Penulis: Agus S

THESE AREhappy, “I told you so” times for foreign-policy cynics. In many world capitals the inauguration of an America First president inspires not shock, but vindication. Over a policy-filled lunch in Asia, a veteran official tells The Telegram that his government feels “serene” about the return of President Donald Trump. Westerners are forgetting their history, he suggests, if they mourn the crumbling of a principled, America-led world order that has supposedly prevailed for 80 years. Tell that to Asian peoples attacked by colonial European troops as they fought for independence, he says. Moral values never guided the post-war world. At least under Mr Trump, the mask is off, and interests are all.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “America the imperfect, indispensable nation”

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After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young

Its plan was to hold off a Chinese attack until America turned up. What now?

MAGA-world flirts with forces that once tore Europe apart

His regime uses payouts to salve Russian families’ grief

The watersoff Singapore teem with tankers, container ships, freighters and smacks, importing everything from oil to electronics. Yet there is one commodity none of these vessels carries, and which the city-state wants: electricity. The tiny, rich island powers itself mostly by burning imported natural gas, despite pledging to cut emissions to net-zero by 2050. It has little room to build its own wind or solar farms. So Singapore plans to get hold of clean power in a different way: down long-distance cables from its neighbours. Its government has given preliminary approval for undersea transmission cables from Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam and even Australia, some 4,300km away.In ten years’ time Singapore wants to import a third of the power it consumes this way.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Power-sharing”

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young

Its plan was to hold off a Chinese attack until America turned up. What now?

MAGA-world flirts with forces that once tore Europe apart

His regime uses payouts to salve Russian families’ grief

IT SOUNDS ODD, but hints keep piling up that President Donald Trump is tempted by a big, beautiful deal with China’s Xi Jinping. That runs counter to campaign-trail vows to hit China with crippling tariffs. A great-power bargain that Mr Xi could accept—perhaps bundling economic trade-offs with a divvying-up of the world into spheres of influence—would surely outrage hawkish Trump aides, from the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, to the secretary of state, Marco Rubio. Congress would be appalled and allies in Europe and Asia aghast. And yet Mr Trump keeps signalling that he is in dealmaking mode. He has invited China to help with peacemaking in Ukraine, says he would rather not impose swingeing Chinese tariffs and questioned whether TikTok, a Chinese-owned app, really harms American national security.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “A big, beautiful Trump deal with China?”

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young

Its plan was to hold off a Chinese attack until America turned up. What now?

MAGA-world flirts with forces that once tore Europe apart

His regime uses payouts to salve Russian families’ grief

WHEN SHAKIR MOHAMEDand his male partner wanted to start a family in London, they looked to adopt a child. But faced with a laborious process and long waiting times, they instead turned to surrogacy. Last year their son Nico was born to a woman in America who agreed to carry their child for a fee, and who still stays in touch with them.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Baby-making boom ”

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young

Its plan was to hold off a Chinese attack until America turned up. What now?

MAGA-world flirts with forces that once tore Europe apart

His regime uses payouts to salve Russian families’ grief

THESE AREheady times for supporters ofPresident Donald Trump. In their telling, their champion has declared a new era in which America will use its strength without embarrassment to secure its interests, and the world is falling in line.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Appeasing Trump, for now”

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young

Its plan was to hold off a Chinese attack until America turned up. What now?

MAGA-world flirts with forces that once tore Europe apart

His regime uses payouts to salve Russian families’ grief

The inkhad barely dried on Donald Trump’s order to impose a 10% tariff on imports from China before its leader, Xi Jinping, was reaching for his “assassin’s mace” to strike back. OnFebruary 4th, in addition to new tariffs, the Chinese government listed several rare metals as controlled exports, giving Mr Xi the power to ban shipments to America at a moment’s notice. The riposte underscores an essential difference between American and Chinese power: Mr Trump’s ability to coerce comes largely from what America buys and its dominance of international finance, while Mr Xi’s far more nascent coercive strength is based on what China sells.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Xi Jinping swings his “assassin’s mace””

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young

Its plan was to hold off a Chinese attack until America turned up. What now?

MAGA-world flirts with forces that once tore Europe apart

His regime uses payouts to salve Russian families’ grief

FOR THOSEanxious about Chinese aggression towards the self-ruled island ofTaiwan, there was a welcome signal at the end of Donald Trump’s third week back in the White House. After talks with Ishiba Shigeru, the Japanese prime minister, on February 7th, the two leaders said America and Japan “opposed any attempts to unilaterally change the status quo by force or coercion” in relation to Taiwan, which China claims as its own.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “By any means necessary”

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young

Its plan was to hold off a Chinese attack until America turned up. What now?

MAGA-world flirts with forces that once tore Europe apart

His regime uses payouts to salve Russian families’ grief

BUILDING THEtransatlantic partnership centred onNATOtook decades of troop deployments, joint exercises and steadfast signalling of an unbreakable commitment to its central tenet: that an attack on one would be an attack on all. Yet a weeklong whirlwind left that trust in tatters, as President Donald Trump’s administrationoverturnedalmost 80 years of American policy towards Europe. It culminated in the president repeating Kremlin propaganda points as he falsely blamed Ukraine for starting its war with Russia and called Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, a “dictator”.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Present at the destruction”

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young

Its plan was to hold off a Chinese attack until America turned up. What now?

MAGA-world flirts with forces that once tore Europe apart

His regime uses payouts to salve Russian families’ grief

THE EARTHQUAKEin transatlantic relations caused by President Donald Trump’s looming abandonment of Ukraine seemed to cause barely a ripple in the Pacific, where America’s generals and securocrats at the Honolulu Defence Forum emphasised the importance of boosting Asian allies. Perhaps, suggested one attending South Korean, cutting a deal with Russia will allow America to focus on deterring the might of China.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow?”

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young

Its plan was to hold off a Chinese attack until America turned up. What now?

MAGA-world flirts with forces that once tore Europe apart

His regime uses payouts to salve Russian families’ grief