Anka Lee | What's Next? China Competition and America's Allies and Partners after Trump

The Moynihan Institute’s Practice of Global Politics Seminar series presents Anka Lee, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia.

What is certain in global affairs is that we are now at the end of an era. What is less certain is what will come next. The Trump administration has upended decades of American foreign affairs—tariffing friends while resetting ties with strategic competitors. The long-standing assumption of having a bloc of democracies to counterbalance China's authoritarian vision for the world has given way to a transactional approach that sees Beijing as another deal to be achieved. Have we given up on strategic competition? What's the next move for our closest allies and partners still anxious about Beijing but distanced from Washington? Regardless of who wins in 2028, how should a new generation of American leaders manage this evolved and evolving assumption about Washington's motivation and its role in the world?

Anka Lee is a national security expert with over two decades of experience leading large teams, including as deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia at the Pentagon, USAID deputy assistant administrator for multilateral affairs, and international policy director at the California State Assembly. He is a founding partner at the strategic consulting firm Scalare Advisors; distinguished fellow at the Wilson Center; and a senior advisor at DGA Group and Special Competitive Studies Project.

He has written for and appeared on The Atlantic, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, Just Security, Foreign Policy, NBC, Newsweek, POLITICO, Time, and San Francisco Chronicle. Anka began his career as a print and broadcast journalist in San Francisco and in California policy and politics. He was educated at UC Berkeley, Sacramento State, and Harvard University.