Curtis Chin explores who had the “best” and “worst” year in Asia, a list ranging from Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya Muslims to India’s space program; each case sheds light on possible areas for China-U.S. cooperation.

The challenges that face the world is not a due to a transition of power among states, but a diffusion of power away from governments. Nye argues that for a “new type of major power relations,” the U.S. needs to avoid containment as a strategy, and China must accept the legitimacy of American presence in the Western Pacific.

Asian states will look at potential partners around the Pacific Rim and determine if they are ready to walk the walk or simply talk the talk. So far the lesson of Canada and Australia is that walking the walk requires sustained, strategic commitment, but has a big potential payoff. Australia has been taking concrete steps to solidify its relationship with Asia; Canada has been talking about it, and is only now starting to put into place an engagement program with substance.

As the two largest economies, China and the U.S. are trying to formulate a new-type of major-country relationship. The establishment of a free trade area should be an integral part of such relationship. This will be a challenging mission, but the rewards will be tremendous.

While the TPP is not attractive to several APEC economies because of its U.S. dominance, the proposed FTAAP, which embraces all of the 21 APEC economies, is meant to be an all-inclusive, all-win trade initiative that represents the largest single trade liberalization in history.

Jia Chunyang discusses the outstanding features of the U.S. National Security Strategy report. In general, the new report is a basic follow-up to the Obama administration’s opinions about China as well as its diplomatic philosophy reflected in its 2010 edition. But it has a more confident tone.

President Obama is very cautious in using military force. The transforming foreign policy strategy for the U.S. has been to share the cost of hegemony. For the United States, the main risk comes from the possibility of lacking confidence in U.S. strength among the allies and partners, but the strong leadership has reassured that the question is not whether the U.S. will lead, but how it will.

Not only do conflicts between U.S., China and Russia affect the world, their interdependence and occasional synergy also shapes world affairs. The U.S. and Russia still have an unstable relationship and could learn confidence building from the China-U.S. or China-Russia relationships.

A Sino-American joint military exercise on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) to a typhoon-hit country was held in Haikou, Hainan Province. These cooperative exercises are still in the early phases; non-traditional threats such as counter-terrorism, peacekeeping and maritime security, are still institutionally, logistically, and legally lacking.

The National Security Strategy Reports outlined the U.S. interests in the world, and was more cautious than the 2010 report in addressing sensitive topics for China, stressing that cooperation is beneficial for its national security. The U.S. still views China as a rival, though, and should keep with the global trend of common interest rather than zero-sum.