Politics

China's growing maritime and military assertiveness increasingly threatens American primacy and the stability of the rules-based democratic order in the Indo-Pacific region. The Chinese Communist Party aims to power-project its military capabilities while also advancing its economic and diplomatic relations by spending billions on hard infrastructure projects in the region through China's grand geopolitical project: the Belt and Road land and sea initiative.

Turkey has had a long-standing relationship with Europe and the West. Its integration into the transatlantic alliance in 1952 was perceived as being of strategic importance to Washington, as it covered the south-eastern flank of the alliance’s borders. Under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey is pursuing an aggressive foreign policy aimed at challenging the liberal international order, which has considerably alienated Turkey’s Western allies.

While Homophobia in Hungary is rising, the Fidesz government actively furthers the stigmatisation and marginalisation of the LGBT+ community. Ahead of the 2022 election, the government introduced another law that increases penalties for pedophiles while at the same time outlawing the "promotion of homosexuality" for those under 18 - thereby censoring sexual identity and conflating pedophilia with homosexuality.