Concern over the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s nuclear and missile tests and combating terrorism and extremism constitute two of the key security issues discussed in the recently concluded 31st ASEAN and Related Summits held last November in Manila.

The People’s Liberation Army Air Force had an eventful year in 2017. The takeaway from 2017 is that while current exercises reveal PLAAF limitations and underscore China’s need for a regional alliance, progress has been made and will continue over the coming years.

Cybersecurity has been a complicated and thorny issue in China-US relations ever since the Obama administration. How will China and the US manage cyberspace under Trump Era?

Trump’s National Security Strategy turns up the dial on his predecessors’ bellicosity.

Trump’s national security strategy can lead to dangers, but also presents opportunities for Sino-American cooperation.

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.