Demetri

Japanese snow monkeys at Hell Valley hot spring in Nagano. 地獄谷野猿公苑. For more images from Japan, follow Instagram.com/asialens.demet… or click demetrisevastopulo.com/Japan

Horseshoe Bend, Arizona Follow me at Instagram.com/asialens.demet… or check out demetrisevastopulo.com

米国の兵器備蓄が減少し、アジアへの供給が遅れることは「台湾有事に対する米国の抑止力低下」として北京に誤ったシグナルを与えかねません。

Happening now: “Balancing Beijing: The Greatest Challenge to Global Peace,” with @RepMikeLawler, @SenPeterWelch, and China Strategies Group's Christopher Johnson, moderated by @FT’s Demetri Sevastopulo (@AsiaLens). Watch here: mccaininstitute.org/the-sedona-for…

Check out our 🚀 #scoop from Friday 👇

Jennifer is hands down one of the best in the business.

"Xi's real eye is on not seizing the island [of Taiwan]. It's on his other goal... to have China be basically unreliant on the rest of the world, while the rest of the world is highly reliant on China." Listen to the latest episode of The Beijing Brief: brook.gs/4sZfgxG

Chinese dissident Li Ying: ‘Our work is about being ready for the tipping point’ ft.com/content/2574d9… via @ft

SCOOP - 🇺🇸US warns European allies (UK, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and others), that will delay delivery of 🚀missile systems as replenishes US stockpiles. Also talks about delaying shipments to the Indo-Pacific 👇 ft.com/content/f87a8b…

WASHINGTON, May 1 (Reuters) - The United States is withdrawing 5,000 troops from Germany, the Pentagon announced on Friday, in an apparent U.S. rebuke to the close NATO ally amid a widening rift between President Donald Trump and Europe over the Iran war.

Breaking Defense have also just published this re Norway breakingdefense.com/2026/05/norway…

Sharing this smart @FT op-ed by Alan Beattie on (1) the causes and logic behind the uneasy calm in US-China relations and (2) why what each side does to capitalize on this period will matter more than what the two leaders say to each other when they meet in Beijing.

Why don’t you debate Steve in Chinese. You might be surprised 😉

My new Penguin e-book, Inflection Point: Biden, Trump, and the Future World Order, is now available to buy (for $6). This is a part of @LowyInstitute's wonderful Penguin paper series. Many thanks to @mfullilove and @SamRoggeveen. The overall argument of the book is that there are now two Americas—an internationalist America that will likely focus on strategic competition and deepening alliances and an America First movement that will be much more skeptical of allies, favorable to punitive tariffs and predatory. Unlike strategies of containment in the Cold War, these are largely antithetical. Each will compete with, but will never fully vanquish, the other—at least not for some time. If you look at all US presidential elections since 1944, Republicans are currently in their 42nd year and Dems have had 40. So it splits 50:50. The challenge for the world is to hedge against this dramatic fluctuation. Two of the chapters are on my time in the Biden administration. Two are on Trump’s second term. And one looks at where we go from here. The two Biden chapters offer my reflections on our Ukraine and Indo-Pacific policies in particular. Some specifics that you all might find interesting: My account of the risk of Russian nuclear use in October 2022. How we actually thought about escalation and military assistance to Ukraine. What we thought of the Global South’s peace efforts (some were legitimate and sincere, some were not). How we thought about the diplomatic endgame in Ukraine. My account of the balloon incident of 2023 and the trajectory of our China policy. How AUKUS came to be—why it might not have happened if the president knew how France would react but why it was still the right thing to do. The lessons Democrats are learning from Biden’s foreign policy and where it is likely to go from here. And what America First may look like after Trump. I hope you all get a chance to read Inflection Point. I will be in Australia next week for a series of events to launch it. amazon.com/Inflection-Poi…

Next Week 🗓️ Join CNAS for a live event on U.S.-Japan-Philippines trilateral cooperation as they work to deter aggression from China and preserve regional stability 🎙️ @LisaCurtisDC 🎙️ @MaryKayCarlson 🎙️ @Henrietta_Ivy 🎙️ @RyanHClaffey

Scoop: Julie Davis, the acting US Ambassador in Kyiv, is leaving the State Department having grown frustrated with Trump's dwindling support for Ukraine. Davis's resignation follows that of her predecessor, Bridget Brink, who resigned for similar reasons early last year. W/@christopherjm  as.ft.com/r/1781e555-fad…

We are thrilled to announce the selection of our fourth fellowship cohort, sixteen truly outstanding next generation China scholars and analysts you can read more about here: global.upenn.edu/future-of-us-c… Check out the full announcement at: global.upenn.edu/future-of-us-c…

Sharing this podcast with two of the best in business of reading China's military: @jonczin and @JohnCulver689. I ask them to reconcile PLA purges and China's rapid military buildup and what it tells us about China’s capacity to pursue its ambitions. brookings.edu/articles/is-ch…