Brief US-China calm masks simmering anger and distrust

Brief US-China calm masks simmering anger and distrust
Trump’s Beijing visit highlights both countries’ dilemma in gaining upper hand

Hiroyuki AKITA, Nikkei commentator
May 17, 2026

TOKYO — Japan and other U.S. allies, long wary of U.S. President Donald Trump’s transactional approach to foreign policy, were uneasy as they watched his three-day visit to China, which yielded few tangible results.
The concern was that Washington might pursue a rapprochement with Beijing while leaving unresolved the flashpoints in the East and South China Seas and the Taiwan Strait. While such a risk remains and the full impact of his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping is still unclear, genuine reconciliation appears unlikely.
One reason is that the U.S.-China cold war is deepening rather than easing, leaving both sides with shrinking room for compromise. Their rivalry for supremacy in high technology, military power and diplomacy has intensified, sharply narrowing the space for mutually beneficial deals.
There is little doubt that Trump would like to use his relationship with Xi as the basis for what he could tout as a “beautiful trade deal.” Yet his posture toward China cannot be reduced to a simple fixation on dealmaking.
According to a former senior U.S. official familiar with Trump’s thinking, the president has come to see China more clearly as America’s foremost adversary in advanced technology and security. He also appears to understand instinctively that any compromise on Taiwan could leave him vulnerable to accusations at home of being a “loser.”
Trump’s view of China is also colored by emotion. He harbors a deep grudge against the Chinese Communist Party, driven in part by the large U.S. trade deficit with China. But that is only part of the story. According to another former U.S. official, Trump strongly resents Beijing because he blames his failure to win reelection in 2020 on the coronavirus that spread from China and inflicted severe damage on the U.S. economy.
On the Chinese side, too, many factors stand in the way of U.S.-China reconciliation. Xi remains deeply suspicious that the U.S. is seeking to contain China and ultimately undermine Communist Party rule.
Xi wants stability in U.S.-China relations ahead of the Communist Party congress in autumn next year. But he has little incentive to make major concessions on key issues now. That is because he believes the global geopolitical landscape is shifting in China’s favor.
The Trump administration has withdrawn from one important international organization after another, while Washington’s relations with its allies have also become fraught. From China’s perspective, as a country seeking to dismantle the U.S.-led order, the world is moving in a direction Beijing can welcome without taking any action.
Xi has also grown increasingly distrustful of Trump. When he met with Western leaders in Beijing this spring, Xi vented his dissatisfaction with the U.S. president.
A diplomatic source familiar with the exchange said Xi’s frustration with Trump arose from the Taiwan issue. On Nov. 24, Xi held a telephone conversation with Trump and emphasized its importance to China’s strategic interests. About three weeks later, however, the Trump White House unveiled a record $11.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan, a move that deeply offended Xi.
Visibly angry, Xi said, in effect, that Trump had gone back on his word after saying he understood the importance of the Taiwan issue, according to the source.
In other words, the two superpowers are sliding into deeper mutual distrust and sharper confrontation at both the state-to-state and leadership levels. Trump may be eager to cast his China visit as a success, but striking a deal to ease hostilities between Washington and Beijing remains difficult.
Given these assumptions, how will U.S.-China relations play out in the near future? In short, the two countries are likely to intensify their struggle for supremacy while remaining deterred from making bold strategic offensives against each other.
For the time being, Washington cannot shift its attention away from the war with Iran and the broader situation in the Middle East. Its capacity to counter China in Asia by rapidly redirecting military resources there remains limited.
According to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, U.S. military operations against Iran may have consumed more than half of four of the seven key types of missiles in the U.S. arsenal, and about a third of the remaining three.
A strategic vulnerability with more serious implications for the U.S. is its continued dependence on China for rare earths. These materials, essential for high-performance magnets, phosphors and catalysts, are indispensable for the production of missiles and cutting-edge F-35 fighter jets. China accounts for 80% to 90% of the global share in rare-earth separation and refining, as well as in magnet production. The U.S. aims to free itself from dependence on Chinese rare-earth supplies, but some estimates suggest that achieving that goal will take at least a decade.
The Xi administration, too, faces a dilemma that prevents it from simply taking an uncompromising stance toward Washington. U.S. military intervention in Venezuela dealt a heavy blow to Beijing’s largest arms export market in South America, as well as to its oil interests there.
In Iran, the U.S. military has made extensive use of artificial intelligence, ushering in a new dimension of warfare. China clearly holds an advantage in Asia’s arms balance through the sheer volume of weapons it can bring to bear in the region, yet it is believed to have been deeply shaken by the AI-driven operations demonstrated by U.S. forces.
“An invasion of Taiwan would be highly risky, and the hurdles for China to carry it out in the immediate future are extremely high,” said a Chinese military expert.
Inside China, there is no shortage of potential hot spots that could jolt Xi’s administration. The economy is cooling, and Xi has repeatedly purged senior officials from the upper echelons of the military.
Against this backdrop, relations between Washington and Beijing are, for now, settling into a delicate equilibrium. The two continue to face off in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, yet the confrontation has not tipped into a major escalation of military tension.
Barring an unexpected clash, what might be called a petite detente — a modest, carefully managed easing of tensions — is likely to persist for the time being.
Still, the current trans-Pacific calm is merely the product of a confluence of factors that makes it risky for either side to take forceful action that could upset the status quo. It should not be mistaken for a genuine thaw. That assessment featured prominently at the World Policy Conference held near Paris from April 24 to April 26.
Particularly symbolic was a warning from Wang Jisi, founding president of Peking University’s Institute of International and Strategic Studies and one of China’s leading authorities on American studies.
“In the short term, I think [relations between] China and the United States will remain stable,” said Wang. “[But] they are long-term competitors, rivals, and they don’t like each other … don’t trust each other.
“I’m worried that maybe beyond this year, sometime next year, or at least in 2028 when you have a new U.S. president, rivalries will be intensified.”
Given the current circumstances, it is difficult to envision a “G2” framework in which the U.S. and China jointly manage global affairs. Rather, major powers should be prepared for a possible resurgence in U.S.-China tensions following this brief period of calm.

