Over the past three decades, the tectonic plates of the global order have shifted visibly, as economic growth, technological creativity, and strategic contestation have increasingly gravitated eastward, toward Asia – more precisely, the extended Asia-Pacific region (in a geoeconomic, often Sinocentric reading), or the Indo-Pacific (in a geopolitical and geostrategic framing of American origin). If the twentieth century was labelled the “American century,” following the earlier “British” one, the twenty-first is now frequently projected as an “Asian century”. Europe – largely, though not exhaustively, embodied by the European Union – finds itself compelled to renegotiate its role and stature: no longer the central node of the world economy, yet far from a marginal appendage. Aspiring to “open strategic autonomy,” it must recalibrate its orientations between a populous and proactive Asia, a United States whose hegemony is in remission but not resignation, and a Russia that is at once atavistic and aggressive, all within a tense environment shaped by compounded global challenges. For a medium-sized Euro-Atlantic state such as Romania, this evolving geostrategic landscape cannot be ignored. Firmly anchored in the EU and NATO, yet attentive to shaping a culturally attuned economic diplomacy toward Asia, Romania must move beyond passive, reactive postures and cultivate an intelligent and intelligible take on what may be called the “New Eastern Question”.