The essence of the contradiction between China and the United States on the South China Sea issue is the contradiction between China's maintenance of its sovereign maritime rights and interests, its pursuit of international status commensurate with itself, and the regional dominant position maintained by the United States. Will the Trump administration stir up trouble in the South China Sea at the end of his term? What will happen in the event of an accident? What role will the South China Sea issue play in the next US administration's China policy? What pressure will China face? Hu Bo, Director of South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative, special expert of China Forum, was interviewed by Han Hua, Executive Committee of China Forum and CGTN commentator, on these issues.

The countries which could not wait to congratulate Joe Biden on winning the presidency are America’s allies. This should be no surprise. In the past four years, Donald Trump’s “America first” policy and his alarming words to Nato have unnerved them all. They could only rejoice to embrace a man who said: “We’re going to be back in the game. It’s not America alone.”

The Chinese authorities have never accepted or used the concept of China-U.S. bipolarity. Neither the so-called co-governance (G2) nor the bipolar confrontation between China and the United States is consistent with China’s diplomatic philosophy and policy. The Russian official narrative has also rejected the idea that the world has been moving in the direction of a new bipolarity, insisting on a gradual transformation of the unipolar, U.S.-centered international system of early XXI century to a multipolar (or polycentric) world order.

China's recent decision to join the WHO's vaccine implementation plan against the coronavirus has attracted great attention from the international media. As a country with a high level of COVID vaccine research, China has developed four vaccines that have entered phase III clinical trials. China has sufficient production capacity and is self-sufficient in vaccines, so it decided to join the implementation plan initiated by the WHO and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. The decision aims to promote the equitable global distribution of vaccines, to ensure that developing countries have access and to encourage more capable countries to join and support the plan.

Long a symbol of human solidarity, the United Nations is currently experiencing dark times, as the COVID-19 pandemic casts its deadly shadow and the world economy tumbles. People are being divided. Countries are being decoupled. Hatred and blame are being spread. In a call to action during the celebration of the UN’s 75th anniversary recently, President Xi Jinping of China urged unity in tackling this unprecedented crisis facing the world community.

For the northern hemisphere, this winter will be long and harsh due to the pandemic. More than a dozen European countries have seen a second round of lockdowns as Covid-19 cases rise.Even World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been exposed to the virus and has quarantined himself.Yet China, the first country to be hit hard by the virus, has essentially returned to normal.

During the epidemic, European and American countries adopted monetary easing policy in order to restore the economy, which caused the global liquidity flooding. How much did it promote the real economy? After the introduction of digital RMB in China, many countries began to formulate digital rules. Does this mean that the digital currency era and digital cash War are coming soon? How should China grasp the overall situation and promote China-EU cooperation? Han Hua, Executive Committee Member of China Forum and CGTN commentator, discussed these issues with Prof. Ding Yifan, a China Forum expert and vice president of French Branch of European Society of China.

Is the US ready for its 46th President? Has the US-China cold war already started? Could US and China really ‘decouple’? Will and how each party set ‘limits’on both conventional and non-conventional threats? Han Hua, Executive Committee Member of China Forum and CGTN commentator, discussed these issues with Prof. WANG Fan, a China Forum expert and Vice President of China Foreign Affairs University.

Why is it said that the future will enter the era of slow globalization? Some developed countries have to decouple from China due to geopolitical circulations. How much confidence do we have to face this possible phenomenon? How will the dule circulation of China's economy adapt to this situation? Han Hua, Executive Committee Member of China Forum and CGTN commentator, discussed these issues with Prof. Ding Yifan, a China Forum expert and vice president of French Branch of European Society of China.

Does a stronger China need a sphere of influence? I asked myself this question when I came across the article, “The New Spheres of Influence”, in Foreign Affairs by Harvard professor Graham Allison. Allison argues that, after the Cold War, the entire world became a de facto American sphere. But now the unipolarity is over. The United States must share its spheres of influence with other great powers such as China and Russia.

On September 28, the Lanting forum, sponsored by the China Public Diplomacy Association and Nizami Ganjavi International Center, and co-sponsored by the Center for Strategic and Security Studies of Tsinghua University, the research base for Sino foreign cultural exchanges of Peking University, the Chongyang Institute for financial studies, Renmin University of China and the huanqiu.com, was successfully held in Beijing. The theme of the Lanting forum is “International order and global governance in the post epidemic era". Fu Ying, Chairperson of Center for International Security and Strategy, Tsinghua University (CISS), attended and spoke on the sub-forum "Global Governance and Multilateralism", and had in-depth exchanges with seven Chinese and foreign guests.

A key theme of this discussion is whether countries can gradually return to normal life if vaccines are not available on a large scale in the short term, and how to balance the interests of vulnerable groups, especially older people, with younger generations in the process.