Good morning and happy Sunday,

This is Pacific Weekly, a premium exclusive of The Intel Brief intended to keep you updated on events across the hotly contested Indo-Pacific region.

Reporting Period: October 20-26, 2025

Bottom-Line Up Front:

China Concludes Fourth Plenum, Xi Issues New 5-Year Plan To CCP

Summary
On October 20, Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping convened the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee for its Fourth Plenum. The four-day session is intended to provide guidance for China’s next 5-year plan, which establishes economic and related goals, from 2026 to 2030. The body is expected to reconvene to formally approve the plan in March 2026.

Findings

• Background: Every year, the CCP’s Central Committee convenes for multiple plenary sessions to unify policy and strategic objectives, and to receive top-down guidance on how to achieve positive-sum gains (Brookings). The Central Committee, publicly elected but chosen by the CCP’s most senior officials behind closed doors, is responsible for appointing Politburo and Central Military Commission (CMC) members—China’s chief decision-makers who carry out policy (Brookings).

  • Divergence from Precedent: Historically, Fourth Plenums have been focused on CCP governance and issues that affect China’s political environment. This year, Xi Jinping broke from Mao’s established tradition and chose to focus on economics and building a new Five-Year Plan (Brookings). Note that this Plenum was preceded by a significant political purge of CMC and Politburo officials (The Intel Brief, AP News).

• The 2025 Fourth Plenum: On October 20, the Fourth Plenum convened to establish China’s plan for economic and social development, and establish the 15th Five-Year Plan (FYP) (South China Morning Post). The 15th FYP will establish an economic plan and top-down guidance for 2026 to 2030 (South China Morning Post, AP News).

• Issuance of Guidance and Appointments: On October 23, the state-affiliated Xinhua News Agency confirmed that the Fourth Plenum had concluded, with Xi Jinping issuing recommendations for the 15th FYP (Xinhua). The details of the FYP were sparse, with its formalization expected to occur in March 2026 (Brookings).
  The Xinhua piece did confirm the appointment of new officials to roles Xi Jinping recently purged (Xinhua):

Why This Matters
These plenary sessions are, to the world closed off from China, some of the most critical periods to observe because they provide insights into China’s high-level interests, ambitions, and intentions.

The establishment of Five-Year Plans and the appointment of senior officials are what give us, China’s primary adversary, a glimpse at how these ambitions will be pursued.

Knowing and understanding these goals will help the U.S. and our allies determine the likelihood of consequential decisions, such as trade with China or an invasion of Taiwan. We do this by knowing what contingencies China is accounting for through how it plans its economy.

Taiwan is already beginning to interpret the Five-Year Plan, with officials in Taipei growing wary that during the 2026-2030 period, China will embark on a policy of exerting economic control over Taiwan’s outlying islands before using that influence to coerce political disunity and justify some type of military intervention (Reuters).

Take a look at this thread for some extra analysis:

Trump Attending ASEAN Summit; Expected To Oversee Peace Agreement, Meet With Xi Jinping

Summary
On October 26, the ASEAN Summit convened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The summit convenes major ASEAN nations and external partners, including China, Japan, India, Australia, South Korea, and the United States. President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are attending, with Trump expected to meet with China’s Xi Jinping on the sidelines. Trump is also expected to oversee a peace agreement between Thailand and Cambodia.

Findings

• Background: The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit is the bloc’s highest-level decision-making forum, setting strategic direction for political-security, economic, and socio-cultural cooperation.

  • Participants: Attendees include leaders from ASEAN’s ten member states of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam (Reuters). It also includes external partners under the ASEAN+ format.

• 2025 ASEAN Summit: On October 26, the 47th ASEAN Summit convened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (ASEAN). The summit will address regional trade integration, maritime security, digital economy initiatives, and supply-chain diversification amid U.S.–China competition.

  Documented outcomes from the summit can be viewed here.

