The United States’ strategic competition and tensions with China dominated headlines in 2025 — including our own.
It was a year that started with Chinese startup DeepSeek’s reveal of its much cheaper AI model, raising the stakes for U.S. conversations around export controls on advanced chips, outbound investment rules and new Entity List additions that made China’s tech sectors a primary target.
The second Trump administration put fentanyl at the policy forefront, too, and China’s role in the supply chain along with it. And most prominently, of course, the two countries’ trade war roared back with the U.S.’s imposition of steep new tariffs, before an October agreement brought a temporary reprieve.
All the while, subtler China-related risks for businesses continued or arose, including around ties to Xinjiang forced labor and military production.
The Brief made China its focus this year in response, covering those topics and more through research-driven investigations, news coverage and analysis. Dive into our top 10 China stories of the year below:
It was a year that started with Chinese startup DeepSeek’s reveal of its much cheaper AI model, raising the stakes for U.S. conversations around export controls on advanced chips, outbound investment rules and new Entity List additions that made China’s tech sectors a primary target.
The second Trump administration put fentanyl at the policy forefront, too, and China’s role in the supply chain along with it. And most prominently, of course, the two countries’ trade war roared back with the U.S.’s imposition of steep new tariffs, before an October agreement brought a temporary reprieve.
All the while, subtler China-related risks for businesses continued or arose, including around ties to Xinjiang forced labor and military production.
The Brief made China its focus this year in response, covering those topics and more through research-driven investigations, news coverage and analysis. Dive into our top 10 China stories of the year below:
