The risk of China’s debt crisis is building up and China needs structural solutions in order to effectively solve the issue, writes Zhang Monan.

While much of the world has focused on the US Federal Reserve’s phasing out of quantitative easing, more significant economic news came out of China’s interbank market. As Michael Justin Lee explains, China’s year-end liquidity squeeze has implications for the global economy and deserves more attention.

China was hardly lacking in policy pronouncements in the final months of 2013. But, seen in their entirety, the risk of incoherence has become evident, writes Stephen Roach.

With the Central Economic Work Conference just concluded, the important task facing the 2014 Chinese economy seems to be twofold: balancing China's medium and long-term reform with its short-term growth, and balancing its structural adjustment with control and prevention of possible risks, writes Zhang Monan.

At the recent Third Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee, China's leaders produced a 60-point "resolution" covering six areas. But a shopping list of reform objectives – many of which were not as bold or novel as promised – is inadequate to address the deep contradictions undermining China’s development.

China's latest round of reforms arrives at a critical moment in the debate about the renminbi’s internationalization. Should the renminbi join the US dollar and the euro as an international vehicle currency, and can Shanghai subsequently become a first-tier international financial center?

The success of the Third Plenum’s recently announced economic reforms rely heavily on the outcome of China’s financial sector reforms. Important topics to monitor, writes Yi Xianrong, include interest rate liberalization, stock market regulation, changes to the exchange rate regime, and the risk that these reforms entail.

In the United States, proposed budget deals may ensure stability in the short-term. In China, the ongoing economic reforms could foster sustained growth in the medium-term. In both cases, new challenges await after 2015.

Following the whirlwind tour of high-level interactions between the United States and China, Qian Liwei examines the synergistic relationship between the two countries and lays out steps for a future built on cooperation.

Renowned business commentators Shi Mingshen and Li Zhenyu weigh in on the biggest bright spot of China's economic reform pledges and its significant, wide-ranging implications.