What if the United States withdrew its strategic commitment to allies in the Indo-Pacific? Taking that hypothesis seriously, Hugh White's latest essay, "Without America: Australia in the New Asia," suggests that Australia does not have any other option than engaging China—and neither does the rest of Asia.

North Korea has agreed to march alongside South Korea and to have a joint women’s hockey team with its neighbor at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang. The sports diplomacy of North Korea is often unpredictable, but could this particular instance signal a geopolitical détente in an East Asia gripped by nuclear fears?

China and Russia followed two distinct approaches to reform, leading to drastically different trajectories of economic growth. While both countries have experienced rising inequality over the last 30 years, Russia’s income distribution has worsened at a faster pace and in a bigger magnitude. What caused the difference in income distribution dynamics between the two? There are important lessons to be learned on the impact of policy decisions on inequality.

The world is looking on uneasily as China challenges the United States as a technological power, but a zero-sum game is not an inevitability. Governments, businesses, and civil society can come together to help the world break out of this duopoly for a more sustainable future.

The continents-spanning Belt and Road Initiative may appear to be a leviathan, but a closer look at both it and China’s global quest for resources tells a more nuanced story. Even for the most authoritative of actors, situations don’t always work out as they do on paper.

What makes a currency global? The Spanish peso that started circulating internationally in the 16th century offers a case study. The opening of new trade routes and security innovations made it the world's most widely demanded currency. It facilitated the integration of China, the Americas, and Europe into a world economy, creating a status quo that lasted until the 19th century.

Their environment leaves them little space for personal expression, but Hong Kong’s domestic workers have found ways to engage in politics and pursue their own paths of leadership.

As Xi Jinping begins his second term as president, the "new era" that he intends to install is becoming clearer to observers. It features a richer and more assertive China, better equipped with a modern military, at the center of the global stage.

Among the many unacknowledged examples of “Asia the global” is the inspiration Western second-wave feminism derived from revolutionary China. Though not wholly influenced by Chinese ideas, second-wave feminism found in aspects of revolutionary China an ideological and practical model.