What Caught My Eye (no. 17)

Some interesting articles and podcasts that caught my eye this week

Here’s this week’s edition of articles I thought worth reading and sharing. Don’t hesitate to recommend your own reads; I may include some as well.

• Lizzie Lee, Xi’s history shapes China’s diplomatic strategy, Financial Times, May 24, 2025. A fellow at the Asia’s Society Policy Institute’s Center for China argues that Xi Jinping is forging a long-term strategy founded on his own experience of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. “Xi Jinping is not just fighting a trade war. He is fighting a memory.”

• Arnav Rao, How America Lost Control of the Seas, The Atlantic, May 28, 2025. A transportation analyst at the Open Market Institute reminds of the great Athenian General Themistocles’s admonition that “he who commands the sea commands everything.” But the United States has lost its command of the seas — to China. “Of the tens of thousands of large vessels that dot the oceans, a mere 0.13 percent are built in the United States. China, by contrast, fulfills roughly 60 percent of all new shipbuilding orders and has amassed more than 200 times America’s shipbuilding capacity.”

• Li Yuan, Denying Visas to Chinese Students Could Backfire on America, New York Times, May 30, 2025. The Times’s New New World columnist dives into the economic and political consequences for the United States of cutting Chinese student access to American universities. Not only do Chinese students often stay in the US and contribute to its economy and innovation, but the values they learned at school infuse Chinese society once they return.

• Joe Leahy, Nian Liu, and Ryan McCorrow, The lessons from China’s dominance in manufacturing, Financial Times, May 27, 2025. The FT Big Read explores how China came to dominate advanced manufacturing in the world and what the United States and other western economies can learn from that achievement. One thing is clear: China is far ahead and catching up won’t be easy.

• Andrew Exum, What Trump Got Right in the Middle East, The Atlantic, May 21, 2025. In an provocative essay, the ex-Pentagon official makes the case that Trump abandoned many of the political shibboleths of past-US strategies towards the Middle East and did so in ways that advance America’s interests in the region.

• Jim VanDeHei and Mike Allen, Behind the Curtain: Trump's America-First AI risk, Axios, June 2, 2025. The co-founders of Axios explore the inherent contradictions in Trump’s AI and trade policies—with the former focused on ensuring the US AI-lead is sustained over China and the latter antagonizing friend and foe alike.

Finally, in case you missed it here are links to articles I wrote, interviews I did, panels I joined, and a synopsis of my weekly podcast on world news.

• The Dismantling of the Global Order that America Created, WhoWhatWhy Podcast, May 30, 2025.

• Jake Sullivan on How Foreign Policy Must Resonate at Home, America Abroad, May 30, 2025.

• World Review: Gaza Chaos, Rubio’s Rise, Iran Deal or Strike, May 30, 2025.

Happy reading, watching, and listening!