Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken spoke by telephone Sunday, ahead of a possible meeting between President Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden. The two sides appear to be trying to lower the temperature on their relationship, which has recently been characterized by escalating tensions.
Since taking office in May, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has sought to follow through on campaign promises to reorient the country’s foreign policy, including with the U.S., China and Japan. But if Yoon and his advisers were correct in their premises, they were naive about how this promised reorientation would work in practice.
The latest row between Washington and Riyadh over the decision by OPEC+ to cut oil production is not just a dispute over oil prices. It is a more fundamental divide between the U.S. and most of its Middle East security partners over what’s at stake in the war in Ukraine, and how each side sees the current geopolitical map.
