On April 14, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida sat down with CNN to discuss his upcoming summit with President Biden. During the discussion, Kishida discussed the rising tensions around the world as well as how Japan’s foreign policy is acclimating to the new geopolitical environment.

People across the world have already started eyeing the U.S. presidential race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, but there’s another high-stakes election across the Pacific. On April 10, South Korea will elect a new National Assembly, the country’s 300-member unicameral legislature. The results will in large part indicate citizens’ satisfaction with President Yoon Suk Yeol, elected in 2022, and his conservative People Power Party (PPP), while also testing the mettle of the main opposition, the more liberal Democratic Party (DP), which seeks to keep Yoon from gaining momentum as it looks ahead to the 2027 presidential election.

On Tuesday, April 9, Chinese State Official Wang Yi hosted his Russian counterpart Minister Sergey Lavrov in Beijing for talks on economic and security cooperation. The new cooperative measures are set to displace American influence in Asia and Europe, the United States’ most strategically important region and former most strategically important region, according to political scientist and professor John Mearsheimer.

This week, U.S.-based credit rating agency Moody downgraded China’s economic outlook. Though not an official credit downgrade — China’s credit remains rated A1 — the news still carries heavy significance, as an outlook downgrade is generally the first step taken before credit is downgraded in the future.

“We three ministers agreed to restore and normalize three-nation cooperation at an early date,” stated the South Korean foreign minister, signaling a resumption of talks in 2024.

In a televised meeting on Thursday, plans for a 2024 unity ticket between two of Taiwan’s major political parties fell apart due to disagreements over which candidate would top the ticket.