 

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Bertrand de La Chapelle

Executive Director of the Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network (I&JPN), an organization he co-founded in 2012. He is an internationally recognized expert of policy and governance issues related to the internet and Artificial Intelligence, with more than 25 years of experience in that regard. An engineer (X), but also a professional diplomat (ENA), and entrepreneur, he was a Director on the Board of ICANN (the global organization overseeing the naming system of the internet), France’s Thematic Ambassador for the Information Society, and the co-founder and CEO of Virtools, an early virtual reality pioneer, later acquired by Dassault Systèmes.

Trade routes begin upstream

Trade routes begin upstream

Jeremy FAIN, CEO of BWI.

April 27, 2026

When we speak of trade routes, our minds go first to the sea. Hormuz, Suez, Malacca, Panama: these are the passages that dominate headlines because these straits are visible, strategic, and vulnerable. Yet the deeper geography of trade is not only maritime. It begins upstream, in rivers, basins, reservoirs, and freshwater systems that determine whether commerce can flow at all.

This is the part of the global economy that is unknown and hence often underestimated.

Inland waterways are not a secondary layer of logistics. Inland waterways are a critical infrastructure of competitiveness, resilience, and sovereignty. Inland waterways shape draft, capacity, operating windows, and freight costs. Inland waterways connect agriculture, industry, and energy. And unlike digital systems, inland waterways cannot be made more efficient by software alone. Inland waterways depend on the stability of continental freshwater resource availability itself.

The Rhine offers a clear example. In 2022 and again in 2023, low water levels in Germany and along the Rhine corridor forced barges to sail only partially loaded, increased transport costs, and disrupted industrial supply chains. What seemed at first to be a seasonal hydrological problem quickly became an economic one. Europe’s industrial heartland discovered, once again, that its competitiveness depends on the reliability of a river system exposed to climate stress.

The same logic applies across other freshwater corridors. The Danube links multiple countries and markets, but its performance depends on upstream management and cross-border coordination. The Mississippi remains essential to bulk freight and agricultural exports in the United States. The Mekong is inseparable from food security, sediment transport, and basin governance. The Ganges and Brahmaputra remind us that water, territory, and trade are increasingly part of the same strategic conversation.

Panama belongs in this discussion as well, precisely because its canal is often misunderstood as purely maritime. In reality, it is a freshwater-dependent system. Its locks rely on water drawn from surrounding basins, and when rainfall declines, operational capacity declines with it. In 2023 and 2024, water shortages forced transit restrictions and draft limits. That is not a marginal technical issue. It is a warning that even one of the world’s most important trade corridors is only as strong as its water supply.

This is why water security must now be seen as a trade issue, not only an environmental one.

