Welcome to 2025—a year where the global stage feels less like a chessboard and more like a precariously stacked Jenga tower.
Every move—be it a tariff imposed in Washington, a bank bailout in Beijing, an AI breakthrough in Silicon Valley, or a ceasefire negotiation in Gaza—risks toppling the entire structure. We're not just entering a year of change; we're stepping into a vortex where geopolitical, economic, technological, and societal forces collide in ways that are both unprecedented and unnervingly familiar.
Think of 2025 as a magnifying glass and a mirror simultaneously. It will magnify unresolved tensions—from trade wars to tech races—and mirror the vulnerabilities of systems we once considered stable. As tectonic plates shift beneath the pillars of global power, three key questions emerge: Will America's protectionist turn under Trump 2.0 reshape global trade? Can China navigate economic stagnation and rising societal discontent without cracking under pressure? And will the chaotic churn of AI innovation become the ultimate wild card in this geopolitical poker game?
Fasten your seatbelts. The ride ahead is not just turbulent—it's defining.
America in 2025: The Return of Trumpism, Round Two
If history doesn't repeat itself but rhymes, then Trump's return to the Oval Office isn't just another political sequel—it's the opening act of a global economic drama.
Trump 2.0 promises a remix of his 2017 playlist: sharp tariffs, tough immigration policies, and a foreign policy approach that feels more like a transaction ledger than a strategic blueprint.
Will Trump actually impose a 60% tariff on Chinese imports? Could we see duties on European autos ballooning to 200%? The truth is, no one—including Trump himself—knows. But here's what we do know: tariffs are a blunderbuss in a scalpel's world. As Financial Times columnist Alan Beattie aptly describes, they're crude instruments for fixing deeply complex economic problems.
If the first Trump trade war was about rattling supply chains and shaking global markets, Trump 2.0 could be about remaking global trade architecture entirely. The question isn't whether the tariffs will cause disruption—they will. The real question is whether they'll succeed in pressuring China, Europe, or Mexico into renegotiating terms on America's terms.
But tariffs are only one part of the Trump playbook. Trump's return signals a sharper, more transactional foreign policy—alliances will be tested, NATO could face fresh existential angst, and global financial institutions might become tools in Trump's geopolitical toolbox. As The Economist's Zanny Minton Beddoes warns, America's protectionist pivot and AI's rapid integration into economic systems create a combustible mix. If 2017-2020 was the era of Trumpian disruption, 2025 could be the year of Trumpian realignment—chaotic, unpredictable, and consequential.
China: The Great Stagnation and the Xi Tightrope
China enters 2025 not as the unstoppable economic locomotive it once was but as a sputtering engine running on borrowed time and borrowed money. Years of debt-driven growth, an over-leveraged property sector, and faltering consumer confidence have created what some economists call a "middle-income purgatory."
President Xi Jinping, China's most powerful leader since Mao, faces a dilemma: stimulate the economy aggressively at the risk of long-term instability or accept slower growth and manage rising social discontent. Beijing's People's Bank is already signalling interest rate cuts and stimulus measures, but these feel more like aspirin for a migraine rather than a cure for structural headaches.
Underneath the surface, societal cracks are starting to show. Rising incidents of random violence and "revenge on society" attacks aren't just isolated tragedies—they're symptoms of deeper societal anxiety. The Communist Party's answer? More surveillance, more control, and more "social work," not in the welfare sense, but in the Orwellian sense—monitoring citizens to prevent dissent before it even begins.
But there's another wildcard: Trump's tariffs. If the U.S. pushes ahead with aggressive trade measures, China could face a brutal squeeze on exports. Xi Jinping's leadership will be tested not just by economic stagnation but by the spectre of rising nationalism.
Make no mistake: China isn't collapsing. But it's caught in a strategic cul-de-sac.
Too developed for cheap, labour-driven growth and too constrained by state intervention to fully unleash market innovation. Whether Xi can walk this tightrope without falling remains one of the most critical geopolitical questions of 2025.
Russia: War, Sanctions, and the Limits of Resilience
If China is a sputtering engine, Russia is an old marathon runner on financial steroids. The war in Ukraine has forced Vladimir Putin to turn the Russian economy into a wartime fortress, driven by state spending, creative accounting, and oil exports to willing buyers like India and China.
But there are limits to how long a war economy can sustain itself. Inflation is rising, the ruble remains fragile, and domestic discontent simmers just below the surface.
Putin's strategy seems clear: drag out the war long enough for Western resolve to crumble.
Enter Trump. The former president has promised to "end the war in 24 hours."
Realistically, this means pressuring Ukraine into territorial concessions in exchange for a ceasefire. But as The New Statesman's Wolfgang Münchau notes, Putin may have little incentive to stop now. Every month brings incremental gains in the east, and Russia's military machine—while battered—is far from broken.
Russia's economy, however, might tell a different story. War isn't cheap, and sanctions have started to bite. If 2024 was about military advances, 2025 might be about economic exhaustion.
Continues in Part 2 …….
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Economist Samirul Ariff Othman is an adjunct lecturer at Universiti Teknologi Petronas, an international relations analyst and a senior consultant with Global Asia Consulting. The views in this OpEd piece are entirely his own.