Karishma Vaswani, Columnist

How to Survive When Superpowers Are Behaving Badly

Smaller Asian states need to be nimble in their foreign policy, and agnostic about their allegiances.

February 25, 2025 at 10:00 PM UTC

Karishma Vaswani is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia politics with a special focus on China. Previously, she was the BBC's lead Asia presenter and worked for the BBC across Asia and South Asia for two decades.

Superpowers behaving badly.
Photographer: Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images

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The meek shall inherit the earth, said no superpower ever. At a time when both the US and China are flouting international conventions, it’s up to small- and medium-sized nations to work together to uphold the rules-based order — or at least what’s left of it.

It feels like we are living through a looking glass moment, a world turned on its head. Under President Donald Trump, the US has upended decades of stable foreign policy. He made that abundantly clear on Monday by breaking with Washington’s traditional position on Ukraine, withdrawing condemnation of Russia’s 2022 invasion at the United Nations and among Group of Seven countries.