Ep 183. Trump Visits China, the world order is broken - With Leslie Vinjamuri

This week on Disorder, in a slight break from the Mayhem in the UK over the possible Leadership challenge to Starmer, Jane catches up with the President and CEO of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and host of the Deep Dish podcast, Leslie Vinjamuri. Leslie and Jane used to work together at Chatham House. They start by discussing Leslie’s final project for Chatham House where she worked with a host of experts to analyse how rising powers, middle powers and US adversaries see the international order as well as new possible ideas of global Order.

Surprise, surprise mega-orderers, the conversation proves the depressing result that we already know! -- i.e. that there are no serious alternative visions of order that are emerging and no non-neo-populists are putting forth compressive visions of global order. Will the continuance of the Enduring Disorder therefore be the hallmark of our times?

Probably yes :-< On a brighter note, Leslie thinks the US will revert to a more “normal” politics in Trump’s wake. Jane is not so sure: she and Leslie discuss why the UK hasn’t been able to “get back to normal” under Keir Starmer and how the breakdown of the political centre is making it harder and harder to address the long-term economic issues that underpin Britain’s current malaise.

This week we also delve into Trump’s trip to China; the role of Europeans in enabling China, and how different camps in Washington are looking at the China trip - with think-tankers pretty skeptical that it will make any difference, while business leaders are eager to join the trip to what is, after all, the world’s second biggest market for most of them. No matter what happens there we must ask is Europe working with or against the US’s China policy? And will any coherent transatlantic order emerge out of a re-alignment over China?

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Producer: George McDonagh

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Show Notes Links:

To join our Mega Orderers Club for ad free listening, early episode releases and exclusive access to live events, visit disordershow.com/club

Leslie’s podcast, Deep Dish - https://globalaffairs.org/commentary/podcasts/deep-dish-global-affairs-podcast

Leslie on Bloomberg about Trump and Xi - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-05-11/us-iran-tensions-flare-ahead-of-trump-xi-meeting-video

Leslie’s Chatham House project on competing visions of the international order - https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/03/competing-visions-international-order

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