3 Takeaways™
The Global Power Shift No One Is Talking About – And Who’s Driving It (#301)
12 May 2026
Chapter 1: What is the real power shift happening in global geopolitics?
Most people think the world is split between two camps, the United States and China. But a growing number of countries are doing something very different, working with both sides at the same time. So the big question is, in a world where the superpowers are competing, are these middle countries quietly gaining influence? And could they end up shaping the next global order? Hi, everyone.
I'm Lynn Thoman, and this is Three Takeaways. On Three Takeaways, I talk with some of the world's best thinkers, business leaders, writers, politicians, newsmakers, and scientists. Each episode ends with three key takeaways to help us understand the world and maybe even ourselves a little better. Today, I'm excited to be with Richard Fontaine.
Richard is one of the leading voices on US strategy and global geopolitics.
Chapter 2: How is China's economic influence changing global trade relationships?
He's the CEO of the Center for New American Security and has spent years at the center of US foreign policy debates. serving on Capitol Hill, advising senior officials, and writing widely on how the international order is shifting. Welcome, Richard, and thanks so much for joining Three Takeaways today.
Thank you. It's great to be here.
Most people assume Brazil's biggest economic partner is the United States. It isn't. It's China. How did that happen?
China's economic gravity has continued to grow over the decades.
Chapter 3: What role do middle countries play in shaping the next global order?
And we're in this strange phenomenon now where China is the top trade partner of most countries in the Western Hemisphere. That, of course, was the United States for a very, very long time. It's a reflection both of China's appetite for inputs, especially raw materials, the likes of which come from countries like Brazil.
And its exports, particularly of lower cost and increasingly somewhat higher cost manufactured goods, which are exported to countries throughout the hemisphere. And so you have a real rewiring of the top trade relationships between countries like Brazil compared to the way it used to be.
And it's not just Brazil, it's other countries in South America as well.
China is the number one trade partner of most countries in the Western Hemisphere. Most countries in Latin America, I mean, virtually every country in Latin America. And I mean, this is also true in other regions of the world. It's the top trade partner of most countries in Southeast Asia.
Chapter 4: How does India manage its relationship with China amid tensions?
It's the top trade partner with a lot of countries around the world, including countries that sometimes consider themselves skeptical of Chinese geopolitical intentions or at least at a minimum non-aligned with China, but nevertheless have a deeply intertwined economic relationship.
It's so shocking, I think, to most people. China and Brazil are even talking about a railroad across South America from Brazil's Atlantic coast all the way to the Pacific coast. What does that tell us about the relationship between Brazil and China?
Well, one, it shows how interested countries are and how forthcoming China has been, particularly in infrastructure building in different places. I mean, one can travel in Latin America, in Africa, in Southeast Asia, in lots of the so-called global south, and see Chinese infrastructure projects literally all over the place. Buildings here, bridges there, railroads here, ports there.
And for China, there's economic and sometimes geopolitical advantages to these kinds of projects and countries that wish to upgrade their infrastructure, build it where they haven't before, find it attractive to have potentially low cost financing for those kinds of projects.
And even India, which has border clashes with China and decades of tension, but trade between the two countries keeps climbing. How does India pull off that balancing act?
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Chapter 5: What does partnering with China look like for developing countries?
carefully. India had to manage its tricky relationship with China even before 1962 and everything that happened that year between the two countries. And so has become practiced over the years at maintaining a robust economic relationship with China. But nevertheless, it has its limits.
So, for example, India banned Chinese apps like TikTok and other things way before other countries really even thought about it. That was a product, among other things, of the skirmishes that took place in the Himalayas between the two countries. India tends to be pretty deeply skeptical of Chinese intentions in their own region.
And of course, the border dispute is a matter of serious difference. But nevertheless, they balance that with a trade relationship and physical proximity because they have to live alongside China.
Chapter 6: How do countries balance their dependencies on the US and China?
Can you talk more about what partnering with China looks like in practice? Ports, railways, power plants, telecom networks, Chinese workers?
All of those things. China will often provide investment and financing for projects in countries. Sometimes we'll bid on projects where there's no non-Chinese bidder available to do so, provide expertise. And in terms of what we would put in the realm of foreign assistance, often it's no strings attached kinds of foreign assistance.
I mean, the United States typically, for example, has tied its assistance to things like improvements in human rights or the rule of law or things like that. China, that's not the way that they do things. China provides diplomatic benefits to countries and to their leadership in terms of visits and summits and both in Beijing and in other countries as well.
Chapter 7: What are the implications of swing countries pushing back against superpowers?
And China provides here and there these kinds of economic benefits from trade, from investment, from infrastructure building, from technology transfer, from the transfer of expertize to Chinese workers. Again, all of which is a quite attractive package to any especially developing country that is looking to improve a lot of its people.
You've written this wonderful phrase, make me less dependent. Can you explain what that means?
Well, if you travel around and talk to a lot of countries that describe their economic dependence on China, and this is not just developing countries, but countries in Europe that export automobiles to China or countries in Asia that rely on Chinese financing for a lot of projects at home, whatever it may be.
None of the kind of geopolitical concerns about Chinese intentions is lost on the leadership of these countries. But on the other hand, this kind of economic relationship in particular is a source of good things for their country. And so there is often this sense that countries would like to be less dependent on China, but not yet.
And for other reasons, they'd like to be less dependent on the United States, but not yet. And so that's kind of where they find themselves.
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Chapter 8: What should be the US's foreign policy priorities regarding global swing states?
And you've called this building geopolitical insurance. What does that mean?
So you began by talking about folks who see the world as kind of divided into two blocks. And that's a little too stark to account for the way things are because of the existence of those who don't fit into those blocks. So there is at least a semi-coherent difference. axis of upheaval. We've called it Russia, China, Iran, North Korea working together more closely.
And then there's a relatively liberal, although some increasingly fractious these days, you know, kind of block of allies in the United States and in Japan and South Korea and Australia and Europe and so forth. OK, fine. So you've got those. But you also have these global swing states in the middle, as I've
called them, which are a group of, you know, medium sized or larger countries that want alignments with both blocks. They want a mix of security and economic benefits from both, and they're not going to join one or the other. And this
whether you call it hedging or multi-alignment or maintaining simultaneous connections to both sides as a form of geopolitical insurance rather than throwing all in with one side and then among other things either losing out of the benefits that ties with the other side might convey or pulling in the antipathy of the other side and so it's a form of geopolitical risk insurance to essentially diversify your portfolio of international relationships
And is this caused more about fear of China or is it about Russia's invasion of Ukraine or doubts about American reliability or really all three?
I think a lot of this is driven by the reality of China's economic rise at the same time as countries worry in part because of that economic rise about China's geopolitical intentions and how assertive and aggressive it's been in different parts of the world.
So that's kind of the economic and geopolitical reality on the Chinese side, which is coinciding with doubts about American reliability and engagement in different parts of the world. But at the same time, the United States obviously continues to have the biggest market in the world and the most powerful military in the world, which is not nothing.
So for these global swing states having access only to the benefits of alignment with one side or the other, but instead get a mix of benefits from both, then that's what they will do. I think it's less about the the Russian invasion of Ukraine, although, you know, that's the backdrop against which some of this is taking place.
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