World Trade Organization

How Trump’s tariff chaos is upending the global economic order

Donald Trump’s second term has upended the global economic order, weakening US-led institutions and accelerating a shift toward a less globalised, more fragmented and less US-centric world economy, says Chinese academic Jia Qingguo.

Jia Qingguo

Japanese academic: China’s free trade facade

Even as China voices its support of free trade and is part of relevant international agreements, its actions tell another story. Japanese academic Sukegawa Seiya tells us more.

Sukegawa Seiya

ASEAN-GCC-China Summit: A new catalyst in global power?

With the youthful population and rapidly growing markets in ASEAN, the rich energy resources and sovereign investment capacity of the GCC, and the industrial and technological prowess of China, the ASEAN-GCC-China tripartite could reshape the foundation of global trade, strategically counter protectionist impulses and infuse a new era of economic interdependence that is less risky, notes academic Rishi Gupta.

Rishi Gupta

SM Teo Chee Hean: Choosing confrontation or cooperation in the 21st century

Contemplating China’s future in the changing world, Singapore’s Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean discusses the internal and external driving forces that China must contend with; the policy choices that China will face domestically; and on the international front, how China and the rest of the world’s decisions and actions interact with each other. This is the transcript of Senior Minister Teo’s speech at the inaugural ThinkChina Forum held at The Capitol Kempinski Hotel Singapore on 28 March 2025.

Teo Chee Hean

China-Mexico-US trade relations remain evermore interdependent

Talk of relocation of supply chains and geopolitical tensions notwithstanding, China, Mexico and the US have been in an interdependent trade relationship for a long time, says academic Liu Xuedong. In particular, Mexico's sales destined for the US market are very much dependent on purchases from China. Even Chinese manufacturing firms who have moved to Mexico may find that China and Mexico's trade relationship remains evermore interdependent.

Liu Xuedong

Deteriorating legal order: US-China rivalry and the challenge to WTO rules

Academic Wang Jiangyu opines that the World Trade Organization (WTO)'s power has been declining, given that its appellate body's ability to hear the disputes brought forward by member states has been at a standstill since 2019. So what does it mean for China to initiate dispute settlement proceedings against the US through the WTO?

Wang Jiangyu

Will China's economy 'collapse' again?

Despite speculations about the decline of China's economy, Chinese academic Han Heyuan says that history has shown that such contrarian sentiments have been proven wrong time and again, for example in the case of the US, Japan and even China during the turn of the century.

Han Heyuan

How US is continuing to restructure globalisation and the global trade system

Commentator Jin Jian Guo assesses that the global trade situation has undergone structural changes, in terms of China gradually losing its status as the world's factory, amid competition from India and other countries in Southeast Asia. One major reason is the US's actions in pursuing regional and bilateral free trade agreements that excludes China and have limited China's trade scope.

Jin Jian Guo

The war on terrorism has ended. Can the US win the next battle of great power competition?

Twenty years after the historic 9/11 attacks on the US, the threat of terrorism has largely been contained and a new era of great power competition has returned. ISEAS researcher Daljit Singh notes that in the past century, the US has been adamant about not letting any single power dominate East Asia, and will most probably continue to do so. What will this new era be like when the US's competitor is a rising China? And what can Southeast Asian states do about it?

Daljit Singh

Why the world will face a global leadership vacuum

Chen Kang explains why global governance is hard to achieve, not least due to the limited effectiveness of multilateral organisations, the waning willingness of the US to lead in global governance, and the conflicts between global governance and national sovereignty.

Chen Kang

Vaccine diplomacy: China and India push ahead to supply vaccines to developing countries

More than three quarters of the vaccinations that have taken place worldwide have been done in just 10 countries that account for almost 60% of global GDP, while 2.5 billion people in almost 130 countries have yet to receive a single dose, according to Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO. China and India have since embarked on "vaccine diplomacy" in a bid to despatch vaccines to developing countries. They may have their own goals in doing so, but their timely humanitarian aid for others is exemplary, says Zhu Zhiqun.

Zhiqun Zhu

Securing its place in the world economic order: The EU can't afford to wait for the US

The conclusion of the EU-UK Trade Cooperation Agreement and the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) in the last days of 2020 sent a strong signal that the EU will not wait for the US to resume a leading role in the world economic order. Building partnerships with countries like China are just the impetus the EU needs to deepen integration and build better prospects for itself. In this move away from a US-centric view of the economic order, the EU is not alone.

Zhang Yun