Congressional involvement in foreign policy can cause difficulties for any U.S. administration. Recent resolutions passed regarding the South and East China Seas and their territorial disputes, although seemingly harmless, carry a deep undertone and may be thrusting the U.S. government further into a regional issue that it cares to be involved.

It will depend on the US whether Iran-US relations will enter a stage of normalization, writes Jin Liangxiang. The US may not be ready for such a process, though some senior diplomats are once again calling for reviewing US-Iran relations.

At the Sunnyland summit, Chinese president Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama pledged to establish a “new type of relationship between the major powers” and to upgrade the military relationship to a new level, writes Zhou Bo.

Wu Sike, China’s special envoy to the Middle East, describes the new Chinese leadership’s role in creating an international atmosphere capable of encouraging and mediating peace talks between Palestine and Israel.

As a new great power relationship develops between the United States and China, both countries must take steps to ensure that future military conflicts can be avoided.

Following President Obama’s most recent trip to Africa, it is necessary to examine the United States’ Africa policy. Noting the core interests and efforts of the Obama administration in Africa, Chen Jimin explains there is room for cooperation on the continent based upon the shared interests of China and the United Sates.

Liu Junhong writes that Japan’s recent election results reflect the shifting landscape of Japan's party politics, and drastic changes in the country's domestic and international environment.

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.