It seems trite to say much has happened since a year ago. While an end to the Ukraine-Russia war remains elusive, the peace arrangement brokered by US President Donald Trump between Israel and Hamas provides hope that we have seen the end of the horrors of the past two years, and might offer the first realistic prospect of a durable peace in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, the spectacle of the coalition of the autocrats in Beijing as China’s President Xi Jinping presided over his military parade – perhaps the Yalta moment of the 21st century – was audaciously designed to visually draw a line under Pax Americana and signal the arrival of the multipolar era, with China at the centre.