Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed has demonstrated himself to be a truly independent-minded leader. With an inexplicable audacity to stand up to both the West and East in order to protect the interest of smaller nations, he very well may be the last titan of Asia.

China has made numerous short-term gains in the Middle East via its involvement in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, whereas weak policy U.S. in the region has few consequences but also few returns.

The era of comprehensive strategic competition between China and the US has come, with bipartisan support in the US. With the US holding the upper hand in the current China-US relationship, the future of this relationship is predictable.

In the wake of the Trump-Kim Summit, the US and the North Korean sides must undertake some deep reflection and must maintain contact. All is not yet lost. Recovery from the setback is possible and desirable.

Kim Jong Un’s secretive train journey from North Korea to Vietnam ultimately represents a win for China. Traversing the entire country, Kim had only to look out the window to realize that China is a viable alternative to the US when it comes to brokering political survival.

The US should move away from suppressing China’s development and instead make attempts towards collaboration. China and the US should find effective ways to get along in a new international economic and political environment, and seek mutually beneficial collaboration in competition and management and control.

The China-US trade war is ultimately a war of attrition; both sides will lose and in the end, there will be no winner. It is inevitable the trade dispute will develop into to other dimensions of investment, finance, exchange rates, high technology, and other non-trade areas.

Although the two sides left the Hanoi Summit emptyhanded, it nonetheless set a positive tone for a possible future deal — especially if both sides give their diplomats a chance to conduct working-level negotiations, rather than expecting meetings between top leaders to resolve a host of complex issues.

It seems that North Korea and the United States both harbor misjudgments about the other’s views on denuclearization, and neither has fully prepared for the responsibilities that come with denuclearizing. All the while, the window of time for fruitful negotiations in the future is narrowing.

On May 4th 1919, the Chinese people stood up: they had had enough. A movement was born and two years later, in 1921, the Chinese Communist Party was founded. One hundred years later, China is now helping to define the world’s global future.