Climate change is reshaping the reliability of inland routes through drought, heat, evaporation, sedimentation, and volatility in river flow. At the same time, economic

systems are becoming more dependent on just-in-time logistics, which makes them less tolerant of disruption. The result is a growing mismatch between the physical constraints of water and the operational demands of the global economy.

For policymakers, this has immediate consequences. If inland waterways become shallower or less predictable, the effect is not confined to transport operators. It reaches energy prices, food prices, industrial planning, and ultimately political stability. A river system is therefore not just a transport corridor. It is a climate-sensitive strategic asset.

That is the policy shift we need. Freshwater corridors must move from the periphery of infrastructure debate to the center of economic security planning. They deserve the same strategic attention that governments already give to ports, energy grids, and digital networks. Their degradation would not simply be an environmental loss. It would be a loss of resilience, a loss of competitiveness, and a loss of autonomy.

So yes, the Strait of Hormuz remains a symbol of geopolitical fragility. But the next major stress point in global trade may well be found elsewhere: in rivers, basins, and inland canals, where climate and commerce now meet directly.

In a world that is more digital and more connected than ever, geography has not disappeared. Distance still exists. Gravity still exists. Water supply, as decided by precipitations and snow melting minus anthropic usages such as irrigation, energy, industry, drinkable water production, still decides.

And that is why the future of trade strategy will be written not only at sea, but upstream, where climate-proof infrastructure and water security define the boundaries of economic power.

 

How AI speeds “kill chain” in US attacks on Iran

How AI speeds ‘kill chain’ in US attacks on Iran
Mission completed in just over 10 minutes, raising concerns over nuclear strike use

Hiroyuki AKITA, Nikkei commentator
May 2, 2026

CHANTILLY, France — Artificial intelligence may be on the cusp of fundamentally reshaping how wars are conceived, planned and fought.
Few recent conflicts have demonstrated this transformation more starkly than in the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, where AI-driven systems have compressed decision cycles and accelerated the tempo of combat to a pace once almost unimaginable.
The breathtaking speed with which AI is being integrated into military operations has ignited fierce debate among policymakers, commanders and scholars, many of whom worry about the direction of warfare in an age of increasingly autonomous technologies.
How far can militaries entrust the conduct of war to AI — and where must human judgment reassert itself before a critical line is crossed?
At the World Policy Conference, held in Chantilly near Paris from April 24 to April 26, the accelerating transformation of warfare through AI emerged as an urgent theme.
Gen. Wayne Eyre, Canada’s former chief of the defense staff, warned that modern conflict is speeding up the military “adaptation cycle” — the process by which forces recognize a threat, formulate a policy and execute a response.
“It’s that adaptation cycle that in peacetime has been sometimes decades. We’re now seeing [it] in weeks,” Eyre said.
In private discussions, experts further warned that AI could cause misunderstandings and suspicion between adversaries to escalate almost instantly, potentially edging the world closer to a wider global conflict.
An analysis by the Al Habtoor Research Centre, a think tank linked to the United Arab Emirates, offers a startling account of that acceleration.
According to the center, the Feb. 28 U.S. and Israeli strike that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other senior figures took just 11 minutes and 23 seconds from target acquisition to completion.
The process of identifying a target and carrying out a strike is known as the “kill chain.” The shorter that chain, the more rapid — and more ferocious — the tempo of combat.
Before the attack, U.S. and Israeli forces integrated and analyzed vast amounts of satellite intelligence and other data. The work would have taken 328 human analysts 100 days, according to the center, but was completed in only about 90 minutes. The think tank said the whole operation was made possible by data-integration and analysis technologies provided by U.S. AI companies such as Palantir Technologies and Anthropic.
AI, however, is far from omnipotent. Human beings are said to have been involved in giving final approval for the latest attack, but they, too, can make mistakes.
On the first day of the strikes on Iran, an elementary school in southern Iran was bombed, killing many civilians, including children. The tragedy has since intensified scrutiny of modern targeting processes, including the growing role of semiautomated systems and the adequacy of human oversight.
If misused, AI can easily generate deepfakes — fabricated videos and information that look authentic — and spread them on a massive scale. The danger that such “pollution” of the information space could inflame conflicts should not be underestimated. That reality became apparent in the military clash between India and Pakistan in May 2025.
According to South Asian Voices, an online policy platform that publishes strategic analysis on South Asia, unverified videos and information circulated widely in both countries’ media and on social platforms during the clash. Some of the footage appeared to have been manipulated with AI.
As it becomes harder to distinguish truth from falsehood, the risk grows that each side will misread the other’s intentions. Such misperceptions could trigger a disastrous cascade of overreaction.
The consequences would be even more serious if lethal autonomous weapons systems, or LAWS, capable of carrying out attacks without waiting for human instructions, become widespread. Some analyses warn that involving AI in the operation of nuclear weapons could increase the risk of nuclear war.
King’s College London recently conducted a simulation exercise in which several AI systems were assigned the role of national leaders in a nuclear crisis. According to results released in February, tensions escalated alarmingly in about three-quarters of the 21 scenarios to a level that could have led to full-scale nuclear war.
During the simulation, AI appeared to show little inclination to defuse the crisis. Since the end of World War II, humans have developed a strong aversion to the use of nuclear weapons. By compressing decision-making timelines, AI-enabled warfare risks sidelining human judgment and increasing the danger of rapid, unintended escalation — a concern that extends even to nuclear confrontations.
The risks posed by the military use of AI are now too urgent to ignore. Neil Chauhan, director of global partnerships at Fortaegis Technologies, a Netherlands-based deep-tech startup, called for strict, built-in controls that would be embedded across AI systems.
“To prevent judgment errors and rapid escalation, states need to keep AI under strict control,” Chauhan said. “This cannot be achieved through policy alone. Enforceable authentication and control must be built into AI systems, from hardware to software and operations, so that only authorized systems can communicate, share data and act.”
International efforts to regulate the military use of AI remain insufficient. The United Nations has been exploring rules to ban or restrict lethal autonomous weapons systems, but there is still no clear prospect of an agreement. The U.S. and China, which should play crucial roles in such efforts, acknowledge the risks but remain cautious about creating legally binding international rules. Russia, too, remains opposed to introducing new rules.
As market competition intensifies, it will also be increasingly difficult to rely solely on ethical guidelines set by AI companies themselves. In the field of national security, states tend to assert broad discretion and press businesses to cooperate.
Still, AI will not change every aspect of warfare.
“The military importance of controlling land and maintaining superiority at sea and in the air will not disappear because of AI,” said a former senior official of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. “But without an advantage in information, it will become difficult to maintain physical superiority on land, at sea or in the air.”
While caution is warranted, treating AI with undue alarm and seeking its complete exclusion is unrealistic. What is important is to ensure that humans retain command and responsibility — and that AI is used in accordance with well-defined ethical standards.
“There is no one single piece of technology that is going to win wars,” Eyre said. “The nature of war continues to be a contest of human will.”

