The signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) on 15 November, 2020 marks a milestone for East Asian regionalism. It shows ASEAN’s determination to unify existing ASEAN+1 trade agreements and to showcase the bloc’s central role in regional cooperation. As former Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa noted recently, the RCEP was “a response by ASEAN leaders to a series of initiatives that did not provide for ASEAN centrality”.

In future history books, 2020 will be known as the year of the great COVID-19 pandemic, and rightly so. But it will also be remembered as the year when United States (US) President Donald Trump’s vile tenure was brought to an end.

In early September, as the COVID-19 pandemic was raging, China hosted the “Wonderful Indonesia’” event at the International Cultural Exchange in Beijing. The exhibition showcased Indonesia’s diverse culture, from its coffee, food and coconut beverages to traditional Indonesian handicrafts like batik. The event exemplified the soft power ties that have grown between Jakarta and Beijing in recent years.

Apart from 74 million voters in the United States (US), who still approves of President Donald Trump? Most Europeans are overjoyed to see the back of him.

Americans don’t agree on much of anything nowadays. Yet they are largely united in their belief that China represents an existential challenge to their country and the international order it has long led.

The United States (US) elections have just concluded with President-elect Joe Biden at the helm as incoming President of the “free world” on 20 January, 2021. Just last week, the Trump administration officially initiated the transition process and Biden thus far has been focused on building his incoming administration while at the same time extending a hand and offering a message of healing on Tuesday (24 November, 2020). In a Twitter post, Biden said, “The election is over.

For the past few weeks, the world has been observing a big moment for democracy in the United States (US), the Presidential election.

In his video address to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in September, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a slight improvement of China’s 2015 Paris climate agreement pledge: national carbon dioxide emissions should now peak before 2030 rather than around 2030.

Devising an effective strategy to compete, cooperate, and co-exist with China will be one of United States (US) President-elect Joe Biden’s toughest foreign-policy challenges. And over the next two months, Sino-American relations are almost certain to get worse.

On 14 October, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the southern city of Shenzhen, where he delivered a speech celebrating 40 years of progress since the special economic zone (SEZ) was established there and set a path for the future. A month later, Xi headed to Shanghai’s Pudong district – which was designated China’s first “new area” 30 years earlier – for the same purpose.