The decisive election victory of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, New Komeito, gives the ruling coalition control of both houses of the Diet for the first time in six years. While the election is seen as an embrace of ‘Abenomics,’ Stephen Harner urges Abe to reform his nationalist policies.

Following the release of the Pew Research Foundation’s Global Attitudes Project report, “America’s Global Image Remains More Positive than China’s: But Many See China Becoming World’s Leading Power,” Walker Rowe analyzes why certain nations are more enamored with China’s rise than the United States’ dominance as a superpower.

The US-China relationship is one of great complexity. While both parties share many points of disagreement, they also share many common goals and ideas. These commonalities will be the cornerstone for the continued formation of a new great power relationship, a relationship, which will be used as an example for future generations.

President Obama has refused to be intimidated by China’s influence in Sub-Saharan Africa, visiting the same number of African nations in June and July as his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping, visited in March. As the Obama administration attempts to portray the continent as an area for investment, Robert Rotberg explains the competing interests in the region.

As China and the US conclude another round of strategic dialogues; many will find that the Middle East is a point of cooperation for the two states. The Middle East is a complex region, currently facing many issues, it is important for China, the US and the rest of the international community to push peace talks and negotiation for resolution.

As a result of the recently concluded U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) the relationship between Washington and Beijing has not only stabilized, but has taken a major step forward, writes David Shambaugh. That is the best news we have had in U.S.-China relations for several years, and is good news for global stability and development.

Obama’s recent rhetoric about China and other emerging countries’ entry into Africa has been quite encouraging and can be seen as an important step forward for future US-China cooperation in Africa, writes He Wenping.

The recent removal of Mohamed Morsi from the presidency in Egypt has indicated again that western style democracy characterized by one-person-one-vote elections is not suitable for the Arab world, at least right now.

The fifth round of the China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) has been concluded and it has produced two lists of the outcomes of the S&ED on the strategic and economic tracks. What have impressed people most is a monumental blueprint for a new model of a major-country relationship.

PRISM-gate will have a limited influence on Russia-US relations, says Yu Sui. However, no matter how the stalemate of the Snowden incident is resolved, and how Russia will handle it in the end, US Secretary of State Kerry has said that US-Russia relations will be affected.