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Christine Choirat

Head of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (FSO), where her team develops secure infrastructures for the analysis of sensitive administrative data in support of evidence-based public policy. Her team developed and runs Lomas, Switzerland’s first operational differential-privacy platform, allowing policymakers and researchers to generate insights while preserving individual confidentiality. The team’s work also contributes to United Nations working groups on privacy-enhancing technologies and responsible artificial intelligence.She previously served as Chief Innovation Officer at the Swiss Data Science Center and as Visiting Professor at the University of Geneva. Earlier, at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, she designed large-scale data platforms supporting research that informed environmental and health regulations.

Luís Araújo

General Manager of the Biedronka chain. He has spent his entire career with the Jerónimo Martins Group, which he joined in 1995. He began as a Deputy Store Manager at Recheio Cash & Carry and subsequently progressed through all stages of his career within the Group. In 2009, he was appointed Group IT Director, with responsibility for IT across all brands and geographic regions (Portugal and Poland). In 2012, he became General Manager of Pingo Doce, the leading supermarket chain in Portugal. Four years later, in 2016, he was appointed General Manager of the Biedronka chain (Jerónimo Martins Polska), a position he continues to hold today.

Nicolas Bodin Guittard

CEO and co-founder of Label4.ai, a French deeptech specialised in the identification of AI-generated and manipulated content: deepfake detection, digital forensics and content authenticity verification. A lawyer by training, former Data Protection Officer and General Counsel, he has taken an atypical path to address what has become a structural challenge: the ability to identify what has been generated or altered within digital flows, and to rebuild a foundation of trust in the AI ecosystem. In 2026, Label4.ai received both the Startup Award and the Research Award at the Forum InCyber (FIC), the first company to achieve this double distinction in the competition’s fifteen-year history. Label4.ai is actively engaged with the European Commission on the implementation of Article 50-2 of the AI Act.

