Strategic Stability, Structural Strain | Digest: May 2026

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Today’s digest is published in collaboration with Bill Bishop’s one-and-only Sinocism.The burst of “positive energy” among analysts following May’s Xi-Trump summit cooled somewhat towards the end of the month. On the significance of Trump’s Taiwan remarks, more caution is expressed given both the wider institutional context in Washington and the growing military and strategic role of US regional allies, especially Japan. AI formed the second major focus, after both sides agreed to launch an intergovernmental dialogue on AI governance. Huang Ping treats this as a narrow strategic window for China to engage different US interest groups and secure a place in global AI governance and high-value industrial ecosystems—or risk being shut out for the long run.On changes in the global order, a journal article by CICIR vice-president Zhang Jian represents the more triumphalist strand, treating the closely timed US and Russian delegation visits to Beijing as signs that China is becoming a key “connecting point” in the emerging multipolar world. Da Wei offers a more restrained formulation, merging the ideas of “G2” and multipolarity into that of a “dual-core multipolar order”. As he frames it, this both acknowledges the position of China and the US as the key players and allows middle powers the space to hedge selectively between them, avoiding the hardening of Cold War-style blocs.Signals that the EU is considering tougher trade defences have expectedly drawn fire from Chinese analysts. The arguments are well represented by a piece from Ding Chun and Wu Jiwei, which criticises the pro…