For more than five decades following the 1972 rapprochement between the United States and China, the two countries seemed to be steadily building a sound relationship, even accounting for periodic setbacks like the Tiananmen Square massacre.

The last decade, though, has seen a sharp increase in tensions and a complete reorientation of US policies toward China — from “engagement” to “competition.” Australia, too, has changed its approach to its largest trading partner.

What happened? Where is strategic competition heading? And what should US allies like Australia know?

This United States Studies Centre event featured Professor David Shambaugh, a world-renowned China scholar and author of “Breaking the Engagement: How China Won and Lost America”.

The future of the global economic order is in flux. Beijing's coercive economic policies, President Trump’s unprecedented tariffs, and the embrace of industrial policies around the world have cast doubt on the future of international economic rules. Globally, countries like Australia are being forced to contend with a more fragmented economic landscape that is affecting trade and technology flows, supply chains, multilateral institutions, and relations with the major powers.

In this era of unpredictability, critical questions arise:

• Where are Trump's tariffs heading and how will they impact US economic relations and the United States as a place to do business?
• Are the US and China heading for economic decoupling?
• How should countries like Australia, Japan, South Korea, and India navigate great power competition and economic pressure?
• What is the impact on alliance relations?
• What role will minilateral and regional groups play in shaping a post-tariff global order?

These questions were discussed by leading expert in diplomacy and economic affairs in East Asia, Ambassador Kurt Tong and USSC CEO, Dr Michael J. Green, at a public event moderated by USSC Director of Economic Security Hayley Channer.

To launch USSC senior lecturer Dr Kathryn Schumaker's new book, Tangled Fortunes: The Hidden History of Interracial Marriage in the Jim Crow South (Basic Books, 2025), Dr Schumaker was joined by scholars Dr Michael Green, Associate Professor Frances Clarke, and Dr Aaron Nyerges to discuss the themes of the book.

Prior to the US Supreme Court’s 1967 ruling in Loving v. Virginia, most American states prohibited interracial marriages at one time or another. But as Dr Schumaker reveals in Tangled Fortunes, such laws did not effectively prevent interracial marriages. Indeed, enforcement of such laws was inconsistent when it came to relationships between white men and Black women. In some Southern communities, such unions were tolerated – though often subject to social disapproval. The book offers a new narrative of the rise and fall of racial segregation from the perspectives of ordinary people whose primary goal was to keep their families together in the face of great difficulty.

• Read the Wall Street Journal review of Tangled Fortunes.