Nuno Aguiar

Chairman & CEO Chief of Staff at Jerónimo Martins. He has extensive experience in the retail and distribution sector, particularly within the Jerónimo Martins Group, one of Europe’s leading food distribution companies. He began his career in 1996 at Jerónimo Martins’ Marketing and Distribution Company (JMD), where he served as Product Manager and Key Account Manager. In 2003, he joined Fromageries Bel, taking responsibility for managing international brands in Portugal. After three years, he returned to Jerónimo Martins, where he assumed a series of senior leadership roles across key business areas, including Sales and Marketing Manager at JMD, Human Resources Director at Pingo Doce, as well as Commercial Director and Operations Director. In 2016, Nuno Aguiar took on an international leadership role as Chief Executive Officer of Ara in Colombia, where he led the company’s development and consolidation in a highly competitive market over a five-year period. He returned to Portugal in 2021 to assume the role of Chief Operations Officer at Pingo Doce and became a member of the company’s Executive Committee. In this capacity, he oversaw operational efficiency, planogram management, and expansion strategy. He holds a degree in Management from the Universidade Católica Portuguesa.

Jean-Christophe Bas

Jean-Christophe Bas is the Vice President of the Aspen Institute France; he is the founder and CEO of The Global Compass and a professor at IRIS. From 1999 to 2008, he was the Head of Strategic Dialogue at the World Bank, in charge of strategic engagement and policy dialogue with key stakeholders, policy makers, academics and influencers. From 2008 to 2014, he served at the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations in New York as Head of Strategic Development and Partnerships. Then, he was the Director of Democratic Citizenship and Participation at the Council of Europe, running a team of 160 staff dedicated to fostering democratic participation and citizenship, intercultural understanding and cooperation. From 2018 to 2020, he served as CEO and chairman of the executive Board of the Dialogue of the Dialogue of Civilizations Institute in Berlin. He is the author of EUROPE A LA CARTE, a book of reflection on European identity. He is also the author of “André Bas, Combats pour l’Entente. He regularly contributes comments on international affairs in major media outlets: Euronews, EUReporter, Valeurs Actuelles, l’Opinion, CCTV, TRT, Bastille Magazine.

Thierry Lepercq

Thierry Lepercq leads executive circles bringing together CEOs, executive committee members, and board-level leaders from international groups in Paris, Lille, and Lyon. These groups meet monthly with experts to discuss the evolving nature of geopolitical risk. He also leads the Thucydide Circle, which brings together diplomats, military generals, senior civil servants, and geopolitical experts who exchange views on the complexity of today’s geopolitical landscape, drawing parallels with history. Having specialized in the United States for several years, Thierry Lepercq advises investors and international groups on the business environment and the evolving risk landscape in the U.S

Christian Langlois-Meurinne

Graduate of Ecole Polytechnique and holder of an MBA from Harvard. Christian Langlois-Meurinne has more than 50 years of experience in the investment sector with IDI, for which he oversaw the buyout in 1987. Previously, he was Director of Chemical, Textile and Allied Industries at the Ministry of Industry from 1979 to 1982.

Gauthier Schweitzer

Co-founder and CTO of Sahar. Sahar is a French company that develops solutions to transform large volumes of open-source data into actionable insights. It works with governments and major corporations in sectors such as defense, energy, and finance.
A data scientist by training, he is a graduate of École Polytechnique, ENSAE, and Sciences Po.

Nicholas Kairis

Chief Legal Officer for Sagint Inc., where he architects legal frameworks for digital infrastructure and the tokenization of real-world assets. He is also the Head of International Legal Affairs for the Mohammed Omar bin Haider Holding Group, overseeing cross-border investments in energy, real estate, and infrastructure. Nicholas Kairis is an international legal executive and financial strategist with over twenty-eight years of experience spanning Europe, the United States, and the Middle East. A specialist in regulatory architecture and digital securities, Mr. Kairis has held senior leadership roles for major investment platforms and multinational holding groups, including Khamis Buamim Investments and HBK Department of Projects. His expertise covers highly regulated sectors such as financial services, commodity trading, mining, and fintech. Admitted to the Supreme Court of Greece, he is a member of the Athens Bar Association and holds an LL.M. from the University of Heidelberg. Throughout his career, he has advised global corporations and served in various board and investment committee capacities, focusing on complex multi-jurisdictional compliance and international arbitration.

