Americans were happy to buy vast quantities of relatively inexpensive Chinese manufactured goods, demand for which provided jobs for the tens of millions of Chinese who moved from poor agricultural areas to new or rapidly expanding cities.

The U.S. does not want to live under the shadow of a North Korea that possesses long-range missiles capable of delivering nuclear payloads to American cities. At the same time, the U.S. has no appetite for a war that would prove costly by every measure.

The abolition of the presidential term limit and President Xi Jinping's concentration of power have come as an unwelcome surprise to many.

Richard N. Haass Quotes