On Thursday, Donald Trump will walk into the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, shake Xi Jinping's hand, and declare it a great meeting. There will be announcements. There will be numbers — billions of dollars in Chinese purchase commitments, a new bilateral mechanism with an important-sounding name, possibly a joint statement on Iran. Trump will post on Truth Social. Markets will rally briefly. Pundits will argue about who won. None of that will tell you what actually happened. What is actually happening in Beijing this week is something more consequential and more uncomfortable than the summit theatre will reveal: two leaders of two deeply mutually dependent superpowers, both of whom need this meeting to succeed for entirely different reasons, sitting across a table in a world that has already moved past the assumptions that defined their last nine months of negotiations. The Iran war changed the equations. The rare earth gambit changed the power balance. Taiwan is sitting in...
TikTok, the globally popular short-form video platform, is currently navigating a tumultuous landscape marked by legal challenges, potential ownership changes, and national security debates. As of January 2025, the app's future, particularly in the United States, remains uncertain. Legal Hurdles and Temporary Reprieves In a significant legal development, the U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld a law banning TikTok from operating within the United States, citing national security concerns related to its Chinese ownership. This decision underscores the government's authority to restrict services associated with "new technologies with transformative capabilities." Critics, however, express apprehension that this ruling could set a precedent for future limitations on communication platforms, potentially infringing on free speech rights. The Verge Following the Supreme Court's decision, TikTok faced a brief shutdown on January 18, leading to widespread concern among i...