Five key developments in international relations this week:12-16 May 2025 🔍🌍

⚔️⚔️SITREP : Sudan conflict

During the reporting period, there were a number of notable military operations by the warring factions in the Kordofan region and the capital Khartoum and its surrounds. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and allied militias claimed to have regained control of the town of Al Khuwayyi in western Kordofan, on 13 May after intense clashes with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with reports of hundreds of fatalities among the latter. The SAF counteroffensive came just days after RSF fighters had taken control of the towns of El Nahud and Al-Khuwayyi in early May. The towns are situated along a critical corridor connecting central Sudan to the Darfur region in the west.

In South Kordofan state, SAF seized the town of Al-Hamadi on 13 May, a key step a spart of the army’s broader objective to break the months-long siege of Dilling city, South Kordofan's second-largest city. Taken together, these developments indicate a fast-changing military landscape in the Kordofan region, as both sides seek a territorial advantage in the ongoing conflict. Intense fighting is likely to persist in the coming days as the RSF continues operations to push towards Kadugli, the state capital of South Kordofan, leveraging its military alliance with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu.

Elsewhere, in Omdurman, intense clashes between the RSF in the southern Salha district continued for a third day on 13 May, according to local military sources. By 12 May, the army had reportedly secured several sites in the Al-Jami’a neighbourhood and all of Al-Shaqla neighbourhood on Tuesday, including the strategic Omdurman Islamic University campus. Local sources also reported that at least 10 civilians had been killed in a crowded market in Dar es Salaam’s Block 27 in western Omdurman following an RSF drone strike on the area.

An uptick in the use of drones is also shaping up as a discernible trend in the trajectory of the conflict. During the night on 14 May, drone strikes hit three power stations in Omdurman, causing widespread electricity outages in large parts of Khartoum. The Khartoum state government directly accused the RSF of launching the attacks, describing it as a systematic targeting of vital civilian infrastructure. On 15 May, an RSF strike targeting the Military Medical Corps Hospital, in El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, resulted in the four patient deaths and over 60 serious injuries. The incident followed RSF artillery shelling on El-Obeid the previous day, which killed four civilians and injured eight others.

As the war drags on, the involvement of foreign powers backing rival factions not only complicates prospects for a resolution, but also exacerbated violence by incentivising belligerents to prolong the fighting. The SAF has benefited from external support, with Egypt, Türkiye, Russia, and Iran providing advanced weaponry, including drones, and financial backing. The RSF’s key backer is the UAE which has supplied fuel and weapons, including advanced Chinese-made weaponry, as highlighted in last week’s update.

The various mediation initiatives by a range of regional and international actors, including the Jeddah initiative ( led by Saudi Arabia and U.S.), an Egyptian peace initiative, and the AU’s High-Level Panel for Sudan have registered little progress in the face of demonstrable intransigence of the conflict parties who remain set on settling scores on the battlefield. All in all, the evolving dynamics on the various warfronts, surging drone warfare and internationalization of the conflict suggest the likelihood of a protracted conflict, with more devastation for civilians and heightened risk of regional instability.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East Trip

President Trump concluded a four-day trip to the Middle East, 13-16 May, with stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE. Highlights from the trip included substantial investment deals, worth billions of dollars with the respective Gulf countries, underscoring the transactional nature of Trump’s foreign policy approach and prioritisation of economic interests over strategic issues in the region such as the ongoing war in Gaza.

In Saudi Arabia, the headline was the signing of a defence sales agreement, described by the White House as the "largest defence sales agreement in history," valued at nearly $142 billion. The package included advanced U.S military equipment and services from over a dozen manufacturers, alongside investments in artificial intelligence and energy production. Saudi Arabia also committed to invest $600 billion in a series of deals with the U.S business leaders and sectors with a target of $ 1 trillion. There were also discussions over Saudi Arabia’s interest in acquiring F-35 fighter jets – a deviation from long-standing U.S policy that traditionally involved consulting Israel and sometimes granting Israel a veto on advanced Arab weapons acquisitions.

In Qatar, Trump and Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani finalised $1.2 trillion in agreements, including a $96 billion deal for Qatar Airways to purchase 210 Boeing aircraft and a $38 billion upgrade to Al Udeid Airbase, the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East.

