James Kynge

I'm already seeing several think tank articles about re-hemisphering and non-hemispheric influences and all of this.

So I think that's going to be more of the lens through which America looks at the world.

And very clearly, China is not in America's hemisphere, at least not in their own reckoning.

So I think there's going to be a lot to pick up on, a lot to focus on on this topic.

Well, it's hard to know cause and effect, but perhaps it's too much of a coincidence that just the day before the new US national security strategy was announced, the Financial Times had an article which says that the US plans to halt

its intention to impose sanctions on China's Ministry of State Security.

That is, of course, China's spy ministry.

And this is over a massive cyber espionage campaign that was being waged by a group called Salt Typhoon and other advanced persistent threat groups.

groups.

These are called APT groups that the U.S.

believes has been responsible for targeting United States infrastructure and government agencies and really hacking the phones of many high-level individuals in the United States through U.S.

telecoms networks.

And so

This was a really big cause for concern in the U.S.

all the way from 2019 until now.

And now the Trump administration is saying that it wants to, well, halt the plans to impose sanctions on the Ministry of State Security.

Of course,

It could go back on that.

It could change its mind.

But at the moment, that seems to be potentially part of this softening towards China ahead of Trump's meeting with Xi Jinping in April.