The decline in global oil prices means China pays less for its Venezuelan oil, but on the other hand, the situation has made it harder for Venezuela to pay its other debts. The country is having a terrible time acquiring badly-needed foreign imports, such as medicine and food. The fault lies less with China’s loans, credits and investments, but the failure to use such resources in establishing a functioning, and far more dynamic, economy.

While Chinese challenges abound, no one should denigrate the remarkable progress the country has made in recent history. Failure will not be an option for China. The world needs China’s leaders to work at rebalancing their own economy. This will require building better social safety nets and managing the Chinese people’s expectations, hopes and “Chinese Dreams.”

Claims that the recovery is an illusion are demonstrably false, but there are pitfalls ahead that the new president and Congress must recognize, including a decline in productivity, the unconventional monetary policy and political paralysis in Washington.

Greatly due to the slowdown of the Chinese economy, economic growth in the commodity-driven economies of Latin America has fallen off about half from its high point. Although the situation is not yet dire, unless these countries find a new market, their commodity-driven economies are in for a prolonged period of slower growth.

China’s ties with the two US allies continue to evolve, as Beijing develops new consensus with Seoul but finds accommodation with Tokyo more challenging. Domestic politics in the US and Japan may cast a shadow on future progress in China’s bilateral relations with both South Korea and Japan.

Skeptics of land reforms throughout the world fear that land redistribution in developing states may further victimize those who are already more disadvantaged and marginalized. And recent unrests in Kazakhstan due to Chinese investors demonstrate such concerns, highlighting land reform to be a complicated process with the potential of igniting social movements and mass mobilizations.

On October 1, the Chinese renminbi officially becomes the fifth international reserve currency. Until recently, Washington played geopolitics to defer the renminbi’s internationalization. But what about Wall Street?

Prime Minister Trudeau must introduce greater balance into Canada’s international trade profile in order to diversify from an overwhelming reliance on the United States and towards a bilateral relationship that will ensure trade growth with China, Canada’s second largest trade partner.

The TPP is an important piece of Obama’s strategy of rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific region, and also one of the most important political legacies he’s tried to build before leaving the White House. Any delay in approving the TPP will deal a heavy blow to the US rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region, but faced with the political reality of the US elections, a rethink will be in order.

The missions of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) is to help companies create U.S. jobs by exporting U.S. goods and services to emerging economies. As China’s installed power capacity is expected to grow over the next century, members from China’s State Grid visited a factory in South Dakota to upgrade its tools used to maintain power grids around the country.