Sidi Mohamed Boubacar

Former Prime Minister of Mauritania on two occasions. In the early 1990s, he oversaw negotiations with the International Monetary Fund that led to a three-year reform program aimed at strengthening the balance of payments and improving growth prospects. In 2005, he was again appointed Prime Minister to lead the transition to civilian rule. In this role, he oversaw the adoption of constitutional laws guaranteeing public freedoms and facilitating a peaceful transfer of power. Sidi Mohamed Boubacar also served as Minister of Finance and Minister Secretary-General of the Government. He held various technical positions within the Ministry of Finance, including Budget Director, Planning Director, and Treasury Director. He also had a distinguished diplomatic career. He served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Mauritania to Spain, Egypt, and France, and as Permanent Representative of Mauritania to the United Nations. He was a candidate in the 2019 presidential election, where he won more than 17% of the vote. Sidi Mohamed Boubacar obtained his bachelor’s degree from the National School of Administration of Mauritania, graduating as valedictorian in the Financial Administration track. He also received a postgraduate diploma in law from the Université d’Orléans (France). He has published “The African Exception” in Choc des Populations: Guerre ou Paix (Fayard, 2010).

Isabelle Bébéar

Director of International and European Affairs at Bpifrance since 2019. She leads the bank’s international strategy to boost its visibility and support the growth of French companies abroad. Her responsibilities include managing relationships with European and global institutions, developing partnerships with sovereign wealth funds and long term investors, and advising foreign governments on building strong entrepreneurial ecosystems. She also oversees EuroQuity, the digital platform that connects innovative businesses with international investors and new opportunities. More than 20 years ago, Isabelle created Averroès Africa, the first European fund of funds dedicated to Africa. She continues to steer its successive programs, including Averroès Africa IV (2023) and the Averroès Venture Fund (2025). Altogether, the funds have invested over €250 million in 35 venture, growth and debt funds supporting startups, SMEs and mid caps across 40 African countries. Isabelle also sits on Proparco’s board and on the board of the Aspen Institute France. She co chairs the Montreal Group.

Jean-André Barbosa

Vice President of Public Affairs for Renault Group since September 2025, Jean-André Barbosa previously served as Head of European Public Affairs and Regulation for France after joining the Group in September 2022. He began his career at the European Commission within the Directorates-General for Trade and Energy, notably participating in the WTO Doha Round negotiations and various energy-related negotiations with third countries. Between 2008 and 2020, he held executive leadership positions in the private sector across several multinational groups. These included Saint-Gobain, where he was General Manager for the CIS region (Packaging division), and AREVA, where he served as Director for Central and Eastern Europe, specifically in charge of public affairs. In 2020, he returned to the European Commission as an expert within the Chief Economist’s team at DG Energy. He is a graduate of the École des Mines de Paris and a Chief Engineer of the Corps des Mines.

Élie Tenenbaum

Élie Tenenbaum is the director of Ifri’s Security Studies Center. After years of focusing on irregular warfare, counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism, his research now leads him to cover more general strategic issues, in particular European security and defense policy. He holds PhD (2015) in History and graduated from Sciences Po (2010), he has been a visiting fellow at Columbia University (2013-2014) and spent a year at the War Studies Department, at King’s College London (2006) ; he has taught international security at Sciences Po and international contemporary history at the Université de Lorraine. He is the author of numerous articles and books on history and strategy, including The Twenty Year War: Jihadism & Counter-Terrorism in the 21st Century, with Marc Hecker (Robert Laffont, Prix du Livre Géopolitique 2021).

Tristan Aureau

Director of the Centre for Analysis, Planning and Strategy of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Prior to this, he served as chief of staff to the French Minister for EU Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot (2024). He has extensive experience in international and European affairs due to his previous functions, as deputy sherpa to the President of the European Council (2019-2023) and as diplomatic adviser to the EU Negotiator for Brexit, Michel Barnier (2016-2019). Tristan Aureau is a member of the French Council of State, where he started his career as an administrative judge and a legal adviser to the Government (2013-2016). In parallel to his different posts, he has been teaching international relations and public law in several academic institutions, notably Sciences Po, ENA and the College of Europe.

Arthur Breitman

Director of Trilitech and Co-Founder of Tezos, a decentralized open source blockchain platform. Prior to becoming involved in Tezos full time, he worked at X and Waymo on self-driving cars. In his earlier career, he worked as a quantitative analyst at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. He graduated from the École polytechnique and holds a MS in financial mathematics from the Courant Institute at NYU.

