Americans have a reasonably favorable view of China, and the Chinese have a pretty favorable view of the U.S. Our economies are interdependent, the Chinese now invest more here than we do there, and many debt and currency rifts have been smoothed over. Yet, several experts share the view expressed by David Lampton of Johns Hopkins: “The tipping point is near. Our respective fears are nearer to outweighing our hopes than at any time since normalization.” From The New Yorker’s Evan Osmos: Can the U.S. and China Avoid the Enemy Trap?

+ BBC: “A group of islands in the South China Sea may not sound particularly significant, but these recently-formed pieces of land could be the key to Beijing’s future military strategy.”