Financial markets today are thriving. The Dow Jones industrial average, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq composite index have all reached record highs lately, with emerging-economy financial markets also performing strongly. But digital currencies could further destabilize an already-tenuous leverage- and liquidity-based system.

If China is to assert itself more in its region and further afield, will it undermine, or even replace the U.S.-led world order?

Since the start of 2017, China’s economy has shown a stable recovery supported by the better-than-expected exports, high industrial reserves, and a hot property market. Even with financing difficulties and rising costs, it appears that China’s economy will continue to stabilize with improvement through the latter half of the year.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which marks its 50th anniversary this month, comprises the world’s seventh-largest economy, on track to become the fourth largest by 2050. ASEAN’s approach may turn out to be the way of the future, enabling other fractious regions to develop sturdy bonds of cooperation.

Enduring wage disparities and outdated and imbalanced tax structures are seen as contributors to growing inequality, where neither the U.S. nor China are immune. Business, government and civil society leaders must come together to ensure the quality of education is improved to meet the demands of a technology-driven knowledge economy.

At a time when Beijing seems inclined to turn inward economically, emphasizing state control and punishing foreign investors, American firms should point out the obvious economic benefits of attracting outside capital. American and other foreign firms could create some of the jobs necessary to employ Chinese workers who have come to expect a better life—and are likely to protest if that future does not materialize.

The bubbles in both finance and property are growing too big. The ordinary real economy is increasingly unable to bear the over-expansion of finance and property of the past 10 years. And NASDAQ is the most precarious bubble of all.

In the past, analysis of the evolution of humanity’s worldview has tended to focus on the West. Now, however, this narrative is being revised. The global economic crisis that originated in the United States in 2007 exposed the fragility of the advanced-country model, giving rise to a new, more multipolar worldview, in which the emerging economies, led by China, India, and Russia, have increasingly challenged the status quo.

China’s efforts to propose a series of new ideas and concepts to improve global governance and stimulate globalization are showing the world a positive way forward as Western powers step away from their post-war leadership roles in shaping those arenas.

When the United Kingdom, France, Germany and other U.S. allies decided to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in 2015 amidst clear opposition from Washington, some questioned whether it meant the transatlantic relationship was weakening in the face of a rising China. In terms of risk, rebalancing, and reward, however, the AIIB was not a situation that pitted Europe’s relationship with the U.S. against its relationship with China. Such a case may offer insight when considering the Paris Agreement and Europe’s actions if faced with choices between Washington and Beijing.