Dario Liguti

Director of Sustainable Energy at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), he oversees a region comprising 56 member States across North America, Europe, and Asia. In this role, he provides strategic policy advice and analysis to governments to support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement, while fostering international energy cooperation. With nearly 30 years of experience in the energy sector, he previously served as Chief Underwriting Officer at SACE, Italy’s State Guarantee Agency. There, he was responsible for export credit, the EU Green New Deal, and guarantees under the EU Temporary Framework. Mr. Liguti spent over a decade at General Electric (GE), holding senior roles in project finance, corporate strategy, and investment banking, eventually serving as Global Head of Government and Export Finance. His earlier career includes positions at the Council of Europe Development Bank and the European Commission. He holds an MSc in Economics from Bocconi University and an MA in EU Law from Leicester University. He began his professional journey at Cargill.

Gérard Larcher

Gérard Larcher has served as President of the French Senate since 2014.

Jorge Castañeda Gutman

Former Foreign Minister of Mexico from 2000 to 2003. He is a renowned public intellectual, political scientist, and prolific writer, with an interest in Mexican and Latin American politics, comparative politics and US-Mexican and U.S.-Latin American relations. Dr. Castañeda received a B. A. from Princeton University and a B. A. from Université de Paris-I (Pantheon-Sorbonne), an M. A. from the École Pratique de Hautes Etudes, and his Ph. D. in Economic History from the University of Paris-I. He taught at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM) from 1978 through 2004, at Princeton University, and the University of California, Berkeley; from 1997 to 2025 at New York University, and at Sciences Po in Paris since 2022. Among his more than 15 books published in the United States and elsewhere are: Limits to Friendship: The United States and Mexico (with Robert Pastor), Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left after the Cold War (Knopf, 1993), The Mexican Shock (New Press, 1995), Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara (Knopf, 1997), and Perpetuating Power: How Mexican Presidents Were Chosen (New Press, 2000); Ex-Mex: From Migrants to Immigrants (The New Press, 2007); Mañana Forever? Mexico and the Mexicans (Vintage, Random House, 2012); America Through Foreign Eyes (Oxford University Press, 2020).In April 2008, Castañeda was elected Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and International Member of the American Philosophical Society.

Eric Campos

CEO of the French Army Foundation, a publicly recognised foundation of public interest, since the beginning of 2026. Having led banks and financial institutions for 35 years, he also founded and ran a renewable energy production and transition consulting company, and served as CEO of a microfinance and Social Business Foundation operating in over thirty-five countries across three continents. With extensive experience in France, the French Overseas Territories, and internationally, He defines himself as a committed executive and practitioner of sustainable finance in service of an economy that respects living systems.

Bernard Salomé

Senior international advisor and economist, Dr. Bernard Salomé is currently preparing an international conference on innovation for domestic resource mobilisation in Africa, and advises on the development of AI and Agentic AI solutions to broaden the tax base across the African continent — placing him at the forefront of the intersection between artificial intelligence and public finance. Dr. Salomé holds a doctorate in Economic Development from the Université Paris Sorbonne and has accumulated over four decades of experience across international organisations, multilateral institutions, and presidential advisory roles. Early in his career, he served as Deputy Director of the G7 Support Implementation Group in Moscow, designing the comprehensive information system used by all embassies and donor agencies coordinating external aid to Russia. He subsequently served as Director of the Office of Economic Policy of UNMIK in Kosovo, acting as principal strategic advisor to Special Representative of the Secretary-General Dr. Bernard Kouchner. He later held the position of Special Representative of the Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt, and served as Managing Director of the Millennium Foundation for Innovative Finance for Health in Geneva. He has also advised at the highest level of government in Côte d’Ivoire as Senior Advisor to the President of the Republic. He is the author of eight books on development issues and has worked across more than thirty countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

Abdallah Hamdok

Former Prime Minister of Sudan (2019 – 2021)
H.E. Hamdok (Ph.D.) is a Policy Analyst/Economist with over forty years of experience addressing development challenges in Africa and the Middle East at various levels (national and regional). Over the years, he has developed an interest in policy-oriented research and analysis, focusing on Regional Integration and Trade, Macroeconomics Policies, Governance, Institutional Analysis, Public Sector Reforms, and Resource Management. The primary author of many publications on African development challenges, including development finance, macroeconomics, governance, and other related issues. He served as a Senior Advisor Strategy and Partnerships, Trade and Development Bank, Deputy Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). Before that, he held senior positions at the UNECA, ILO, UNDP, the African Development Bank, Regional of International IDEA, for Africa and the Middle East 203-2008, and Deloitte & Touche. Prior to that, he was a senior official with the government of Sudan (Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning). Member of several Boards and High-Level Panels such as the Coalition on Dialogue for Africa (CODA); Member of the Board of Human Science Research Council (HSRC) of South Africa; Member of the Trade and Development Bank (TDB) Eminent Personalities Panel. Chair of the Advisory Council of Mo Ibrahim Foundation and Chair of the Technical Committee of the High-Level Panel (HLP) on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa.

