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.

The 15 November agreement to form the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) between the 10 members of ASEAN and Australia, China, Japan, Korea and New Zealand has only modest immediate economic effects for the European Union (EU).  However, with China playing a central role in the new arrangement, the long-term strategic and geopolitical implications are major.

For much of its life, the United Nations (UN) has hidden behind the comfortable maxim that, “If we didn’t have it, we would have to invent it.” Now at the venerable age of 75 (old enough to have been a 2020 US presidential candidate), the organisation still enjoys widespread approval in global opinion polls. But beneath the surface, the UN faces difficulties that cannot be ignored. Judging by traditional and social media, the issues that the UN pushes tend to get little traction.

Once United States (US) President-elect Joe Biden’s administration has made the relatively easy decisions to rejoin the Paris climate agreement, remain in the World Health Organization (WHO), and attempt to reboot the World Trade Organization (WTO), it will confront three key foreign-policy issues.

China will get another chance to reshape Asia-Pacific trade at a regional summit starting Thursday, days after securing a huge trade pact victory and with the United States (US) playing protectionist defence.The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, held online this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, brings together 21 Pacific Rim countries including the world's two biggest economies, accounting for about 60 percent of global GDP.China has become the dominant force in th

In less than four years, outgoing United States (US) President Donald Trump has achieved what, historically, only devastating wars had done: recast the global order. With his isolationism, wannabe authoritarianism, and sheer capriciousness, Trump gleefully took a sledgehammer to the international institutions and multilateral organisations his predecessors had built from the ashes of World War II and maintained ever since.

As I write this, officials across the United States (US) in the 2020 US presidential election are faced with recounts and legal challenges. This is to be expected in a hotly contested election that generated a record turnout.While only citizens may vote for the US president, the outcome in the world’s most powerful country affects people everywhere. On the positive side, the US remains a robust democracy.