https://www.scmp.com/rss/506489/feed Li Xing is a Yunshan leading scholar and a distinguished professor at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, and an adjunct professor of international relations at Aalborg University, Denmark. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Li Xing Li Xing When contemporary Europe engages with the world, it increasingly presents as two distinct Europes operating within the same institutional framework. This duality – a Europe of strategic dependence vs a Europe of normative assertion – creates a contradiction. For partners, particularly in China and across Asia, this is not merely an abstract identity crisis but a practical geopolitical puzzle that complicates engagement and challenges assumptions about Europe’s global role. One Europe, embedded... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3339744/internally-split-europe-can-never-fully-engage-china-and-asia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3339744/internally-split-europe-can-never-fully-engage-china-and-asia?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 15 Jan 2026 12:30:09 +0000 Li Xing Li Xing The US-China rivalry has long been cast as a contest between two superpowers, with one rising and the other defending its primacy. This competition has been largely measured in GDP growth, military spending and the number of aircraft carriers and alliances each side could marshal. The central criteria is “who holds power” or “who has more power”. Yet today, the rivalry can no longer be understood by these conventional metrics. Rather, it is taking place within a complex web of technology,... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3333143/us-china-rivalry-moving-beyond-guns-and-growth?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3333143/us-china-rivalry-moving-beyond-guns-and-growth?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 19 Nov 2025 12:32:08 +0000 The world, especially Europe, has been stunned by recent developments, particularly the intense debate within the White House between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, US President Donald Trump and US Vice-President J.D. Vance. But what shocked the global community the most has been the sudden shift in the war narrative. Trump has framed Ukraine as the cause of the conflict and suggested that Nato, the transatlantic military alliance, was to blame for provoking Russia. This has completely... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3301034/europes-shock-trump-bringing-back-great-power-geopolitics?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3301034/europes-shock-trump-bringing-back-great-power-geopolitics?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 07 Mar 2025 12:30:10 +0000 The world, especially Europe, has been stunned by recent developments, particularly the intense debate within the White House between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, US President Donald Trump and US Vice-President J.D. Vance. But what shocked the global community the most has been the sudden shift in the war narrative. Trump has framed Ukraine as the cause of the conflict and suggested that Nato, the transatlantic military alliance, was to blame for provoking Russia. This has completely... https://www.scmp.com/plus/article/3301142/europes-shock-trump-bringing-back-great-power-geopolitics?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/plus/article/3301142/europes-shock-trump-bringing-back-great-power-geopolitics?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Mar 2025 08:29:01 +0000 History shows that world orders, disorders or new orders often result from the disturbing dynamics unleashed by crises amid the rise of new powers and the resistance of existing powers. Current dynamics can be understood by analysing how the world order is transitioning from a state of hegemony to one of “intertwined hegemony”. Hegemony is a concept that was employed by Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci and is applied in international relations to describe the enduring aspects of an... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3295126/rules-based-order-declines-hegemony-takes-new-form?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3295126/rules-based-order-declines-hegemony-takes-new-form?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 21 Jan 2025 12:30:07 +0000 All eyes were on the first summit of the newly expanded Brics in the Russian city of Kazan this month. Since the grouping’s inception, there has been a debate about whether it represents a marriage of convenience based on pragmatic, short-term interests, instead of any deep ideological or historical unity. Critics argue that, despite its aspirations to reform the global system and chip away at Western hegemony, Brics lacks the necessary structural power to rival the established international... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3284289/what-brics-lacks-structural-power-it-makes-connections?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3284289/what-brics-lacks-structural-power-it-makes-connections?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 31 Oct 2024 08:30:08 +0000 In February 1974, amid the Cold War, Chinese leader Mao Zedong revealed his “three worlds” theory as part of China’s anti-hegemony diplomatic strategy. Mao’s theory, since expanded by others, is that the first world comprised the US and Soviet Union, while the second world encompassed middle Western powers, including Japan, that were US allies – though they could also act as independent political forces on certain international issues. That left the vast majority of developing countries and... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3246375/china-faced-hostile-west-should-make-global-south-foreign-policy-priority?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3246375/china-faced-hostile-west-should-make-global-south-foreign-policy-priority?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 27 Dec 2023 21:30:10 +0000 US President Joe Biden has framed the Ukraine war as a battle between “democracy and autocracy”, while also claiming that “the West is now stronger, more united than it has ever been”. During a recent visit to Taiwan, former Danish leader and Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that, when combined, the world’s democracies represent 60 per cent of the global economy, providing an overwhelming deterrence to Beijing’s ambitions regarding Taiwan. The irony is that, if we applied this... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/world/article/3206249/why-global-democratic-alliance-nothing-more-western-fantasy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/world/article/3206249/why-global-democratic-alliance-nothing-more-western-fantasy?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 11 Jan 2023 19:30:14 +0000 China’s official stance on the Ukraine war has been controversial. Beijing’s position is seen by the anti-Russia alliance as ambiguous. On the one hand, Beijing does not deny that the war is relevant to the issues of national sovereignty and territorial integrity. But, on the other hand, Beijing sees Nato’s expansion as the cause of the war and shares Russia’s national security concerns. It is true that, across Chinese social media, an overwhelming majority of the Chinese public have expressed... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3171738/two-ukraine-war-scenarios-and-what-they-mean-us-china-power-rivalry?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3171738/two-ukraine-war-scenarios-and-what-they-mean-us-china-power-rivalry?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 28 Mar 2022 01:15:20 +0000 “Standing in two boats” is a Chinese idiomatic expression which means having difficulty deciding between two choices. To avoid choosing one and losing the other, one has to hedge, and commitment to either choice is half-hearted. This phrase comes to mind when analysing the EU’s two most important external relations: with China and the US. EU-China relations have grown closer in some areas. Last year, China replaced the US to become the EU’s largest trading partner, and the two concluded a... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3123787/us-china-rivalry-sharpens-eu-must-strike-pragmatic-balance-between?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3123787/us-china-rivalry-sharpens-eu-must-strike-pragmatic-balance-between?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 03 Mar 2021 16:15:11 +0000 Time magazine’s cover on November 13, 2017 stated in both Chinese and English, “China Won.” Ian Bremmer wrote in the cover story that, “As recently as five years ago, there was consensus that China would one day need fundamental political reform for the state to maintain its legitimacy and that China could not sustain its state capitalist system. Today China’s political and economic system is better equipped and perhaps even more sustainable than the American model.” In its 70th Summit in... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3091881/why-west-must-learn-china-not-try-change-or-destroy-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3091881/why-west-must-learn-china-not-try-change-or-destroy-it?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 06 Jul 2020 19:00:08 +0000