Three journalists’ predictions for 2025

The year is now 2025.

Donald Trump has been inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States. Meanwhile, California residents are trying to rebuild their lives after massive wildfires worsened by climate change left their homes in ashes. Israel and Hamas have declared a ceasefire, and hostages from both sides of the conflict are being released. Ukraine continues to fight back almost three years after the Russian invasion, which is now being supported by thousands of North Korean soldiers. In Asia, China is struggling to kickstart its economy while South Korea remains mired in political instability after impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol’s botched attempt to declare martial law.

As 2025 begins, there is a mix of excitement and nervousness across the world for what the year has in store.

At a sold-out Club Lunch discussion at The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong, an expert panel shared their predictions and hopes for the next 12 months. Jennifer Jett, Correspondent Board Governor and NBC News’ Asia Digital Editor, was the moderator of the talk.

Still looming over global affairs are two grinding conflicts: the Israel-Hamas war and the war in Ukraine.

Speaking hours before Israel reached a ceasefire agreement with Palestinian militant group Hamas, Michael Bociurkiw, a former journalist and current Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council who is based in Ukraine, was skeptical.

“The one person who does not want peace to happen is Benjamin Netanyahu,” he said. “As long as this continues, it will keep him and his wife out of prison for a massive corruption scheme that they cooked up over the years.” (Netanyahu has rejected the charges.)

Peace also seems out of reach in the Ukraine war as it expands to Russia, where Ukrainian forces launched an August incursion in the region of Kursk and have been carrying out long-range drone strikes.

“You can’t blame Ukrainians for wanting to bring the war to the doorsteps of ordinary Russians,” said Bociurkiw, who pointed out that no civilians were killed in a Jan. 8 drone strike on a key Russian oil depot, in contrast to the scores of Ukrainians killed by Russian airstrikes.

The panelists also discussed the economic situation in mainland China and how a second Trump presidency might affect U.S.-China trade.

Juliana Liu, senior business editor at CNN International, said she was “not optimistic” about a Chinese economic turnaround this year, especially with Trump’s return to the Oval Office and the series of tariffs he’s expected to place on Chinese technology and other goods.

She said Trump was likely to maintain and even strengthen U.S. export curbs on strategic technologies, such as those on AI chips that were issued by President Joe Biden during his final days in office. Though the U.S. cites national security concerns, China says the restrictions are aimed at hobbling its development.

“So far it’s still a ‘cold’ war, it’s not a ‘hot’ war,” Liu said. “But anyone in this space will know that this is massively consequential. Computer chips are the oil and gas and gold of our age.”

Wang Xiangwei, a former editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post who now teaches journalism at Hong Kong Baptist University, said China’s financial troubles are caused not by any external factors, but by an over-reliance on the country’s infrastructure investment and exports, as well as the government’s struggle to spur domestic consumption.

“They will have to do something more than providing subsidies for households to upgrade their electrical appliances. To boost domestic consumption, you have to put money in the hands of people,” Wang said.

He also said both the mainland and Hong Kong governments have done a poor job of explaining themselves to the outside world, fueling misconceptions and misunderstandings. Wang said the invitation Chinese President Xi Jinping received to Trump’s inauguration, though unusual, was “a great opportunity that China missed.”

“The two leaders should really meet as soon as possible to avert another war over trade,” he said, “and then to talk about how the two countries could really seek a durable coexistence.”

To watch the full discussion, please visit the FCC’s YouTube channel: