Maintaining strategic security and its stature as a major global power are the country’s priorities. While its economy is relatively weak, Russia’s military power, its experience and its influence in global affairs means that it will continue to be an important player in shaping the international landscape.

For the United States, the Nord Stream 2 gas project is a reminder of its waning global hegemony. Its ability to control its allies has declined. Bilateral relations have deteriorated. Attempts to block construction have failed. America has become a shadow of its former self.

China and United States should distinguish between strategic competition and a struggle for supremacy, as doing so would help avoid stepping over a boundary line beyond which competition turns into a drive for hegemony and world domination.

The narrative on China’s influence is polarizing and provocative - is it based on fact or fiction?

International politics in this century won’t be a simple story of U.S. decline and China’s rise to become a new global hegemon. That describes the history of past centuries, but it’s an obsolete concept today.

The duo can team up against the U.S. power advantage, but they need to know their limitations.

Drawing upon the past 70 years of Chinese global engagement, Vice-Minister He shines light on how multilateralism has benefited the Chinese nation as well as how China has played an important role — and can continue to play such a role — in the success of this ideology across the world. With the chaos brought by the new US regime and the rise of global populism, He emphasizes the need for China as an emerging power to support and help maintain multilateralism domestically and internationally.

In recent years, the United States has failed to reshape world affairs to its liking as it once could. From its inability to oust Bashar Assad from Syria, to its unilateral revocation of the Iran nuclear deal, to its unsuccessful pressuring of allies to block Huawei, we see an America that has lost its touch on the global stage.

China will use its presidency to focus on growth and guide international economic cooperation, and promote the new foreign policy concepts Beijing has adopted in recent years such as “win-win cooperation”, “a new model of major-country relationship” and “a global community of shared future” – all aimed at creating a better future for the world.

The process of globalization has dramatically transformed state-to-state relations at regional levels: As bonds of community of interest are being formulated on greater scales, cooperation will become essential for coexistence in the future. China-US cooperation in the construction of regional order for the Asia-Pacific is not only in their fundamental interests, but also the two major countries’ historical responsibility for the area.