Recently, Philip Pilkington and David Dusenbury published a couple of papers and an article on the long story of China's intellectual history with the West. A story that extends beyond Marco Polo, and has far more breadth and interchange in pre-modern times than most would suspect.

David Dusenbury is an Associate Professor of Humanities at the University of Florida, author of three well-regarded books of religious history, and a frequent writer and thinker on the history of ideas.

Last month, our duo sat down to comb over what they'd learned in the project for the Danube Culture podcast.

We're bringing you their exchange as a bonus this week.

Friend of the Pod Malcom Kyeyune is back, and he’s got that late empire feeling. After the Chinese Military staged an extraordinary parade in Beijing, Washington is worried. The top dog question has resurfaced. 

In the same week, Elbridge Colby released a new strategic document effectively telling Washington it needs to be far more selective in military affairs. 

After they spent a quarter of their entire interceptor missile stocks shoring up Israel, and with the Abrams tanks proving ineffectively heavy in Ukraine, US procurement is looking shoddy in a way it never has before. No wonder Colby increasingly senses the Taiwan question must be gently settled. 

As  Malcom puts it: “Times were when the US could just pick up a small country and smack it against a wall in order to show who’s boss.” Are recent manoeuvres off the Venezuelan coast a last gasp of smack-it-against-the-wall hegemonic diplomacy?

In this typically ranging hour long special, The Lads look into the abyss called Kyeyune – and he stares back.

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Narendra Modi. In Shanghai. In the back of a car. With Vladimir Putin. Positively glowing.  

The tweets the Indians sent out at the Shanghai Co-Operation Organisation were the equivalent of a taken for granted girlfriend openly flirting with the jocks at the big keg party. The key question: is this obvious piece of signalling going to be stronger than the thick skulls of the lugs in Washington? 

Meanwhile, in Venezuela, US destroyers are patrolling the coastline. Ostensibly to stop cartel shipments. Are they about to make a Noriega of Maduro? 

Finally, in Britain, the bond yield has hit a thirty year high. At the same time, France can’t pass a budget, and has 114% debt to GDP. What’s going to happen when two of Europe’s big three economies both try to squeeze through the door of the IMF at the same time? 

All this and more in an hour of super soaraway subscriber special. That’s right – it’s that time of the month. Time to put down five Dollars, Pounds, Euros to get to eavesdrop with your fellow subscribers in the secret Multipolarity green room. 

Go to patreon.com/multipolarity. Slap down your cash. And get backstage, where the real action is.

As they say in the Economist: "Serbia is at a crossroads..."

Anti-corruption protests after the collapse of the station roof in Novi Sad have not gone away, now many months after the event. The country's leader, President Vučić, is under pressure as never before, after 13 years in power. He has offered 'televised dialogues': his opponents have declined. The standoff continues.

Meanwhile, in the tiny breakaway relic of the Bosnian War, Republika Srpska, the crossroads has come to a fork.

In February 2025, the President of the RS region of Bosnia, Milorad Dodik, was stripped of his office, for planning to hold an independence referendum to break away from Bosnia. He was handed a one-year prison sentence plus a six-year political ban. Christian Schmidt, Bosnia’s High Representative, froze budgetary support for RS ruling parties after attempts to arrest Dodik were thwarted by Republika Srpska police.

Two concurrent crises, oddly twinned: as we all know, when Serbia goes off, the world needs to stand well back.

Miša Đurković is head of the MCC-MKI Center for Geopolitics at the School of International Relations at MCC. . This week, he joins us to unpack the dense politics of this geopolitical pocket rocket.

With EU leaders summoned to the White House to take dictation, it seems as though the Ukraine War is entering its final phase. Can the Europeans take their medicine? Or will they stay doolally on the happy pills? 

India has made it easier for Russian banks to operate. Turns out, Trump’s capricious decision to threaten them with swingeing sanctions has had second order consequences. These days, the monkey’s paw is twitching so hard it’s tapping out morse code. 

