When we talk about US-China competition, we often tend to focus on the obvious: trade, technology and Taiwan. But there’s a deeper question that doesn’t get enough attention. How does China actually think about fighting a war against a far more powerful adversary?

PLA writings describe modern conflict not as something waged simply between militaries. Rather it is conceptualised as system against system—the whole national apparatus on one side against the whole national apparatus on the other. Financial infrastructure, space capabilities, information networks, industrial base, all of it is part of the fight. The PLA calls this systems confrontation. And it shapes everything about how Beijing is preparing.

My guest for this episode of The Great Power Show is Howard Wang, a political scientist at RAND, whose recent work examines a concept emerging from this strand of Chinese strategic thinking, total war.

Wang tells me that in 2021, China embedded total war into its national security strategy. He describes it as a mobilisational concept. The idea is that civilian capabilities need to be developed in peacetime so that Party leaders can translate them into war-fighting advantages during conflict. We also talk about escalation and coercion, what does the theory of victory look like, what lessons Beijing is drawing from conflicts in Ukraine and West Asia, and what the ongoing purges tell us about the gap between the PLA’s ambitions and reality.

As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work that I do, please feel free to reach out to me.

There’s a quiet but unmistakable change taking place in Japan. For decades, Japanese politics was defined by caution. The country has a pacifist constitution. There has been managed ambiguity in its international engagements. Economic power existed without strategic assertion.

But something is shifting beneath the surface. A new generation of conservative leaders is emerging. Public attitudes toward security are hardening. And Tokyo is beginning to think of itself not merely as a status quo power, but as an active shaper of the international order.

At the center of this transformation stands Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. Her rise reflects a deeper mood within Japanese society, one that is characterised by anxiety about China’s rise, uncertainty about America’s reliability, and a growing belief that Japan can no longer remain strategically passive.

So what exactly is happening inside Japan today? Why are younger voters increasingly drawn toward a more assertive conservative politics? How does Tokyo view the China-Russia partnership? Why did tensions with Beijing escalate so sharply over Taiwan? And how is Japan trying to navigate a world where the United States remains indispensable, but no longer entirely predictable?

To unpack all of this, in this episode of The Great Power Show, I speak to Kei Koga, Assistant Professor at the Public Policy and Global Affairs Programme at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. We discuss the transformation of Japanese politics, the evolving Japan-China relationship, the strategic consequences of Trump 2.0, and how Tokyo is adapting to an increasingly turbulent world.

As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe, and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, please feel free to reach out to me.

In international relations, we obsess over great powers. What Washington thinks, what Beijing wants, what New Delhi will do next. We map their strategies, track their rivalries, debate their ambitions. And somewhere along the way, we forget that most of the world doesn’t get to play that game.

For smaller states, great power competition isn’t theory. It is the quiet, constant reality that you must navigate a world that is being shaped by others.

So how do these countries navigate that? How do you make decisions when the parameters are set by others? When geography limits your options, economics ties you down, and security concerns pull you in different directions, what does strategy even look like?

In this episode of the Great Power Show, we’re looking at those questions through the lens of a country that sits right at the fault line of great power politics: Nepal. Sandwiched between India and China, courted by the United States, shaped by history and geography—and now by a restless younger generation that just threw out its entire political establishment—Nepal is a case study in what it means to survive and adapt in an age of competition.

Joining me to unpack all of this is Professor S.D. Muni, former diplomat and Professor Emeritus at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Prof. Muni is one of the sharpest observers of politics in the Indian subcontinent. We talk about how smaller states think about power, how Nepal balances between competing giants, what the recent political upheaval tells us, and why the old play-books may no longer work.

As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe, and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, please feel free to reach out to me.