The idea of the “Great Game” is rooted in a 19th-century clash of empires. The mighty powers of Russia and Britain exerted their rivalry across an expanse of Eurasia, stretching from the ...

But this is the time for concerted action. Russia and China have already made their opening moves. The United States, following a line from Rudyard Kipling’s 1901 book, Kim, set against the backdrop ...

What is more surprising is that a great power — Japan — emerged in recent times within East Asia to challenge China, and indeed become one of the world’s preeminent powers.

“We could really change the map of urban development in medieval Asia,” he says in the statement. “The Silk Road wasn’t just about the endpoints of China and the West,” he adds.

The islands of the Pacific offer a striking example of what the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, branded in a report last week as the new “great game” between China and the United States.