The Conversation Weekly

As Xi Jinping prepares to host Donald Trump for a delayed summit in Beijing on May 14-15, a lot has changed since the US president's last visit to China in November 2017. Trump's first trade war with China began in earnest the following year, ushering in a new era of trade tensions between the world's two largest economies.
While Trump's second trade war raged in 2025, China reported a record trade surplus of US$1.2 trillion. Yes, direct trade with the US fell sharply, but China shifted its focus elsewhere, doubling down on an existing "great reallocation".
In this episode, we speak to economist Jiao Wang at the University of Sussex, about how decisions China took over the past two decades meant it was able to protect itself from the worst of Trump's tariff wars.
This episode was produced by Mend Mariwany and the executive producer was Gemma Ware. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.
Supreme Court’s tariff decision still leaves a ‘mess’ for companies trying to grab refunds
With a shrinking population, China needs new drivers of growth. Consumer spending has yet to fill the gap
Amid rising tensions, ‘friendshoring’ might keep global trade alive
Have US tariffs failed to bite? China’s trade surplus hits a record US$1.2 trillion

Mentioned in this episode:
Voices of the South

After Donald Trump took to social media to lambast Pope Leo's criticism of the Iran war, the pontiff told journalists "I'm not afraid of the Trump administration". Part of the war of words between Trump and Leo is a question over whether the Iran war is a just one.
Just war theory, first articulated by St Augustine in the fifth century, outlines the church’s moral guidelines for political and military leaders to consider before choosing to go to war. But it’s not static, and the church’s own position has become more restrictive in recent years.
In this episode, Gerard Powers, the director of Catholic Peace Building Studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, explains how the Catholic church’s just war tradition evolved and the influence it’s had on US military thinking. Powers was a senior advisor on international policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops during the Iraq war, and was involved in efforts to persuade the Bush administration not to invade.
He sets out the difficulty now facing Catholics serving in the US military, whose archbishop has now spoken out against the war they’re being asked to fight
This episode was produced by Katie Flood and Mend Mariwany and the executive producer was Gemma Ware. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

In around ten minutes on April 8, the Israeli military hit more than 100 targets across Lebanon. Israel called the attack Operation Eternal Darkness and said it struck Hezbollah command and control centres. The Lebanese government said at least 300 people were killed and 1,000 injured.
Israel has a powerful and lethal army, and it’s been defending itself against attacks from Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. But why has it chosen such brutal military aggression?
One historian, Yaron Peleg, believes the answer to this question lies in the early days of Zionism in the 19th century, when many Jews who arrived in Palestine were fleeing antisemitism in Europe. In defiance, they began a cultural revolution, emphasising military strength and honouring Biblical Jewish heroes.
But in the wake of the Holocaust, Peleg, who is a professor of modern Hebrew studies at the University of Cambridge in the UK, thinks Israel’s view of itself began to change. He tracks how he sees Israel’s self‑image changed from self‑reliance to aggressive militarism, and how that history helps to explain the way it wages war today.
This episode was produced by Mend Mariwany and the executive producer was Gemma Ware. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.
Mentioned in this episode:
Voices of the South

For 16 years, Viktor Orbán built an illiberal democracy in Hungary. Orbán and his Fidesz party managed to take control of many of Hungary's levers of power, from the judiciary to state-owned media, and weakened the institutions that could keep them accountable. Now, his regime has been ended by a former Fidesz insider, Péter Magyar, who managed to unite Hungarians to secure a two-third majority in the country's parliament.
So how did Peter Magyar manage to beat his former boss? And what does Magyar's victory mean for the European Union, where Orbán was a belligerent, pro-Russian voice at the leaders' table.
We speak to Zsolt Enyedi, professor of political science at the Central European University and an expert in Hungarian politics.
This episode was produced by Mend Mariwany and Katie Flood. Gemma Ware was the host and executive producer. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.
He exposed corruption and walked across Hungary. Now Péter Magyar has defeated a powerful state machine
What Viktor Orbán’s election loss means for Putin, Trump and the rise of right-wing populism
Viktor Orbán’s election loss shows the limits of his propaganda machine

Mentioned in this episode:
Voices of the South

If you have teenagers in your life, they’ll probably have heard of the PSL scale. Or at least the language associated with it. Chad. Stacy. Normie. Subhuman.
The PSL scale is a pseudoscientific attractiveness rating system used by looksmaxxers, men in a part of the manosphere who can go to extreme methods to change their appearance.
The roots of this rating system lie in misogynistic online forums used by incels or involuntarily celibates, but now it’s all over social media. So how did the language of incels, and this one way of quantifying attractiveness and beauty, go so mainstream?
In this episode, we speak to Jordan Foster, an associate professor of sociology at MacEwan University in Alberta, Canada, who researches social media, beauty and masculinity. He explains the origins of the PSL scale, where it fits into the manosphere, and how some looksmaxxing influencers are making money off it.
This episode was written and produced by Katie Flood and Gemma Ware was the executive producer. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.
What parents need to know to talk to their children about the manosphere
How ‘looksmaxxing’ self-improvement apps are marketing misogyny to young men
Men can get out of the manosphere. Here’s what former incels say about why they left
From gym to jawline: What looksmaxxing says about modern masculinity