Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Professor Evan Medeiros | In August 2025, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization held its 25th annual summit in Tianjin, China, with the country’s leader Xi Jinping, hosting representatives from more than 20 countries including Russia’s Vladimir Putin and India’s Narendra Modi. The absence of the United States in this gathering of global leaders may tell us about how China is competing with the US and building its own global order.

To discuss China’s strategic competition with the US, and how it is evolving under the Trump administration, in September 2025, the Phelan US Centre spoke to Professor Evan Medeiros, the Penner Family Chair in Asian Studies and the Cling Family Senior Fellow in US-China Relations at Georgetown University.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.

Further reading and resources

“China and Russia Will Not Be Split”, Michael McFaul and Evan S. Medeiros, Foreign Affairs, 4 April 2025

Medeiros, E. S., & Polk, A. (2025). China’s New Economic Weapons. The Washington Quarterly, 48(1), 99–123.

“S.-China Relations for the 2030s: Toward a Realistic Scenario for Coexistence”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace”, 17 October 2024

“The Delusion of Peak China”, Evan S. Medeiros, Foreign Affairs, 24 April 2024

Take the Ballpark Listener survey and enter the prize draw for £250 in vouchers!

The Ballpark will be ten years old in 2026, and we want to hear from you to make the podcast even better, so we’re running a listener survey until 1 November 2025.

Fill in our listener survey – it only takes 15 minutes – here: https://forms.office.com/e/Vcj8V8uGM1

Voucher prize draw terms and conditions are available here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/united-states/the-ballpark/ballpark-listener-survey-prize-terms-conditions-2025