Finally, Goldman Sachs has estimated the winners and losers of the tariff wars. And the loser is – US consumers, who can expect to bear 64 per cent of costs before Xmas.

You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

The Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity is now open. Only problem? It goes through a geopolitical electromagnet pulling all the badboys of the region into its tractor beam.

The US has taken out a 99 year lease on a corridor that connects Armenia and Azerbaijan. It’s a breakthrough peace deal, certainly. But is it a silk road through a minefield?

Meanwhile, in Alaska, Vlad is about to jet in for talks. Is there some historical echo in doing it in a territory Russia once signed away? Or merely a historical echo of a big empty nothing?

Finally, Trump’s new 401k rules mean that Americans will soon be able to invest their money in crypto. And to create their own retirement tontines — that’s to say, when one pension saver dies early, the rest inherit their forfeited funds. Is this more genius from the great negotiator? Or just a fantastic chance to turn America into a series of Agatha Christie-style bump-off clubs?

You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

Lawds malarkey guv’nor, Blighty’s popped its clogs. 

Americans have been hoovering up ‘UK doom’ content ever since Elon Musk decided to push the grooming gangs scandal on X at the start of the year. 

On the inside, everyone understands the Notting Hill days are long gone. Only some have clocked that the Children of Men era is upon us.

Now, with the banning of a viral ad for a crypto exchange describing the dismal state of the country, we’re checking in on the dismal state of the country. 

Meanwhile, America is pushing India to cut its oil trade with Russia. Obviously, this will never have any bad second order consequences. 

Finally, having exposed their air defence nakedness in one wild weekend, the Iranians are in the market for a new system. And the news is they’re going Ali Express. Can China succeed where their own engineers failed? Watch this underground bunker.

You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

Get on the bus. Or get on the Trump train. 

At this week’s Chinese trade talks, Europe has found itself piggy in the middle in the great global realignment. 

After Team Ursula were shunted off an airport bus by their Chinese hosts, – and given no official welcome, it’s clear which side is now entering their Hundred Years of Humiliation.  

We’ll be clipping the tickets of both delegations, and trying to piece together where the Great Tariff Wars of 2025 are up to.  

But as this is a pay week, we’re also going to have to impose a 75% tariff of our own, until you come to heel. 

For those inside the customs union - Multipolarity’s Patreons - this episode is entirely free throughout. For the rest of you – you’ll get the first quarter and no more. 

But all is not lost. Join us, in an ever-closer union, by going to patreon.com/multipolarity, and paying five Euros, Pounds, or Dollars a month. 

Steve Hsu is a physicist, a tech founder, the hub of a network of cutting edge thinkers, and the host of the excellent Manifold Podcast.  After a record-breaking first appearance, this week, he returns to Multipolarity for his second turn. 

This time, we want to ask him about the big picture on China’s tech frontiers. Six months on from the Deep Seek shock, it’s clear that China is making leaps not just in AI, but a range of high-end technologies, from materials science to robotics, semiconductors and telecoms. 

Far from the old paradigm of ‘China doesn’t innovate; it copies’, we’re seeing genuinely novel applications: from beetle-inspired heat censors, to synthetic biology, to silicon wafer replacement.

Beyond the immediate economic implications, how does their coming prowess relate to the strategic balance of power? 

We talk military hardware: the debate about tech missiles versus jets, China’s 6th generation fighters, drones, and the battlefield of the future.

And given all this – what can the US do to claw back the high ground? Can Washington accept their diminished status? Or will they end up both more insular and more aggressive on the world stage? 

You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

Philip Pilkington is away in Belgrade on a foreign assignment, which means we’re serving up a Sleepless In Seattle-style double header, on tariffs. 

First off: what is the end game for trade and the dollar? With Liberation Day now a distant memory and the passing of The Big Beautiful Bill, Philip has crunched the numbers, and figured out that all is not what it seems. 

Meanwhile, Andrew, casts his eyes eastwards. How are tariffs affecting the geopolitical balance of power in south-east Asia? Are the Japanese slicing up some lessons in Cakeism for Trump?

You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity