic high ground of a historic Crusader castle it hadn’t held for a quarter of a century, as it hit back at Hezbollah following drone attacks that have killed its soldiers and sent Israeli residents running to shelters. – Wall Street Journal

An Israeli airstrike killed at least two Palestinians and wounded 12 ​on Sunday at a Gaza cafe ‌that was packed with people celebrating public holidays, health officials said. – Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with both Lebanese ​President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‌on the diplomatic negotiations between Israel and Lebanon and has proposed a plan to allow for “gradual de-escalation,” a U.S. official said ​on Sunday. – Reuters

Hamas said on Friday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration that his country would expand its area of control in Gaza was a ​dangerous escalation, as European states and residents of the Palestinian territory also voiced alarm at the plan. – Reuters

The United States “does not expect Israel to absorb ongoing attacks on its civilians by a terrorist organization,” a US official told The Jerusalem Post on Monday following reports that Israel was seeking US approval for an expanded operation in Beirut, Lebanon. – Jerusalem Post

The government postponed the decision on Sunday to approve a multi-year plan that would focus on the rehabilitation of northern border communities, amid ongoing escalating strikes from Hezbollah targeting civilians in the North. – Jerusalem Post

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the appointment of Shmuel Ben Ezra as the new National Security Council chief and as the Advisor to the Prime Minister on National Security. – Jerusalem Post

Two Jerusalem residents have been indicted for allegedly planning to carry out a terrorist attack against IDF soldiers in the Anatot base, Israeli media reported on Sunday. – Jerusalem Post

Israeli soldiers took control of the Beaufort Ridge outpost and Wadi al-Saluki areas north of the Litani River, the IDF reported Sunday morning. – Jerusalem Post

Home Front Command updated its security guidelines for Israel’s northern communities on Saturday night, in light of the increasing tensions between Hezbollah and Israel. – Jerusalem Post

A recent conference held to elect new figures to leadership roles within the Palestinian political party Fatah was also a showcase of the growing power and influence of ex-prisoners, including many serving life sentences who were released from Israeli jails under deals that freed hostages held by terror groups in Gaza. – Times of Israel

Gil Troy writes: Americans should learn from the carnage, too. In three months, we will mark 25 years since Sept. 11, 2001. Three more months later, it will be 85 years since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. These three catastrophes illustrate how totalitarians, hungering to do evil, exploit most people’s clueless complacency. Maj. Gen. Sherman Miles, chief of America’s Military Intelligence Division in 1941, later called prewar America a “country loath to admit the danger it faced.” In marking these tragic anniversaries, let’s applaud the liberty and prosperity that lulls us, while vowing to resist the totalitarian threats menacing us, be they overseas or next door. – Wall Street Journal

Eli Herskowitz writes: A partnership built on technological and defense interests is what will dissolve the isolation efforts of our adversaries; it will ensure strategic supply chains, deepen intelligence and operational cooperation, and prove to tomorrow’s world that Israel is a global asset and a security anchor that simply cannot be discarded. Israel has proven time and again that it knows how to project military power. Now, looking toward the Israel of 2048, it must prove it can translate that power into influence, legitimacy, and an enduring international standing. This is the great geopolitical test of the coming years, and it must stand at the very heart of the next national security adviser’s mission. – Jerusalem Post

Russia and Ukraine

As a fifth summer fighting season begins in Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, Vladyslav Tovstyi directs dozens of operators flying thousands of drones from an underground command center that looks more like a tech start-up than a forward bunker. – Washington Post

The attack drone spots the Russian soldier in a field in eastern Ukraine and swoops in. Only when it’s nearly upon him does he see it. The onboard camera, sending video back to the remote pilot in real time, captures his panic. He throws his hands above his head and begins to run. The video cuts out. – Washington Post

Roksolana Makar braved icy roads and the threat of drone strikes to interview a woman in the Ukrainian town of Izium who said Russian forces tortured her. – Reuters

Ukrainian drones ​struck targets across several Russian regions overnight, including an oil pipeline pumping station, a refinery and ‌a fuel depot, Russian and Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday, in an escalating campaign of strikes against energy infrastructure often hundreds of miles inside Russia. – Reuters

Russia’s state nuclear energy company Rosatom said on ​Saturday a Ukrainian drone had struck the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia ‌nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, causing no damage to key equipment, but the Kyiv military denied it. – Reuters

A Russian Oreshnik missile fired at ​Ukraine in January appears to have been made nine years ago and contains only ‌Russian and Belarusian components, Ukrainian experts said on Friday after examining fragments of a weapon Russia says is a game-changer. – Reuters

Russia is preparing a major ​new attack on Ukraine, President Volodymyr ‌Zelenskiy said on Friday on Telegram, citing intelligence data. – Reuters

Russia has all the means necessary at ​its disposal to destroy anyone ‌who attempts to attack the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, President Vladimir ​Putin said on Friday. – Reuters

A Russian-led economic union of former Soviet republics said on Friday it ‌would consider suspending Armenia for seeking European Union membership and called on Yerevan to hold a referendum so its people could vote on which path to take. – Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that it was too early to say if the drone ​which crashed into an apartment block in Romania was ‌Russian and suggested it could have been a Ukrainian drone. – Reuters

Poland’s president said on Friday he wanted a state body ​to discuss stripping Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Poland’s top honour, after Ukraine renamed an army unit after nationalist ‌insurgents who massacred Poles in World War Two. – Reuters

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair ‌of Russia’s powerful Security Council, warned European leaders on Friday that drones would continue to stray into their countries and prevent their populations from sleeping ​peacefully. – Reuters

Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency inspected damage to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Sunday, a day after Russia claimed a Ukrainian drone had hit the idled atomic facility. – Bloomberg

Russia recalled its ambassador to Armenia for consultations in Moscow amid growing tensions with the South Caucasus country over its shift toward Europe. – Bloomberg

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his nation is in urgent need of anti-ballistic missiles from the United States to shoot down an increasing number of attacks from Russia. – Politico

Nearly half a million Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine since 2022 — a death toll exceeding total American losses in World War II — the head of Britain’s top intelligence agency said Wednesday, relaying one of the highest fatality figures any Western government has put on Russia’s war in Ukraine yet. – Defense News

George F. Will writes: A former senior Russian government official, writing anonymously for the Economist, says the war Russia started has reached a situation known in chess as “zugzwang,” when every move worsens the position. By the end of this year, two current unknowns might be known: how Putin might lash out in response to the pain of Ukraine’s military revival. And how Trump might lash out in response to the painful (to him) fact that, refuting his clairvoyance, Ukraine holds good and improving cards. – Washington Post

Jack Watling writes: The political and economic risks of the conflict’s indefinite prolongation have begun to weigh on the Kremlin’s decision-making. Ukraine’s partners should evaluate how they can help alter Moscow’s calculus. And it is increasingly important that Europe, given Washington’s progressive disengagement from the continent, thinks hard about how it can win the fragile peace, should a cease-fire be reached. After all, a cease-fire is a necessary precondition for Ukraine’s security and prosperity, but it does not guarantee it. – Foreign Affairs

Syria

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa held a phone call with U.S. ​President Donald Trump in which they discussed supporting ‌the Syrian economy and the latest regional developments, the Syrian presidency said on Sunday. – Reuters

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack is getting expanded duties from President Donald Trump to serve as special envoy to Syria and Iraq as the administration tries to forge lasting peace in the Middle East. – Fox News

The recent discovery of Assad-era chemical weapons munitions and materials in Syria has implications beyond the identification and destruction of hazardous stockpiles. – Jerusalem Post

Lebanon

Israeli forces have advanced to positions north of Lebanon’s Litani River, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on ‌Friday, as Israel escalates attacks against Hezbollah militants after warning thousands more Lebanese to flee their villages. – Reuters

Eleven children have been ​killed or injured on average every 24 hours in Lebanon ‌over the last week, the U.N.’s children’s agency said on Friday, as Israel has expanded strikes across the country despite a ceasefire. – Reuters

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam accused Israel of pursuing a “scorched-earth policy” as part of its operations against Hezbollah, The Guardian reported on Sunday. – Jerusalem Post

An Israeli soldier was killed and three others were wounded when an explosive-laden drone struck troops in southern Lebanon overnight, the military said Monday, marking the latest fatality in the current round of fighting along Israel’s northern border. – Haaretz

Middle East & North Africa

Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who as Yemen’s nominal president for a decade, until his resignation in 2022, led a weakened, U.S.-backed government that operated largely from exile, died on Thursday at his home in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. He was 80. – New York Times

The heads of the International Energy Agency, International Monetary Fund, ​World Bank and World Trade Organization warned ‌on Friday that the war in the Middle East was straining global energy supplies and hitting vulnerable economies hardest. – Reuters

The influential Iraqi armed group Kataib Hezbollah pledged on Saturday to keep up its activities, as Baghdad faces mounting US pressure to disarm factions backed by Iran. – Al Arabiya News

China

The United Nations is going broke as the U.S. and China withhold payments to the institution in a jostle for control. Washington has failed to pay billions of dollars owed to the international body and exited dozens of its programs and agencies, including the World Health Organization, to combat what President Trump describes as wasteful spending and bad policymaking. – Wall Street Journal

Beijing threatened to launch trade probes against the European Union if the 27-member bloc pushes ahead with a proposal to curb imports of heavily subsidized foreign products. – Wall Street Journal

China said on Friday it firmly ​opposes any attempt by any country to ‌undermine its sovereignty and security “under the pretext of freedom of navigation”, in response to a ​Canadian warship passing through the Taiwan ​Strait. – Reuters

China’s Coast Guard on Monday said it had conducted “law enforcement” patrols in ‌waters east of Taiwan in response to Japan and the Philippines’ plans to launch maritime border delimitation talks, which overlap with areas claimed by China. – Reuters

China condemned Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil’s visit to Taiwan this week, saying on Sunday the ​trip disregarded the central European nation’s government position and ‌interfered in Beijing’s internal affairs. – Reuters

The big question hanging over this year’s Shangri-La ​Dialogue, Asia’s premier defence forum, is: “Where is China?” For the second year running, Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun has given the ‌free-wheeling Singapore security meeting a miss, skipping opportunities to meet U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as well as counterparts from Australia, France, Britain, Japan and other nations. – Reuters

In a remote Chinese desert, a vast military complex is taking shape that some security scholars say appears built to ensure no American first strike on China’s nuclear arsenal could reliably knock out Beijing’s ability to hit back. – Defense News

Can Kasapoğlu writes: Improving force protection for these strategic enablers requires hardening military sites and air bases, as well as enhancing dispersion, deception, and redundancy for effectiveness. Last, recent experience in the Middle East has provided the United States with a potential preview of Indo-Pacific contingencies that the future may bring. Iran’s Chinese-enabled strikes in the Gulf illustrate Beijing’s ability to study and target the United States’ operational architecture, and can inform Washington’s planning for future scenarios involving Taiwan. – Hudson Institute

James Holmes writes: The rise of a powerful and domineering China has stoked anxieties in America for sure, not to mention among China’s Asian neighbors. And judging from Xi’s words, anxiety has taken hold in Beijing as well.But fear—though a real and compelling passion—is not destiny. Seldom if ever are human affairs that pat. Should practitioners of statecraft disregard Thucydides’ counsel? By no means. He was onto something elemental, however speculative. Nor should they disregard Graham Allison’s thesis unless taken to excess. The Greek and American scribes hold up a mirror. China and America should gaze at themselves in it—and ask themselves candidly whether Thucydidean motives are prodding them into not-strictly-rational actions they, Asia, and the world will rue. – The National Interest