Dominique Senequier

President and Founder of Ardian, a world leader in private investment, Dominique Senequier is a pioneer in the private equity industry. She founded the firm in 1996 within the AXA Group before leading its independence in 2013, making Ardian a company majority-owned by its employees. Under her leadership, the firm has become a major global player, managing assets across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. A strong advocate for finance as a force for the common good, she introduced a groundbreaking profit-sharing model in 2008, redistributing a portion of capital gains to all employees across its portfolio companies. Her vision, “Architects of Lasting Change,” integrates sustainability into the core of economic performance. She also established the Ardian Foundation to foster social mobility. Promoted to Officer of the Legion of Honor in 2021, she was elected to the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques in 2023 A member of the French Actuarial Institute, she was part of École Polytechnique’s first mixed-gender class in 1972 and holds a postgraduate degree in economics from Paris-Sorbonne University. She began her career at the French Ministry of Economy and is consistently ranked among the world’s most influential figures in finance.

Omar Manis

Omar Manis is a seasoned Sudanese diplomat with more than four decades of experience in international diplomacy, multilateral affairs, and peacekeeping. He served as Sudan’s Ambassador to France (2021–2022) and as Minister of Cabinet Affairs in Sudan’s Transitional Government formed after the December Revolution 2019.During his distinguished diplomatic career, Ambassador Manis held senior positions within Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and represented Sudan at the United Nations, including serving as Acting Permanent Representative in New York. He also worked with the United Nations in senior roles in peacekeeping missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Western Sahara. He has participated in numerous international conferences and summits, including meetings of the United Nations, the African Union, and the Group of 77 and China. He holds degrees from the University of Khartoum and has pursued studies in France and Germany. He speaks Arabic, English, French, and Zaghawa.

Moritz Maier

Dr. Moritz Maier is the CEO of Synera, an AI software company trailblazing the field of AI agents for engineering. With a background in aerospace engineering and a PhD in product development processes, Dr. Maier has spent his career at the intersection of engineering practice and digital transformation. Before founding Synera, he worked extensively in generative design and process automation, gaining firsthand insight into the inefficiencies and fragmentation that slow down engineering teams today. At Synera, he’s leading the company to build a new foundation for engineering work where AI agents become collaborators. Dr. Maier’s long-term vision is to build a “JARVIS for engineers”: an agentic AI coworker that understands engineering context, collaborates across tools, and scales expert knowledge across organizations. His work aims to rethink the engineering process from the ground up using AI-first principles – moving beyond isolated tools toward adaptive, agentic engineering that learns and improves over time. He holds a PhD in Production Engineering from the University of Bremen with research on bionic lightweight design methods.

Guillaume Laganne

A senior civil servant at the Ministry of the Armed Forces following his graduation from the École nationale d’administration (ENA, now the INSP), Guillaume Lagane has held positions at the Directorate General of Armaments (DGA), the Secretariat General for Administration (SGA), and the Directorate General for International Relations and Strategy (DGRIS). He currently serves as Political Adviser to the Chief of Staff of the French Army. An agrégé in history, he also teaches geopolitics at Sciences Po and has published several works on international relations.

Niall Burgess

Ambassador of Ireland to France and Monaco since 2021, he previously served as Secretary General of Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs, the highest diplomatic position, where he played a key role in securing Ireland’s election to the United Nations Security Council for a two-year term. A career diplomat, he has devoted much of his career to relations between Ireland and the United Kingdom, particularly cooperation with Northern Ireland. He served as Director General of the Anglo-Irish Division from 2010 to 2014, having previously been Director of the same division from 2004 to 2007. Earlier in his career, he held several international postings, including Consul General of Ireland in New York (2007–2010) and Vice Consul in Chicago (1987–1991). He also served as First Secretary at Ireland’s Permanent Mission in Geneva and as Head of Task Force in the Policy Unit of the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union in Brussels from 1997 to 1999. His career reflects extensive expertise in transatlantic, European, and multilateral relations.