On Oct. 27 the simmering waters of the South China Sea came to a slow boil. A U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Lassen, conducted a freedom-of-navigation cruise within 12 nautical miles of a Chinese-built artificial island in the Spratly archipelago. The Chinese government vowed to “firmly react to this deliberate provocation.” Bloomberg Business Week economics editor Peter Coy argues that conflicting claims over the sea don’t have to degenerate into open hostility.

The US has started a new series of games with China by sending its guided missile destroyer USS Lassen within 12 nautical miles of China's isles in the South China Sea.

It may be too premature to argue that the China-U.S. cyber-agreement has failed. The vagueness of the agreement needs to be followed up with specific cooperation, like a cooperative agreement between both nations’ Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs), which are the first (and last line) of defense in protecting a country’s critical information infrastructure from cyberattacks.

Understanding the ways in which individuals are radicalized in Central Asia is necessary to avoid the exploitation by the ruling regimes to maintain their grip on power through the strengthening of security services, suppression of political opposition, and attraction of international security assistance.

On September 25, 2015, the White House and the Chinese government issued parallel statements explaining the various agreements Presidents Obama and Xi reached during Xi’s state visit. On the cyber and technology front, the agreements break no new policy ground, but do create a much-needed umbrella under which concrete, practical steps can be taken to reduce conflict in cyberspace and tensions in the bilateral relationship.

China surprised President Obama and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on Sept. 28 by promising to create an 8,000 strong standby peacekeeping brigade for use on the African Continent, which should reinforce its desire to be a responsible global power.

In some ways, Xi’s state visit was really a summit on cyber security, as allegations of spying and theft of national security information and commercial intellectual property have threatened to derail attempts to expand cooperation between the world’s largest economies. The parallels with the nuclear age are obvious, and so is the mutual benefit of cyber detente.

President Xi Jinping pledged that China’s attempts to develop Internet economy and enhance online defense will not exclude Western technologies and best practices, which demonstrated China's sincerity for dialogue and cooperation.

American military interventions in the Middle East have played a big part in creating the problem, and Washington owes it to the world to be a leader in solving it.

While helping the people in the Middle East fleeing from conflict zones, the more important thing is to address the refugee issue from the root. The UN must play a leading role in promoting reconciliation in the wake of failed and arrogant US policies in the region, so that the Middle East can move toward stability that will allow its people enjoy a normal life.