In Abu Dhabi, the UAE outlined a ten-year $1.4 trillion investment framework focused on energy, AI, and advanced tech, specifically authorizing the import of 500,000 advanced Nvidia AI chips annually. The AI agreement includes commitments by the UAE to invest in U.S data centres comparable in size and power to those in the UAE and to align national security regulations regarding the diversion of U.S technology.

Also noteworthy, in remarks during the Saudi investment forum in Riyadh on 13 May, Trump announced plans to normalise relations and lift the sanctions imposed on Syria, related to the country’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. The U.S imposed sanctions on Syria intermittently since 1979, most recently the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act (Caesar Act, which came into effect in 2020) imposing secondary sanctions on foreign entities and individuals doing business with the Assad regime. Trump also met with Syria’s interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, in Riyadh, the first  meeting between leaders of the U.S. and Syria in over two decades. Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, is the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Al-Qaeda offshoot designated a terrorist organisation by the U.S. al-Sharaa emerged as the interim president and leader of the transitional government established in early 2025, following a lightning rebel offensive that toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which had overseen a  brutal civil war that lasted over 13 years. Trump's description of Sharaa  – who had a $10 million U.S bounty on his head – as "a good nice looking young guy" was puzzling given HTS's history of killing and decapitating minorities.

The exclusion of Israel from Trump’s itinerary has also fuelled speculation of growing distance between the U.S president and Benjamin Netanyahu. This distancing was preceded by telltale signs such as the demotion of Michael Waltz, the U.S ceasefire with the Houthis and negotiating a hostage release with Hamas  without consulting Israel in advance. However, officials from both sides have downplayed reports of divisions between the two leaders.

In his speech in Riyadh, Trump also castigated neoconservatives and liberal interventionists who had drawn the U.S into costly, long-drawn wars, while also exacerbating instability in the region. He criticised the “so-called nation-builders wrecked far more nations than they built, and the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.” Despite the strong criticism of the interventionist thrust in U.S foreign policy establishment, Trump’s rhetoric and his trip do not amount to a radical shift in U.S foreign policy in the Middle East. Rather, his trip underscores the prioritization of economic interests, a foreign policy that is markedly transactional in character and the willingness to engage with a diverse range of actors to reshape alliances and influence dynamics in the region. When viewed alongside the U.S domestic context, particularly the divergence of views on foreign policy within the White House, it seems that there many more questions about the long-term coherence and credibility of U.S foreign policy, with significant repercussions for geopolitical dynamics.

Negotiations in Istanbul

Officials from Russia and Ukraine met in Istanbul, Turkey on 16 May, in what was the first direct talks between the two countries since 2022. The talks, which lasted for about two hours, underscore the stark reality of the incompatible demands of the conflict parties and the fact that any potential settlement remains a remote possibility in the near-term. Russia approached the Istanbul talks as a continuation of the 2022 Istanbul process and reiterated its terms for ending the conflict, based on President Putin's 14 June, 2024 speech. These include: Ukraine's neutrality (potentially guaranteed by major Western powers in a treaty akin to Austria's 1955 State Treaty), the transfer of the four annexed territories (Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Luhansk, and Donetsk) and Crimea to Russia, major protections for Russian speakers, and steps towards demilitarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine. Ukraine's declared agenda for the Istanbul meeting was solely to discuss Russia accepting a 30-day ceasefire.

Given the fundamental disagreements, the meeting ended with no major breakthrough regarding ending the conflict. Nonetheless, the two sides agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners of war from each country and to exchange lists of conditions for a potential ceasefire. Despite the diplomatic efforts, the real leverage and momentum are currently seen on the battlefield, with Russia's gains creating new facts on the ground, steady advances across multiple warfronts and the upper hand in terms of force generation and manpower.

President Trump and President Putin are scheduled to hold a call on 19 May, focused on “stopping the bloodbath” between Russia and Ukraine, along with U.S-Russia trade issues. Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly called for an end to the war in Ukraine. His diplomatic approach on the war in Ukraine, including his overtures towards Putin, has put him on a collision course with European leaders who have insisted on an unconditional ceasefire before any talks can be considered with Russia.

🧱Multilateralism

Overview of the China-CELAC forum

The fourth ministerial meeting of the China-CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) Forum was held in Beijing on 13 May. The China-CELAC Forum was originally launched in Beijing in 2015, with the objective of deepening Sino-Latin American ties and economic cooperation.

A key highlight from the meeting was the announcement of a $9 billion yuan-denominated credit line for infrastructure development – reasserting China’s role as a development financier and building on Beijing’s efforts to position the yuan as an alternative to the dollar,  in a bid to internationalize its currency. Beyond traditional trade in commodities and manufactured goods, recent agreements illustrate expanding economic cooperation and investment across a range of sectors, including renewable energy, artificial intelligence, and green infrastructure. For instance, Chinese companies announced $5 billion in investments in Brazil, spanning sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production, electric vehicle plants, and solar and wind energy projects in the northeast.

In contrast to the Trump administration’s approach towards the region, centred around issues such as migration and tariffs, President Xi Jinping outlined five key programs to advance the vision China-LAC community with a shared future. These include: a solidarity program, a development program, a civilization program, a peace program, and a people-to-people connectivity program.

While China's intensified engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean presents significant economic and developmental opportunities, deepening ties also presents challenges such as maintaining autonomy in decision-making. Furthermore, there are internal challenges related to political systems' instability and weak institutional resilience when negotiating with China.

China - national security

China releases first white paper on national security

China's State Council Information Office on 12 May issued the country's first white paper on national security. The white paper, titled China's National Security in the New Era,  is an extensive document that outlines China's evolving security policy in the context of shifting geopolitical dynamics in the Asia-Pacific region, technological competition, and flashpoints from the Taiwan Strait to the South China Sea. The document is premised on the concept of ‘a holistic approach to national security, ’ which expands the traditional definition of security to encompass a wide range of domains beyond the military, emphasizing the interconnectedness of security across political, economic, military, technological, cultural, and societal spheres. This approach, which also draws on Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, identifies several key priorities. It declares the "people's security" as the ultimate goal, aiming to improve citizens' sense of "fulfilment, happiness and security". However, it strongly prioritises "political security as the fundamental task," upholding the absolute leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the socialist system, and the imperative of guarding against" the promotion of "Western democracy, freedom, human rights and so-called 'universal values'" by "overseas anti-China forces."

Additionally, a development-security nexus is underlined as one of the major principles of governance, promoting joint planning and implementation while also fostering synergy between openness and security.

On domestic security, the paper advocates for modernising China's legal and institutional structures, highlighting recent laws on cybersecurity, data protection, and counterterrorism as part of a "strong security shield" against unpredictable ("black swan") and high-probability ("grey rhino") risks. On core interests, the paper highlights China’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and development interests as non-negotiable, especially in the cases of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet, and maritime rights.

The document also highlights China’s Global Security Initiative (GSI), proposed by Xi in 2022, which advocates for shared security and multilateralism while opposing “bloc confrontations” and generalization of security by Western powers. It emphasizes Beijing’s commitment to peaceful development, promotion of global stability and prosperity, and realisation of shared growth through cooperation and dialogue.

Overall, the white paper sheds light on holistic security as the overarching framework informing Beijing’s strategic thinking and policy in the context of a rapidly evolving external environment. The core messaging is one of strategic confidence and portayal of a position of strength in defence of core interests and autonomy at home and in its region.

Germany has suggested that it could boost defence spending to 5% of GDP, in line with U.S President Donald Trump's demands for NATO partners to increase their military expenditure. In remarks during a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Antalya, Turkey, on 15 May Germany's Foreign Minister, Johann Wadephul, said Berlin backs a proposal by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte for allies to spend 3.5% of GDP on core defence activities and an additional 1.5% on related projects like cybersecurity and infrastructure. Wadephul's statement, despite Chancellor Merz’s stated goal of building a strong army, has caused friction within the German ruling coalition, particularly with the SPD, who are wary of the speed and scope of such a dramatic increase and advocate for coordinated decision-making within the alliance. Any drastic increase in defence spending also has major implications for the German economy and public finances – each additional percentage point of defence spending would mean an annual expenditure of approximately €45 billion.