Political dysfunction and distraction in Washington continues to threaten the prominence of the United States abroad. As David Rothkopf, CEO and editor at large of Foreign Policy, explains America must learn from Asia or get used to following it.

Identifying six legitimate maritime interests for China in the South China Sea, Shen Dingli explains how China perceives its current territorial disputes and offers recommendations for easing tensions in the region.

Although the recent S&ED and SSD discussions and the Xi-Obama summit highlighted many points of agreement between the U.S. and China, the coming months will focus on some of the more difficult issues in the relationship such as military-to-military exchanges and trade disputes.

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.

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.

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.

This year’s Sino-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue yielded more than one hundred deals, writes Da Wei, and showed signs of accelerated advancement in the bilateral relationship.

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.

The road to a successful BIT will no doubt be full of political uncertainties and economic bargains in the foreseeable future, but mutual openness of market and investment is allowing a new field of cooperation between China and U.S., writes Qian Liwei.

Are Russia and China attempting to counter US and Japanese influence in the Asia-Pacific by undertaking joint military exercises? Following Joint Sea-2013, Chen Xiangyang attempts to answer this question and explain the impact of China and Russia’s strategic partnership on the region.