Beijing aspires to be the new, responsible superpower that can mediate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and offer the Middle East stability.

If China is indeed the future, if China is primed to “rule the world,” if China remakes the international order in its image, it won’t be pretty.

Ever since President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in 2017, Washington has been engulfed in a contentious debate whether leaving the treaty was a geo-economic blunder or a necessary step to protect the American economy.

The US must act swiftly and decisively against the Myanmar coup to preserve the country’s recent democratic gains and send a message to China.

While the Trump administration has distanced itself from multilateralism with an “America First” approach, the Chinese communist regime has sought to promote and exploit multilateralism in pursuit of a “China First” policy, one that is at variance not only with America’s national interests, but with those of the rest of the world’s sovereign states as well.

Washington and the West need to stop neglecting Lebanon, primarily for the sake of their own strategic and regional interests.

The National Security Strategy says China’s economic and military actions risk diminishing the sovereignty of many states in the Indo-Pacific. The US Navy has a role in defending these states’ rights.

An outright transatlantic breakup isn’t imminent today, but some European countries may eventually try to balance the US and China geopolitically.

The real 2020 questions about the US-China contest lie in how they influence the context for global trade, technology standards, military tools, and power projection.