Andrea Ferrario

The meeting between North Korea’s leader and Belarus’s Lukashenko marks a new course. The North Korean regime is managing its isolation as a strategic resource rather than simply enduring it. Pyongyang is choosing its interlocutors, building relationships, and using the diversification of its partners as a tool to maintain its autonomy from Beijing and Moscow with a growing focus on Southeast Asia at the expense of South Korea.

The Hungarian prime minister's electoral defeat deprives China of its main ally in the EU, with repercussions on investments, European cohesion, and relations with Taiwan. However, the new government led by Péter Magyar will have ample room to reposition itself along European lines without abandoning economic ties.

The low costs and efficiency demonstrated by the Cheongung-II missile defence system in the United Arab Emirates are reviving South Korea’s ambitions, having more than doubled the volume of its arms exports over the last 15 years. But the conflict is also highlighting the opacity of the political agreements signed in 2009 with Abu Dhabi by then-President Lee Myung-bak.

The ‘Yesterday’ observatory monitored 50 such incidents in a single month. These are fragmented initiatives, most often linked to unpaid wages. They are also fuelled by the obstacles placed in the way of the petition system, with local officials paying teams of men to discourage the submission of complaints to the relevant office in Beijing, which would cast them in a bad light. A reality that the Party prefers to hide and ignore.

Behind the lowest GDP target since 1991 lies the recognition that the growth model on which China built its rise has lost most of its momentum. Technology is replacing real estate as the driving sector. Behind the new Five-Year Plan lies a geopolitical map, with military spending still growing by 7 per cent. Xi Jinping's purges have left many empty seats among the delegates.

The holiday season ended with a 40 per cent decline, an eight-year low despite the all-time record of four million screenings. Many theatres were left empty, especially in smaller cities, due to high ticket prices, competition from short videos and online series, and a saturation of patriotic productions. Meanwhile in Japan, the country’s movie industry was experiencing an exceptional boom.

Geopolitical tensions have put the spotlight on China's large investments in global maritime hubs. Chinese companies hold majority stakes in 17 ports, while they hold minority stakes in most others or have operational management agreements. The cases of Piraeus (Greece) and Ream (Cambodia) are noteworthy. The lack of transparency regarding their conditions is well known.

Despite the tariff war in 2025, China broke through the $1 trillion mark in its trade surplus, 45% of which is now generated in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America. However, this wealth is not driving domestic consumption, because the fall in producer prices in the name of competitiveness is also squeezing wages and incomes. This is an issue that the new five-year plan due in March does not seem likely to address.

Women's rights organizations have also long been targeted by Beijing's crackdown. As a result, opportunities for women in traditional newsrooms have been drastically reduced, while alternative online spaces remain under constant pressure. The cases of Haze Fan, editorial assistant for Bloomberg in Beijing, and Zhang Zhan, the blogger who reported on Covid in Wuhan, who has been re-imprisoned.

The South Korean president's trip to China marked a significant diplomatic rapprochement between Seoul and Beijing after years of frostiness, but leaves fundamental strategic issues unresolved. Despite attempts to engage on the Pyongyang dossier, the Chinese government avoids any reference to denuclearisation. Economic agreements signed by Korean conglomerates on rare earths and strategic minerals

The Indonesian consortium that controls 60% of the route inaugurated two years ago recorded losses of over $250 million in 2024. This year, losses are expected to increase further. The project is part of the Belt and Road Initiative, but from the outset it appeared to be economically unsustainable. It is not the only case among the major railway projects in Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, Prabowo is intensifying his embrace of Beijing.

In recent years, Beijing has moved from mass production of generic drugs to investing in advanced biomedical research. Thanks to a growth model very similar to that adopted for electric cars, it now controls 80% of global active ingredients. The Fentanyl case has shown the importance of this card, described as a “nuclear option” in trade wars. But China still needs the West to hold its own in this market.