The U.S. National Security Strategy released on December 18 is extremely critical of China but does not invariably portend a more confrontational policy. Sino-American relations are very much in flux. In the coming year, Beijing and Washington can take actions to redirect the relationship towards a more positive trajectory.

Despite some friction, the China-U.S. military relationship has held.

China’s proposal of a “freeze for freeze”—a halt in North Korean nuclear and missile tests in return for suspension of provocative U.S.-led military exercises—remains the best one on the table for reducing tensions on the Korean peninsula. Second, keeping nuclear weapons from getting into the wrong hands should be an international responsibility, not a U.S.-China project.

This year saw the emergence of two competing narratives vis-à-vis the territorial and maritime disputes in the South China Sea. The result is an even more combustible geopolitical landscape, where status quo power meets revisionist power rather than commonly accepted rules taming misplaced ambition.

Despite its lower profile, the dispute in the East China Sea may carry greater risk of drawing the United States into conflict with China than the various disputes in the South China Sea.

North Korea announced that it has mastered nuclear strike capability and become a full-fledged nuclear state. Like previous US presidents, Donald Trump has said that this state of affairs is intolerable. So now what?

The Korean nuclear issue has now entered a dangerous stage like a fast train in a dark tunnel. The window for peaceful settlement isn’t completely closed and the current crisis should be turned to an opportunity.

The convergence of strategic threats to India, and the legacy of failed American policy in the region, have seen the resurgence of the once defunct Quadrilateral Security grouping. In doubling its efforts to serve as a regional counterweight to Chinese influence to ensure the sustained freedom of the seas and to stymie any Chinese efforts to gain control over crucial sea lanes to potentially block free trade, India would signal its leadership role.

Timing is everything. Mere days after Google CEO Sundar Pichai's surprise appearance at China's annual internet conference, Google announced that it is opening a research center in China dedicated to studying artificial intelligence (AI). AI, "in a sense, is already here.

As President Xi Jinping's speech at the 19th Party Congress showed, environmental protection has become an important priority for China in terms of its growth towards a prosperous, modern society.