The contrast between a collapsing neo-liberalism of the west and the much-welcomed new development model espoused and practiced by China is not to be missed.

The U.S. has long used dialogue to prod China to act in a manner supportive of global norms and institutions. In 2005, then Undersecretary of State Robert Zoellick gave a speech where he called on China to start acting as a responsible stakeholder of the global governance regime. Some eleven years later, the lectured became the lecturer. Rather than the U.S. lecturing China, China is calling on the U.S. to act responsibly in relation to global trade and climate norms.

Democracies aim to improve their democratic system while learning from the best of meritocratic practices, and meritocracies aim to improve their meritocratic system while learning from the best of democratic practices. There is no more talk about which system is superior: both political systems recognize each other as morally legitimate even though they are built on different foundations. The United States is the dominant power in the West, China in East Asia, but they strive to cooperate in areas of common concerns.

Globalization is always an evolving process, with inevitable ups and downs and not moving in a linear fashion. Despite populist reservations in the US and UK, the international community has become intertwined and interdependent, thanks to global free trade and investment. Cooperation to tackle global challenges will continue while more efforts will address the “global governance deficiency” in promoting social justice and fairness such the widening gap between rich and poor both domestically and among nations.

The US has shown no desire to defend the arbitration award with force as hinted by the exercise in the Philippine Sea. Although the American strategic community now sees markedly greater risks of military conflict with China, US decision-makers also don’t believe that the US has the ability to change or stop China’s international conduct by force.

Trump’s security and diplomatic policies may offer opportunities for China, but that would be secondary compared with the damage he may inflict on China-US economic and financial relations. The China-US economic and financial relationship means a lot to the Chinese economic health at home, especially in the face of the nativism, populism and nationalism that seems to be sweeping the globe.

Compared with diplomatic issues, the new administration is facing more challenges in domestic affairs, which is also more critical for Trump’s re-election four years from now. For a Trump administration, with the edge of the Republican-controlled Congress, it is urgent to promote domestic policies and reforms. The alliance system, therefore, is not among the top priorities or issues, and its institutional nature insulates it from the whims of a single individual.

This December marks the 15th anniversary of China’s accession to the World Trade Organization. In the past 15 years, China could have played a bigger role in promoting global governance had the world’s institutional structures allowed it optimum participation in the global rule-making process. That will be China’s main objective in the future.

China favors building new international relations based on a win-win approach through cooperation. China’s pursuit of global partnership should not be misperceived as an effort by China to overthrow the current international system and global governance architecture, but as an attempt to contribute to maintaining the world order from a position of strength and comparability.

American foreign policy debates tend to focus disproportionally on the Middle East. To correct this tendency, the Obama administration’s adopted the so-called pivot to Asia (aka “rebalancing”): to refocus U.S. policy in proper proportion to the full range of the nation’s challenges and interests. Indeed, this broader perspective on today’s interconnected world and diligent approach to building the necessary coalitions, are the main elements that distinguish Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s pragmatic approach from the Republicans’ bullheaded approach.