Asia

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth renewed calls for America’s allies in Asia to increase military spending to boost deterrence against China, in a speech marked by a shift away from a confrontational stance toward Beijing. – Wall Street Journal

In April, Cheng Li-wun became the first leader of Taiwan’s main opposition party to meet Xi Jinping in a decade. On Monday, she is flying to the U.S. with a message Beijing would recognize as its own. – Wall Street Journal

Vietnam’s most powerful and globally minded leader in decades, To Lam, warned Asia’s military leaders on Friday that peace and stability require a renewed focus on economic development, criticizing a world of unchecked competition where “might makes right.” – New York Times

Caught between China’s rapid military rise and growing ​doubts about the U.S. focus on a region it has long dominated, Indo-Pacific nations are racing to arm themselves, and each other. – Reuters

Japan’s Defence Minister ​Shinjiro Koizumi on Sunday rejected accusations of “new militarism” by Tokyo and criticised China for rapidly expanding its military with ‌little transparency, underscoring mounting tensions between the two countries. – Reuters

Strong relations between Vietnam and its giant neighbour and territorial rival China would benefit regional peace and security, although ties with the ​U.S. were also important, Vietnam’s top leader has said. – Reuters

The Philippines remains under “severe threat” from China, its defence minister said on Saturday, despite a recent thaw in U.S.-China tensions after the summit between Presidents Donald Trump ​and Xi Jinping earlier this month. – Reuters

The Philippines and Vietnam are elevating their ties to an enhanced strategic partnership, ‌reaffirming that shared commitment to peace and stability in the South China Sea is “non-negotiable,” President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said on Monday during a state visit by Vietnam’s top leader To Lam to Manila. – Reuters

The Trump administration on Friday opened an unfair trade practices investigation into Vietnam’s intellectual property protection policies and enforcement that may ​lead to new tariffs or other trade measures. – Reuters

The United States, Britain and Australia are working together to develop ​unmanned undersea vehicles as part of their trilateral AUKUS defence ‌pact, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told reporters on Saturday. – Reuters

Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will hold a commemorative summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Russia in June, the Philippines’ top diplomat said Friday. – Associated Press

Taiwanese Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim is making her first overseas trip to a diplomatic ally as the democracy’s No. 2 official, countering China’s isolation campaign. – Bloomberg

Malaysia ramped up its criticism of Norway’s recent decision to cancel a weapons deal, using the dispute as a launching pad to slam “stronger powers” for dismissing international rules and contracts when they become inconvenient. – Bloomberg

Malaysia will not rush to increase its defense budget despite US pressure for partners to become more self-reliant, as the Southeast Asian nation seeks to balance military modernization with other critical sectors, Defense Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin said. – Bloomberg

The US, Japan and South Korea are “deepening our defense cooperation to ensure our combined forces remain lethal, ready, and capable of deterring aggression in the region,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth says in an X post. – Bloomberg

Tokyo on Friday announced it would deploy four members of the Japanese military to Germany to train with NATO’s Ukraine mission. – Politico

Karishma Vaswani writes: Other nations worried about both the US and China could be encouraged to join what Teodoro calls a new defense alliance. They should also quietly begin assessing their exposure to a potential Taiwan crisis. Along with the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia have large numbers of citizens working there who could be caught up as potential refugees in a conflict. None of this is to say that the US is withdrawing from Asia. Its military presence remains substantial and alliances are strong. But sometimes leadership is about the willingness to say the uncomfortable things out loud. This weekend, that came from Japan. – Bloomberg

Karishma Vaswani writes: A crisis over Taiwan or the South China Sea could eventually force Hanoi closer to one side. If Trump decided to impose more tariffs, that could also push Vietnam to diversify away from American markets faster than it want. The economy remains deeply connected to both superpowers in different ways — the US is a crucial export market, while China is a vital source of industrial inputs. Still, Hanoi’s path reflects a broader shift underway in Asia, where countries are building their own networks to hedge against both Washington and Beijing. Vietnam may simply be further ahead. – Bloomberg

Imran Khalid writes: The most volatile phase of a great power competition is rarely an open, sudden confrontation. It is the quiet, ambiguous interlude when one superpower begins to suspect that its rival’s commitments have become negotiable. By treating strategic deterrence like a corporate restructuring plan, Washington risks showing Beijing that the price of the Indo-Pacific status quo is entirely up for debate. The Japan Cabinet Defense Budget Report outlines Tokyo’s accelerated military spending adjustments and cruise missile procurement programs designed to respond directly to rising regional friction surrounding Taiwan. – The Hill

Africa

A handful of African nations are rejecting American health aid, outraged by the Trump administration’s demands for access to private health records and even minerals in exchange for lifesaving medicine. – Wall Street Journal

A Kenyan high court put a temporary hold on the Trump administration’s plan to set up an Ebola quarantine-and-treatment facility for Americans in the East African country. – Wall Street Journal

Ethiopia will hold parliamentary and regional elections on Monday that analysts expect Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s party to win in ​a landslide, despite significant unrest in much of the country. – Reuters

South Africa will depart for the World Cup on Monday, a day later than ‌planned, after all the players received their visas to travel through the United States, sports minister Gayton McKenzie confirmed on Sunday. – Reuters

The World Health Organisation chief travelled on Saturday to the Congolese province hardest hit ‌by an Ebola outbreak, urging residents to seek treatment and practice safe burials as officials scramble to contain the fatal disease. – Reuters

Ghana’s parliament on Friday ‌approved a new bill that criminalizes the so-called promotion of LGBTQ activity, part of a broader crackdown on sexual minorities in West Africa. – Reuters

Zambia has investigated and cleared two suspected cases of Ebola as it steps up screening and ​surveillance for the deadly viral disease following an ‌outbreak in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. – Reuters

Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said on Friday his economic reforms stabilised the country and revived investor confidence, despite a ​steep cost-of-living squeeze on households three years into his presidency. – Reuters

A humanitarian organization on Friday accused forces affiliated with a Sudanese paramilitary group of targeting civilians in an area of Sudan free of any military presence during a major Muslim holiday, killing 27 people, among them elderly people. – Associated Press

North America

Five years ago, Cuban rapper Maykel “Osorbo” Castillo co-wrote a song called “Patria y Vida,” or “Fatherland and Life,” that became an anthem for the youth protests that rocked the island that year. It went on to win two Latin Grammy awards. – Wall Street Journal

The Trump administration is expected to propose a change to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement that would require half of the components and materials in an automobile to come from U.S. sources in order to qualify for lower tariffs under the pact, according to people familiar with the plans. – Wall Street Journal

The Mexican Senate on Friday narrowly passed a constitutional amendment to allow the highest electoral court to invalidate any election results deemed to have been influenced by foreign powers. – New York Times

Nicaraguan Indigenous leader and former lawmaker Brooklyn Rivera has died in state custody at age 73, Nicaragua’s health ministry said ​on Sunday. – Reuters

While U.S.-Canadian relations have frayed under U.S. President Donald Trump, data on ‌Canadian citizenship approvals under recently widened rules suggests many Americans would welcome the chance to become Canadian. – Reuters

The top ​U.S. general overseeing forces in Latin America held a rare meeting on Friday with senior Cuban military officials at the ‌perimeter of U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the U.S. military said on Friday, confirming a Reuters story. – Reuters

A court in the Turks and Caicos Islands has sentenced former Premier Michael Misick to just over four years in prison after he was convicted in a landmark corruption case that had dragged on for years. – Associated Press

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau is scheduled to meet with officials in the Dominican Republic on Saturday as part of an official two-day trip that included a stop in neighboring Haiti. – Associated Press

Michael J. Bustamante and Ricardo Herrero write: Cuba’s current predicament is not identical. Nor should Havana embrace economic and political reforms simply because Washington demands them. But the Cuban people deserve a viable future. And the most logical, if cruelly ironic, path the Cuban authorities can take to save their country is to negotiate with the very power inflicting grievous damage on their economy: the United States, because it is also the only one that can realistically sponsor Cuba’s recovery. Change looks increasingly inevitable. The question is whether it comes through chaotic unraveling, violent foreign intervention, or a step-by-step transformation in which Havana still has a say. – Foreign Affairs

Oscar Lopez writes: Mexico does have at least one important card to play. With the U.S. midterm elections looming, smooth trade negotiations will ensure stable prices for many goods that affect voters’ pocketbooks, from avocados to auto parts. It is a key factor for affordability, the “most important word” in the midterms, Fernández de Castro said. “That is something that all the companies in the United States that have interests in Mexico understand—even if Trump does not.” […] Still, defeating drug cartels remains Trump’s guiding principle in the relationship with Mexico. No matter what happens with the trade agreement, there is little doubt that the United States will continue exerting pressure on Sheinbaum over collusion between members of her party and drug trafficking groups. – Foreign Policy

Cybersecurity

SoftBank Group is promising to spend at least $52 billion on building a network of massive data centers in France, helping advance Europe’s goal of tech independence with what would be the continent’s largest artificial-intelligence infrastructure project. – Wall Street Journal

Russia’s intelligence agencies have grown more aggressive in their efforts to steal Western technology and defense secrets as sanctions squeeze the country’s wartime economy, three senior European intelligence officials told The Associated Press. – Associated Press

A Department of Commerce inspector general report released Thursday found that the National Institute of Standards and Technology has mismanaged a critical cybersecurity vulnerability database through poor planning, inefficient operations, duplicate federal programs, and failure to communicate with users. – Cyberscoop

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s AI Safety Consortium will now be called the NIST Artificial Intelligence Consortium, the agency said Friday, continuing a shift in approach to the technology under President Donald Trump. – Fedscoop

The Office of Management and Budget’s latest artificial intelligence (AI) inventory identified roughly 3,600 AI use cases across federal agencies, reflecting a nearly 70% year-over-year increase. – Fedscoop

Microsoft has published its first response to a weeks-long campaign of uncoordinated Windows zero-day releases, condemning the disclosures as “never justifiable” and suggesting that it could bring cases against people who enable cybercrime. – The Record

Scott Wallsten writes: For policymakers, AI is simultaneously substituting and complementing different parts of the same workflow. It complements the expert while substituting for the intermediary. The economist can now build her own simulation, the doctor can prototype a clinical decision tool, and the logistics manager can write his own optimizer. Each has the expertise to know which questions are worth asking, and AI can turn that knowledge into working tools. That may mean fewer people per project, with productivity gains only among people who already have expertise. But it might also mean more projects and broader gains. What’s clear is that the gap between idea and product has narrowed, and that changes the internal economics of firms. – Wall Street Journal

Hal Brands writes: The road ahead looks challenging, because Beijing may demand geopolitical or technological concessions — which Washington should reject — as the price of its participation. Even so, the discussion of AI safety at the recent summit between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping — along with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s announcement that the two sides will begin a dialogue on the issue — is a promising starting point. As with everything else it touches, the AI revolution has shaken geopolitics. Its effects will be real and lasting, and they are accumulating rapidly, in often challenging ways. There’s no time to waste. – Washington Post

Jared Dunnmon, Avanika Narayan and Jon Saad-Falcon write: Gulf region have shown that centralized computing resources are physically vulnerable. As frontier AI systems move ever closer to creating what Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has termed a “country of geniuses in a data center,” open-weight AI is already powering a veritable world of virtual assistants on devices around the globe that help everyday people work and live more efficiently and effectively. The next phase of the U.S.-China AI competition will be in no small part decided by which models become the default on the world’s local devices. Unless Washington makes the necessary changes, that distinction will belong to China. – Foreign Affairs