“The three nations agreed to expand practical cooperation in a way their people can feel its benefits,” Yoon said during a joint news conference, announcing 2025 and 2026 as the “years of cultural exchanges” among the three countries.
China typically sends its premier, not the president, to these meetings, which dictates a focus on economic rather than security issues, but the elephants were still in the room. Mere hours before the summit started, North Korea announced a plan to put a second spy satellite in orbit, drawing condemnation from Japan and South Korea. After the meeting, Seoul conducted an airstrike drill as a warning to Pyongyang.
During the talks, Li expressed uneasiness about Japan and South Korea’s expanding security cooperation with the United States, while Kishida cautioned Li about China’s belligerence in the South China Sea. According to David Boling, a Eurasia Group analyst, “China is Japan’s biggest security threat, yet China is also Japan’s biggest trading partner. Tokyo is working mightily to balance those competing priorities.”
But that won’t be easy. In the view of Jeremy Chan, an East Asia analyst with Eurasia Group Japan, “Common economic interests remain the ballast that holds trilateral cooperation together, but growing misalignment over regional security related to North Korea, Taiwan, and the South China Sea – as well as rising US-China competition – will prevent closer economic cooperation among the three countries.”
Meanwhile, just across the East China Sea, a US congressional delegation met Taiwan's new President Lai Ching-te on Monday, reaffirming Washington’s “strong support of this beautiful island.”Michael McCaul, head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, condemned China's recent military drills and pledged to expedite Taiwan's delayed US weapons purchases, while China’s Foreign Ministry said it “firmly opposed” the visit and had lodged stern representations with Washington.
We’ll be watching to see whether the visit speeds those weapons systems to their destination – or provokes more military maneuvers from Beijing.
Earlier this month, Microsoft released a new report offering an in-depth look at AI adoption across the United States, with state- and county-level insights for the first time. While more than 30 percent of working-age Americans now use AI tools, adoption remains uneven across regions, with significantly higher usage in urban areas and communities tied to universities. The findings point to a broader challenge: without stronger access to infrastructure, skills, and education, AI’s benefits risk remaining concentrated rather than broadly shared. Read the full blog here.
This November, Republicans could lose the House. They could lose the Senate. Yet Trump appears remarkably unconcerned. In the latest episode of the GZERO Debrief, Clayton Allen breaks down why Trump may care more about his place in history than the outcome of the 2026 midterms.
A video of stabbed 18-year-old Henry Nowak bleeding while police arrested him instead of his attacker has gone viral, and Nigel Farage is using it to fuel claims of a "two-tier" system that discriminates against white people.
Just three months into his presidency, the Chilean leader faces a three-pronged crisis due to soaring energy prices, rising crime, and a failure to quickly fulfill his bold pledges on deportations.