• Possible Trump-Xi Bilateral Meeting: The anticipated Trump-Xi bilateral meeting is expected to focus on tariff disputes, South China Sea militarization, and regional infrastructure competition (Reuters, NDTV). Both leaders will likely use the venue to project influence over ASEAN states and reinforce their strategic visions for the Indo-Pacific (Reuters, NDTV).

• Thai-Cambodia Peace Deal: On October 26, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul is scheduled to sign a peace agreement with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet (The Nation Thailand). President Trump is scheduled to preside over the signing of the peace agreement (South China Morning Post).

  • Risks to Peace: On October 25, it was reported that Prime Minister Anutin will not attend the ASEAN Summit due to the death of Queen Mother Sirikit (The Tribune India). Anutin’s absence raises questions as to whether or not the peace deal will be signed.

Why This Matters
Despite establishing some convergence on policy and transnational agendas, the ASEAN Summit, like similar conferences, is mostly symbolic. However, it does offer opportunities for sideline bilateral meetings that countries often use for diplomacy. This is precisely what China and the U.S. are expected to do, given the ongoing trade war and deteriorating security environment in the South China Sea.

One thing the ASEAN Summit will do is allow for the U.S. and allies to gauge the alignment of regional players.

U.S., Australia Sign Deal For Rare Earth Metals, Countering China And Enhancing The AUKUS Framework

Summary
On October 20, the United States and Australia signed a significant critical-minerals deal, coinciding with a high-level meeting on joint submarine production. The deal, announced during bilateral talks between President Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, expands American access to rare earths, lithium, and other strategic materials key to military, tech, and energy technologies.

Findings

• Critical-Minerals Deal: On October 20, reporting confirmed that President Trump and Prime Minister Albanese signed an $8.5 billion critical minerals deal (CNN, AP News). The agreement sets targets for increased mining, processing, and refining of key materials required for advanced electronics, hypersonics, and missile defense systems (CNN, AP News). The two countries will streamline regulatory approval, invest in joint ventures, and link supply-chain security to national defense systems (AP News).

• Submarine and Defense Industrial Collaboration: The bilateral talks took place alongside discussions of naval power projection in the Indo-Pacific, including submarine manufacturing partnerships and alignment on forward-basing capabilities in the Pacific theater, key components to the integrity and viability of the AUKUS agreement (AP News).

• Supply-Chain Resilience: Both nations acknowledged that dependence on single suppliers, especially from China, poses a risk to the global economy. The agreement articulates a shared goal of creating a “closed-loop” allied supply chain for defence applications (AP News). China currently controls more than 90% of the global supply of refined rare earth materials (CNN).

Why This Matters
For U.S. foreign policy, three implications of the deal stand out:

• Deterrence Enhancer: By securing critical-minerals with Australia, the U.S. can sustain high-tech military programs in the region, such as hypersonic missiles, submarine sensors, and electronic warfare systems. This diversifies the U.S. defense supply chain and reduces the complexities of a logistics chain.

• Industrial Shift: Recognising raw materials as national-security assets signals a shift from traditional foreign-policy tools to industrial strategy. Allies will increasingly become partners in defence manufacturing, not just consumers of U.S. equipment.
  That economic and industrial partnership is also a core tenet of classic Liberalism, and enhances and reinforces the regional partnerships we have built in the region by making stakeholders.

• Countering China: China sees the Indo-Pacific as its sphere of influence. This deal reduces Beijing’s leverage over essential supply chains and increases the cost of escalation for China.

China Makes October 25 “Taiwan Restoration” Day

Summary
On October 24, China’s Embassy in the United States confirmed that its National Legislature designated October 25 as the “Commemoration Day of Taiwan’s Restoration.” This is something to watch as 2027 rapidly approaches. Note that October marks the end of typhoon season in the region, which suggests that while October makes for the longest and most ideal “weather window” for an invasion, the new holiday also makes it symbolic.

End Brief

That concludes this edition of Pacific Weekly.

Thank you for reading!
— Nick