This article is one of 10 essays in the Summer 2026 print issue, The End of the World as We Know It. The magazine cover features a large hourglass with a black and white logo with the text "SUMMER 2026" and a stacked list of terms.
Juan A. CZIN is Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies at Brookings Institution’s China Center and co-host of the podcast The Beijing Brief. He was Director for China at the National Security Council from 2021 to 2023 and a member of the Senior Analytic Service at the Central Intelligence Agency.
Last weekend's coverage of Asia and beyond has been put together. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing to our website. . for more stories from the last weekend. For more information, visit: www.asia-observer.com.
Xi Jinping hosted US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing within the same week in May. Trump's visit produced trade optics, Putin's visited produced strategic coordination on Ukraine. The real business in Beijing was Russia. Xi and Putin have met more than 40 times, with formal talks on at least 25 occasions. China has been supplying Russia’s war machine.
In May 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a highly anticipated summit in Beijing. Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR) conducted a nationwide telephone survey between May 28 and May 31, 2026. The survey interviewed 1,127 adults aged 18 and above across Taiwan, including both landline and mobile phone samples.
Shi Ping is a member of Japan’s House of Councillors. Recently, he met with Miles Yu, director of the China Center at the Hudson Institute. Both men are natives of Sichuan Province and have been sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party. Shi is known for his anti-CCP stance and has repeatedly criticized Beijing over issues involving Taiwan, the Nanjing Massacre, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong.
The Communist Youth League posted a graphic about graduate unemployment. Chinese users said it finally told the truth. For roughly three decades, Chinese society operated on an implicit social contract: academic performance would be rewarded with employment and social mobility. By 2025 and 2026, the system had reached what he called “education bankruptcy”
Taiwan's National Security Bureau has launched a website for Chinese citizens to leak intelligence. It invites those who share the same values of democracy to collaborate on reporting on Beijing. China claims Taiwan is part of its territory and has threatened to use force to take it. Taipei accuses Beijing of using espionage and infiltration to weaken its defences.
The proposed US$14 billion arms sale package to Taiwan remains unresolved. China is the most serious threat facing the United States. Xi Jinping has taken a hardline stance toward Taiwan. The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act requires the U.S. to provide Taiwan with “defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability”