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A public dispute has erupted between the United Arab Emirates and the Financial Times over a series of investigative reports detailing the Gulf nation’s expanding military and economic influence across the African continent, with Abu Dhabi pushing back hard against accusations of pursuing expansionist, imperial-style goals in the region.

In an uncommon published rebuttal carried by the FT on Monday, Afra al-Hameli, the UAE’s director of strategic communications, said the country was disappointed by the newspaper’s framing of its growing footprint on the continent as evidence of “imperial ambition”. Hameli argued that characterizing negotiated partnerships between the UAE and fully sovereign African governments as a sign of expansionist overreach was deeply patronizing. She added that the narrative relied on outdated, harmful stereotypes that incorrectly paint African nations as passive targets of foreign manipulation, unable to independently set and pursue national priorities that serve their own people.

The UAE’s response comes after the FT ran two high-profile investigative reports that built on and corroborated prior reporting from Middle East Eye on Abu Dhabi’s expanding activities across Africa. The first article, published earlier this month, mapped the UAE’s sprawling web of interests spanning ports, logistics, agriculture, mining, finance, and security operations across dozens of African countries.

A subsequent follow-up investigation uncovered new details: a UAE-based security firm with close ties to the Abu Dhabi government recruited and deployed Colombian mercenaries to fight alongside Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces in Sudan’s ongoing brutal civil conflict. Multiple independent bodies, including United Nations experts and the United States government, have formally accused the RSF of committing genocide amid the war that broke out in 2023. While the UAE has repeatedly denied any backing for the paramilitary group, a growing body of open evidence from UN investigators, human rights organizations, and regional reporting confirms substantial Emirati support for the RSF. Previous investigations have also documented consistent arms transfers to the RSF facilitated by smuggling networks operating out of Libya, Chad, and the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland.

The FT’s August 4 investigation opened with a shocking revelation: in the opening days of Sudan’s war, RSF fighters stole 1.5 tonnes of gold bullion valued at approximately $100 million from Sudan’s state-owned Khartoum Gold Refinery. According to the report, the UAE provided military and civilian cargo aircraft to transport the stolen gold out of Sudan, with the shipment transiting through Chad and South Sudan before reaching its final destination. The investigation also mapped out a network of Emirati-built airstrips, naval outposts, and other military facilities across the region that play a key role in deploying mercenaries and facilitating the illicit gold trade out of Sudan. It corroborated prior evidence from UN experts, flight tracking analysts, and human rights groups documenting arms trafficking networks that have sustained the RSF’s campaign throughout the war.

On the economic and commercial front, the UAE has rapidly expanded its presence across Africa through major state-backed entities including DP World and Abu Dhabi Ports, securing major long-term concessions for port infrastructure and logistics networks across the continent. DP World currently operates or is developing ports, inland cargo terminals, and special economic free zones in 13 African countries, with distribution networks reaching into more than 25 African states. Emirati firms have also committed billions of dollars in investment to extractive industries across the continent: copper mining in Zambia, gold mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Mali, iron ore development in Mauritania, and tin extraction in eastern DRC. The FT concluded that the UAE has emerged as the most consequential foreign power to reshape the African continent’s economic and political landscape over the past decade.

Cameron Hudson, a former U.S. intelligence official and leading Africa analyst, pushed back against the UAE’s rebuttal, arguing that it contained a fundamental logical flaw. Writing on the social platform X, Hudson noted that two competing claims can be simultaneously true: “UAE can make mutually beneficial, strategic economic investments AND harbor imperial ambitions that leverage those investments for political and strategic gain. In fact, they are both true.”

On a Saturday in the occupied West Bank, a violent attack by Israeli settlers upended the life of a 26-year-old Palestinian nurse, leaving him partially paralyzed and deepening longstanding fears among local communities that face escalating settler encroachment and violence.

Muhammad Mutoor, a nurse at Dura Governmental Hospital who had recently finished building a home in Sa’ir, the northeast Hebron town where the attack unfolded, had rushed to the al-Adisa neighborhood after word of ongoing settler violence spread. Like all healthcare workers, his first instinct was to aid any injured people in the area. But when he arrived, a settler opened fire, striking him in the back. The bullet severed his spinal cord, leaving Mutoor paralyzed from the waist down. A second Palestinian man was also shot and wounded in the shoulder during the same incident.

Khalil Mutoor, Muhammad’s uncle, shared details of the attack with Middle East Eye, confirming that settlers had flooded the area, firing live ammunition indiscriminately at local residents to terrorize them. “They aimed to kill, and they didn’t care about anything,” Khalil said. “They were firing live ammunition randomly and had climbed onto the hill adjacent to the houses, aiming their weapons at the residents. One of their bullets struck Muhammad in the back. They intended to kill him.”

What followed the shooting was a deadly delay that worsened Mutoor’s outcome: settlers had blocked all access routes to the neighborhood after establishing a new unauthorized outpost on seized Palestinian land, designed to force local residents to abandon their homes. Ambulances could not reach the wounded nurse immediately, forcing residents to transport him themselves to the nearby town of Bani Na’im, where he was eventually transferred to a hospital for care.

“Like any Palestinian patient or injured person, Muhammad faced difficulty reaching the hospital. When he arrived, it was discovered that the bullet had severed his spinal cord,” Khalil added. “He knew immediately after being shot that he was paralysed, given his work as a nurse.”

Mutoor is set to be transferred to Jerusalem’s Al-Makassed Hospital for further specialist evaluation, but clinicians have already offered little hope that he will ever regain movement in his lower limbs. What was once a promising future filled with long-held plans has been destroyed: Mutoor had just built his new home and was preparing to marry and settle down in the area. Those life plans are now in tatters, and his long-term future remains deeply uncertain.

“Now he only hopes for treatment and to adapt to his new reality. He knows perfectly well that his injury is serious and will affect him for the rest of his life,” Khalil said.

This devastating attack is not an isolated incident. It comes amid a dramatic escalation in state-protected settler violence targeting Palestinian communities across the occupied West Bank, with the Hebron region emerging as one of the primary hotspots for aggression.

The al-Adisa neighborhood, where Mutoor was shot, is home to roughly 1,800 Palestinian residents and sits on the frontline of ongoing Israeli settlement expansion. The area lies east of Route 60, a settler bypass road that has already seized large portions of land belonging to Sa’ir, Hebron and adjacent Palestinian towns. To the west of al-Adisa sit two established Israeli settlements, Kiryat Arba and Kharsina. For decades, Palestinian residents of the area have faced systematic restrictions on construction and development, alongside repeated attacks on their agricultural land and olive groves, a core source of livelihood for many local families.

What began as efforts to block Palestinian expansion has evolved into the gradual seizure of Palestinian-held land. As far back as 2012, Israeli settlers protected by the Israeli military planted trees on roughly 500 dunams (50 hectares) of land belonging to al-Adisa and the nearby al-Buq’a area. That land has since been the site of repeated attacks on Palestinian property and trees, as settlers push to expand their control.

Yousef Tarwa, a local activist from Sa’ir, told Middle East Eye that settlers have established eight new unauthorized outposts on town land since May 2025, spreading across the region and seizing thousands of dunams of Palestinian property. The ongoing encroachment has made daily life nearly unmanageable for local residents.

Tarwa explained that al-Adisa is repeatedly targeted by settlers who use intimidation and violence to force residents to leave, even though many local homes date back to the 1940s. “A month ago, they entered the area and carried out extensive bulldozing operations on Palestinian lands under the protection of the Israeli army. They burned an entire hill, erected caravans, assaulted the residents and then began blocking the roads,” Tarwa said.

With the main access road blocked by settlers, residents have been forced to travel along rough, unpaved back trails to reach their homes, turning short trips that once took minutes into hours of dangerous, grueling travel. Critically, Tarwa confirmed that on the day Mutoor was shot, Israeli military personnel were present alongside the attacking settlers and made no effort to intervene to stop the violence. “It has become clear to us that the settler, the soldier and the Israeli policeman are all the same,” he added.

The attack on Mutoor was just one of multiple violent incidents targeting Palestinians in the region that day. Just hours after the shooting in al-Adisa, Palestinian media reported a second settler attack in Hebron’s al-Ja’bari neighborhood that left 10 Palestinians wounded, two of them hit by live ammunition. Israeli forces subsequently arrested one of the wounded Palestinian men.

Official data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) underscores the scale of the escalating crisis. As of July 20, 2026, OCHA has documented more than 1,330 settler attacks across 250 Palestinian communities since the start of the year that have resulted in either casualties or property damage – an average of more than six attacks per day. So far in 2026, at least 18 Palestinians have been killed and 880 more wounded in settler attacks. These figures mark a sharp increase from 2025, when Ocha recorded just 830 Palestinian wounded by settlers across the entire 12-month period. OCHA’s data also shows that more than 2,300 Palestinians have been displaced from their homes in 2026 as a direct result of settler violence and related access restrictions that make remaining in their communities impossible.

Currently, roughly 700,000 Israeli settlers live in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank across approximately 300 formal settlements and unauthorized outposts. The International Court of Justice has repeatedly affirmed that all Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory are illegal under international law.

Nestled along Yemen’s southwestern Red Sea coast in the Taiz governorate, the centuries-old trading port of Mocha once built its global reputation as the premier exporter of the world-renowned Yemeni coffee. For generations, the quiet coastal community’s daily rhythm was shaped by native fishermen who cast their nets into the Red Sea and spoke the soft coastal dialect of their ancestors. Today, that cultural landscape has been irrevocably reshaped by Yemen’s nearly decade-long civil war, as the city’s dominant language has become the northern dialect of fighters and displaced families fleeing Houthi-controlled territories.

The war between the Houthi movement and Yemen’s internationally recognized government upended Mocha’s fate in 2015, when the strategic port was forced to close amid active fighting. It remained shuttered until 2021, when it underwent rehabilitation and reopened under the control of the Republican Guard, a faction of Yemen’s former elite military units led by Tareq Saleh — a one-time Houthi ally who split from the group after his uncle, former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, was killed by Houthi fighters in a 2017 power struggle. After fleeing the Houthi-held capital Sanaa, Saleh established the Republican Guard’s headquarters in Mocha, drawing thousands of displaced Yemenis with the promise of steady salaries paid in Saudi Riyals, far higher than average incomes available in Houthi-held regions.

Mocha, which sits just 60 kilometers from the strategically critical Bab al-Mandab Strait, has long held significant geostrategic value for all warring parties in Yemen’s conflict. Over the past two weeks, that strategic importance has made it the target of near-constant Houthi attacks, with more than 25 strikes hitting the port and surrounding areas in the seven-day period ending in mid-this month. While Houthi forces claim they only target military positions and reinforcements, Yemeni government officials confirm that civilian casualties have been severe: 16 civilians were killed and 22 more wounded in a single day of strikes on Friday alone.

The spike in attacks has forced hundreds of Republican Guard fighters to relocate their families to safer rural villages further inland in the Taiz and Lahj governorates, creating a new wave of displacement for families who already fled Houthi control just months or years earlier. For 41-year-old Ibrahim Salem, who arrived in Mocha seven months ago after defecting from the Houthi forces in his native Dhamar governorate, 300 kilometers north of the city, the choice to move his family was an obvious one. “The Houthis don’t differentiate between military targets and civilians, so it is better not to keep our families in Mocha,” Salem explained in an interview with Middle East Eye, standing outside a village grocery store with his three children. The village, located 100 kilometers east of Mocha in Taiz’s al-Maafer district, has welcomed displaced families warmly, Salem said, and he has adapted easily to rural life after growing up in a farming community in Dhamar. “When I walk through Mocha, I sometimes feel like I’m still in Dhamar because I run into so many familiar faces. It makes me forget how far I am from home – though families still need to stay safe, which means staying out of Mocha,” he added.

Other fighters made the choice to keep their families inland from the very start, anticipating the ongoing escalation. Ramez, a 38-year-old Republican Guard fighter with 15 years of military experience, moved his family to a rural village outside Mocha immediately after joining the faction two years ago. He noted that Mocha’s reputation as a major military hub made it an inevitable target for Houthi attacks. “Villages or cities far from Mocha are safe for families, but we prefer villages because the rent is cheaper than in the cities,” Ramez explained. “Nowadays, most of those who have their families in Mocha are scrambling to find homes in villages all at once, as they didn’t anticipate the situation becoming so dangerous earlier on.” The mass influx of displaced fighter families has already put significant upward pressure on local housing rents across rural Taiz, as correspondents observed during on-the-ground visits to affected villages. Ramez argues that pre-positioning soldiers’ families in safe zones should be a core security policy for all military factions operating in active conflict zones. “Not only in Mocha, but anywhere there is a war, soldiers’ families shouldn’t stay in the same city or area as military camps; they should remain far away in safe areas,” he said.

For Mocha’s original native population, the ongoing violence and military occupation has come at a devastating cost to their traditional livelihoods. Local fishermen, who once formed the backbone of Mocha’s economy, are now barred from sailing into the Red Sea due to active combat, leaving thousands without work. Many blame the presence of the Republican Guard headquarters for bringing daily Houthi attacks to their once peaceful community. “Since the beginning of this war in 2015, we have been going from one crisis to another, and fishermen are always the most vulnerable victims,” said Akram, a 40-something fisherman who asked to be identified only by his first name. “The truth is that these fighters have ruined our town, and they are the main reason we lost our jobs. The Houthis know that Mocha is full of fighters, and that is why they are targeting us every day. Before the war, most residents here worked as fishermen and enjoyed a peaceful life. Since those fighters arrived in the city promising us a better life, we haven’t seen anything improve; instead, we just miss the life we used to have.”

Some fishermen have abandoned their trade to join the Republican Guard, drawn by salaries that can reach four times the average income from fishing. But Akram says he rejects that path, clinging to the hope that peace will allow him to return to the sea. “I only believe in peace and civilian jobs. What we need is peace, but there are some who only care about money and don’t think about the future of our area or the next generation,” he said. “The sea used to be our primary source of income, but today it feels more like a battlefield.” Akram’s greatest wish is for the current escalation to end, so local fishermen can resume sailing freely, catch fish to sell in local markets and export to neighboring countries.

Other local residents acknowledge that the arrival of fighters and military activity has brought some modest economic growth to Mocha, with new humanitarian operations and small investments entering the city after the port reopened in 2021. Still, even those who benefit from the new activity say persistent insecurity overshadows any progress. Zaher, a 46-year-old Mocha resident who works as a driver for an international humanitarian organization, asked to withhold his full name for security reasons. “While I am glad to see Mocha growing every day, attracting aid groups and new investments… Anyone would be happy to see new opportunities coming to their city, but our biggest challenge today is that we don’t feel safe,” he said. “All we need is security, and I hope the Houthis avoid targeting civilian infrastructure because we just want to live.”

As Houthi attacks continue without pause, all operations at the Port of Mocha have ground to a complete halt, leaving more than 1,500 port workers out of a job and deepening the city’s humanitarian crisis. The ongoing violence in Mocha follows a broader pattern of renewed conflict across Yemen: the UN-mediated April 2022 ceasefire that brought months of relative calm across the country has collapsed in recent weeks, with Houthi forces resuming large-scale attacks against government positions and critical infrastructure across five governorates: Hadhramaut, Marib, Taiz, Al-Dhalea and Hodeidah.

A dramatic escalation in regional geopolitical tensions across the Middle East took shape on Monday, as a top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) official announced Iran is preparing to shift its long-held military posture from defensive to offensive, warning global adversaries to prepare for unexpected strategic moves.

Yadollah Javani, head of the IRGC’s political bureau, stated in an interview with Iranian state media Monday morning that Iran will never be caught off-guard by enemy aggression. “Instead, it is the enemy that must anticipate strategic surprises,” Javani emphasized. He added that all necessary measures to defend Iran’s territorial integrity, maintain national security, and neutralize hostile threats will be carried out at the moment Iran deems appropriate.

Javani’s stark warning coincided with a dramatic, unforeseen slowdown in commercial shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical energy chokepoint that carries roughly one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies. New ship tracking data compiled by analytics firm Kpler shows that just five commodity-carrying vessels passed through the strait on Saturday, with zero recorded transits on Sunday. This marks a massive drop from the previous weekend, when 31 vessels completed transits through the waterway.

Amid the shipping disruptions, Iran continued joint negotiations with Oman on Monday to design a new secure maritime transit corridor through the strait. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei pinned the recent security complications and delays on aggressive military activity by the United States and Israel, noting that talks have stretched longer than initially anticipated due to ongoing geopolitical unrest. “The issue is inherently complex,” Baghaei added. The proposed new mechanism is designed to protect the sovereign rights and economic interests of both Iran and Oman, while upholding guaranteed safe passage for all commercial shipping traffic transiting the strait. According to Baghaei, this framework marks the first initiative that simultaneously safeguards the sovereignty of the two coastal nations and ensures unimpeded movement for global commercial vessels. Intensive negotiations are still underway to finalize a joint official statement, he confirmed.

Baghaei also used Monday’s press briefing to formally disavow a 60-day timeline outlined in a June 17 memorandum of understanding between Tehran and Washington, accusing the U.S. of violating the terms of the agreement within weeks of it being signed. “There is no provision in the memorandum of understanding referring to a ‘60-day deadline’, and the Islamic Republic of Iran never formulates its policies under pressure, ultimatums or time limits,” Baghaei stated. He clarified that the original text only referenced a 60-day window for talks on U.S. sanctions relief and the Iranian nuclear program, with an option to extend the period if no breakthrough was reached. However, he said “gross and widespread” U.S. violations of the agreement prevented talks from ever launching, making the 60-day timeline “entirely moot.”

In a separate development overnight Sunday, two Iranian drones targeted the office of Iraq’s Kurdistan regional Prime Minister Masrour Barzani and the private residence of the autonomous region’s intelligence chief, local authorities confirmed Monday. Barzani confirmed the attack in a post on the social platform X, noting that counterterrorism investigators had verified that his personal office and the intelligence chief’s home were struck. “This is a dangerous escalation and a direct threat to the security and stability of the Kurdistan region,” Barzani wrote. The regional counterterrorism directorate added that no casualties were reported in the strikes. This attack is part of a broader pattern of aggression: since February 2024, when cross-border hostilities intensified, the Kurdistan region— which hosts U.S. military personnel, international energy companies, and exiled Iranian opposition groups— has faced more than 1,000 attacks from Tehran and Iran-aligned armed groups operating inside Iraq.

On the environmental front, Baghaei blamed decades of U.S. military intervention and warfare in the region for widespread pollution in Persian Gulf waters, following recent reports of multiple large oil spills. “This environmental damage stems from the US military presence and the wars it has waged in the region over the past five decades,” Baghaei said Monday, adding that harm to the marine ecosystems of the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman is not limited to current ongoing conflicts. He called for the U.S. to be held legally and financially accountable, estimating total environmental damage at trillions of dollars. The comments come one week after Iran demanded compensation for an oil slick that reached protected beaches and a sensitive mangrove forest on Qeshm Island. Initial investigations pointed to a foreign bulk carrier as the source of the spill, which Iranian officials have confirmed is now completely cleaned up.

In a final diplomatic standoff, Baghaei confirmed that Iran will continue to classify three missing Iranian pilots as prisoners held by Qatar, despite repeated denials from Doha, until full clarity is provided on their fate. Tehran claims the pilots went missing during a March 2 operation targeting the U.S. Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. On Saturday, Iranian authorities publicly alleged for the first time that the three had been captured by Qatari forces, after months of stating that one pilot had been killed and three others remained unaccounted for. “Until the pilots’ situation is clarified, we consider them prisoners and will spare no effort to shed light on their fate,” Baghaei said. Qatar denies holding the airmen, and says it extended an invitation to Iranian officials in April to receive a full briefing on search and rescue operations, which Tehran has not yet accepted. Last month, Iran’s military announced it had recovered the body of pilot Majid Kazemi, who it confirms was killed in the attack on Al Udeid, the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East that hosts forward command for U.S. Central Command and American air and special operations units. In early March, Qatar’s defense ministry announced it had shot down two Iranian Su-24 bombers, though it has not confirmed these were the same aircraft involved in the March 2 operation.

Two Southeast Asian nations are grappling with the devastating aftermath of extreme seasonal rainfall that has left multiple people dead, forced mass evacuations, and upended daily life for hundreds of thousands of residents across affected regions.

In the southern half of South Korea, relentless downpours that began on Saturday have triggered fatal weather events, official data released Monday confirmed. One fatality was recorded when a landslide crashed into a residential apartment building in the southern coastal city of Geoje, according to a statement from South Korea’s Interior and Safety Ministry. The ministry added that four people suffered injuries across the affected region: two in Geoje and two additional people in neighboring urban centers.

The extreme weather has also forced nearly 400 residents to leave their flood and landslide-prone homes for safer emergency accommodation, and cut electrical power to more than 3,500 residential properties across southern districts of the country.

Half a world away in the Philippines, seasonal monsoon rains have wreaked similar havoc, bringing widespread flooding to densely populated areas of the country’s capital region and surrounding provinces. Early Monday, floodwaters submerged major arterial roads in Metro Manila and 12 outlying provinces, bringing vehicle and pedestrian traffic to a near-standstill. In response, national and local government officials suspended all public sector work and canceled in-person classes at all education levels starting at noon Monday, directing educational institutions to shift instruction to remote online platforms where possible.

This latest wave of rain comes on the heels of three weeks of on-again, off-again monsoon downpours and a separate severe storm that hit the main northern island of Luzon two weeks prior. Official data from the Philippines’ Office of Civil Defense shows that earlier period of extreme weather killed at least 23 people, most killed in flood-related incidents or landslides, and impacted the lives of roughly 5 million people across the island. As of Monday, nearly 25,000 displaced residents remained housed in government-run emergency evacuation shelters across multiple northern provinces.

One of the deadliest single incidents from the earlier storm occurred on August 9 in Baguio, a popular mountain resort city in northern Luzon. A massive landslide buried local homes, killing 10 people including multiple children who were asleep when the mud, rock and debris cascade swept down the adjacent mountainside. Rescue teams managed to pull three survivors from the debris, though all three suffered injuries, local officials confirmed.

Over the past century, stretching from the United States’ entry into World War I in 1917 through the end of the Cold War, Washington built and sustained a rules-based international order that shaped global politics, economics and security. Today, that system is facing unprecedented strain, driven in large part by the rise of isolationist sentiment embodied by Donald Trump — a shift that Beijing has interpreted as a deeper, irreversible decline of American global centrality. For Chinese policymakers, Trump’s 2016 election and potential return to office are not isolated political anomalies, but evidence of a long-running American turn inward, as a growing segment of the US public grows weary of global entanglements and resents the burdens of maintaining the international order Washington itself built. This shift has already eroded the legitimacy of core US-founded institutions, from the United Nations to the World Trade Organization.

China has never viewed these institutions as fully representative of its interests, values or political system, and has long held that the American-led order does not accommodate its rising global status. From Beijing’s perspective, if Washington is intent on dismantling the system it created, there is no logical reason for China to step in to preserve it. Unlike the Soviet Union during the Cold War, China has not advanced a fully formed alternative global order to replace the US system. Instead, its medium- and long-term strategy centers on insulating itself from the chaos of a collapsing old order, emerging stronger once the dust settles while capitalizing on any opportunities that arise from the upheaval. This framing echoes the analysis laid out in the 2004 book *The New Warring States Period*, written by four prominent Chinese strategists who predicted decades of growing interstate friction following the collapse of the US-led order. The authors, who rooted their analysis in the faltering US intervention in Iraq, warned that unsustainable US debt and the capture of national policy by private corporate interests would eventually cripple American global power — a prediction that many saw validated by the 2008 global financial crisis.

Against this backdrop, current turmoil in Iran offers a key test of this geopolitical framework. For Beijing, instability in Iran, particularly around the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz, is viewed as another symptom of the broader erosion of the American order. If US intervention sparked the current chaos, Beijing questions why it should step in to bail out Washington, asking what concessions the US would offer in return, and whether the moment could open a path for China to help shape a new regional order centered on its own interests. This parallel to China’s Warring States period, when the centuries-old Zhou dynastic order collapsed into fragmented competition between sovereign states, frames Beijing’s view that the age of unchallenged American centrality is already over.

But Iran itself has emerged as a volatile wildcard in this shifting landscape. With nearly 100 million people, a strategically pivotal location between the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf, and deep internal political fragmentation following the death of long-time Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iran functions today as a failing state, with the Revolutionary Guards holding de facto power but unable to rebuild national unity. As analyst Kamran Bokhari notes, the Iranian regime has survived internal and external pressure not through military strength, but because domestic political constraints in Washington have prevented the US from pursuing full regime change. This survival has come at a steep cost: Iran faces deepening political, economic and security crises that will limit its ability to recover or shape its regional environment for years to come, creating a risk that chaos could spill over to China’s broader sphere of influence.

This dynamic raises a critical, unresolved question: is Beijing’s analysis of American decline accurate? Today, even many US allies share the view that American power is shifting, but emerging evidence suggests that rather than declining, US power is undergoing a reconfiguration. Despite isolationist rhetoric from the MAGA movement, Washington has expanded its influence in key hotspots including Venezuela and Syria. This poses a key risk for Beijing: its cautious, wait-and-see strategy, rooted in the assumption of American collapse, could backfire if US power is merely reorganizing rather than retreating. Unlike China, which frames regional and global chaos as an existential threat to be avoided, the US has historically adapted and reemerged stronger through periods of internal and international disorder.

Adding another layer of complexity, Washington holds its own grievances against Beijing. After opening its markets to China in the 1980s and supporting China’s accession to the World Trade Organization, granting Beijing unprecedented access to global markets, US policymakers argue that China never joined the US-led order as a responsible stakeholder, failing to open its markets and liberalize its currency as previously committed, even as former Premier Zhu Rongji pushed for such reforms in the late 1990s. China’s dramatic economic growth and rising global influence disrupted the old US-led order, leading Washington to gradually conclude that the existing system benefited Beijing at Washington’s expense, creating pressure to dismantle it. This shift was not the product of a single, coordinated secret plan, but emerged gradually from debate and discussion across US government agencies, think tanks, financial circles and diplomatic circles. If Washington does hold a long-term coherent strategy to counter China, Beijing’s current calculations may prove to be fundamentally incorrect.

Beyond Iran, Beijing faces growing geopolitical challenges on multiple fronts in the near term. A new defense pact between Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan has shifted regional alignments, spurring closer cooperation between Israel and India — two countries with growing tensions with China — that threatens to undermine Beijing’s interests. In East Asia, rising tensions between North Korea and South Korea have spurred deeper security coordination between the US, Japan and South Korea, increasing pressure on Beijing. North Korea’s advancing nuclear program has stoked security anxieties in Tokyo and Seoul, raising the risk that either country could pursue an independent nuclear weapons program, a outcome that runs directly counter to Chinese interests. As Chinese scholar Zheng Jiyong notes, Beijing is increasingly alarmed by the risks of North Korea’s unpredictable behavior, but faces a Catch-22: while Pyongyang can act as a useful wildcard for Beijing in East Asian geopolitics, tighter Chinese control over North Korea would lead any Pyongyang’s actions to be blamed on Beijing. Russia’s growing ties with North Korea have further complicated this dynamic, forcing Beijing into a more constrained position while accelerating North Korea’s nuclear rearmament. This was on full display in mid-August 2026, when Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the disputed Kuril Island of Iturup, claimed by Japan, just one day after North Korea conducted major naval drills and a missile test. The visit, which irritated Japan, has complicated Chinese diplomatic efforts in the region, fueling speculation that Moscow is seeking to needle Beijing amid disagreements over the war in Ukraine, or demonstrate support for North Korea.

On the economic front, rising trade tensions threaten to further escalate, as China is on track to hit a new record annual trade surplus by the end of 2026, putting additional strain on global trade relations and the wider world trading system. Today, China accounts for roughly 28 to 30 percent of global industrial production, up from just 5 percent in 1980, while the US share has fallen from 21 percent to 17 percent over the same period. While China still has theoretical room to expand its manufacturing share before reaching the 40-45 percent share the US held ahead of the 1929 Great Depression, it faces far more acute political and economic headwinds than the US did a century ago. China is currently grappling with massive industrial overcapacity, a problem the US resolved in the 1930s through a wave of bankruptcies that cleared excess capacity, followed by large-scale public works programs to restart growth. In China, however, most large enterprises are state-owned, making politically unfeasible to allow widespread bankruptcies to clear bad debt. Currently, an estimated 200 to 300 million Chinese urban workers are de facto underemployed in the gig economy, accounting for roughly 40 percent of the urban workforce, while mountains of unsustainable corporate debt continue to grow with no clear path to resolution. After 20 years of reliance on public infrastructure investment to drive growth, returns on new projects are steadily declining, creating a deeper economic challenge than the 2008 financial crisis was for the US.

For the US, the path forward requires a return to the kind of bipartisan, long-term consensus that guided Cold War strategy against the Soviet Union. As analysts like Michael Pillsbury and David Goldman have argued, adapting Cold War framework to counter China, including plans for US re-industrialization, is the logical path forward. The biggest barrier to this strategy is building a domestic consensus among US politicians and coordination with US allies, a challenge made more difficult by the ongoing US identity crisis that has polarized domestic politics and disrupted alliances. But history suggests that a sudden shared external threat can rapidly unify a divided US, just as the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor united a deeply isolationist US overnight. If that were to happen today, the global geopolitical landscape would shift dramatically, catching Beijing off guard if it continues its current wait-and-see approach.

Despite the strain on US global power, it remains the only country with a massive, enduring global military and political presence unmatched since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Replacing that presence would be an enormous, costly challenge for any other power, including China. The burden of maintaining global security through forward troop deployments, which the US and USSR bore during the Cold War, has already stretched Washington thin, a core grievance driving Trump’s isolationist calls for troop withdrawal. Many US allies, including Italy, have been unwilling to increase their own defense spending to offset the reduced US burden, creating a dynamic that resembles the imperial Chinese tributary system, where the central power bore the economic cost of the system while vassal states gained more benefits than they contributed. This raises a critical question for Beijing: would China be willing to bear the enormous cost of garrisoning troops abroad and guaranteeing the security of allied states in regions like Central Asia, given the volatility of local politics? So far, Beijing has shown no appetite for taking on this burden, as it would require massive spending and exposure to unpredictable risk. Without that security commitment, Beijing’s global influence remains rooted primarily in economic leverage, which can be more difficult to sustain than direct military presence that reduces allied defense costs.

In the end, the old US-led order is unlikely to be restored, and a new global order will have to be built. The key open questions are how quickly that transition will happen, and whether it will occur peacefully rather than through widespread conflict. Iran could offer a starting point for building a new, peaceful framework, but that would require proactive dialogue and negotiation between all major powers, including the US and China. For Beijing, while waiting out US political shifts in the near term is a low-risk strategy, it also needs to prepare for unexpected outcomes, particularly if key partners like Russia and Iran continue to falter, creating greater challenges for Beijing than it currently anticipates. It remains unclear which major power faces the greater long-term challenge, but a peaceful transition will require unprecedented engagement and flexibility from both sides.