Many fear that in the not-too-distant future, the world will be torn apart as the gulf that separates China and the United States grows ever wider.

Much of the debate about China's rise in recent years has focused on the potential dangers China could pose as an eventual peer competitor to the United States bent on challenging the existing international order.

On August 14, 2013, officals from North Korea and from South Korea met to discuss the reopening of Gaeseong (or Kaesŏng) Industrial Complex, which employed workers from both countries.

"Criminal justice has been the weakest link of China's legal system, which, despite constitutional and legislative protections of the right to defence, has in practice rarely allowed defendants adequate opportunity to question prosecution witnesses and rebut their claims," writes Jerome A. Cohen, with respect to Bo Xilai's trial.

"Foreign investors are right to be cautious about Asia's short-term outlook, but there's no reason to panic," writes Joshua Kurlantzick.

The unusual trial of Bo Xilai and China's crackdown on both corruption and press freedom reveal a confused and conflicted leadership, says CFR's Jerome Cohen.

Jonathan Tepperman says Thailand's political compromises provide a good example for divided countries like Egypt, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.

"With U.S. polls showing Americans wanting fewer global entanglements and dramatically reduced defense spending, and with Congress stuck in its budget limbo, the Afghanistan war still two years from Obama's finish line, and Middle East countries embroiled in a bloody tectonic shift, it will be Hagel's job to explain why Asian security, on top of all of that, is also a job for the United States."

North and South Korea seem likely to reopen the Kaesong industrial complex, despite the economic risks Seoul assumes in dealing with Pyongyang, says expert Marcus Noland.

Sheila A. Smith argues that despite some regional concerns about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's geopolitical ambitions, his diplomatic vision to date looks more like a return to Japan's much vaunted economic diplomacy.

Joshua Kurlantzick analyzes the Chinese economic slowdown, the impact of the slowdown on China's state capitalist companies, and the implications for China's regional power.

Japan's decision to participate in Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations has made the trade agreement "almost irresistible" and poised for expansion, says expert Mireya Solís.

While in Islamabad, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the U.S.-Pakistan strategic dialogue would be resumed in order to foster "deeper, broader and more comprehensive partnership." These fine words will need a lot of hard work to back them up. It would help if President Obama's administration also came to the table with a big new idea to re-energize its difficult relationship with Islamabad. An ambitious and forward-looking way to frame Washington's agenda with Islamabad would be to consider it within the context of Pakistan's role in the broader U.S. "rebalancing" to Asia.

As the United States draws down forces in Afghanistan, the Taliban insurgency continues to challenge the government in Kabul while holding out the prospect of a negotiated settlement, explains this Backgrounder.

Can Washington and Islamabad build a new strategic relationship? CFR's Daniel Markey says John Kerry and Nawaz Sharif are off to a friendly start, but big obstacles remain on counterterror cooperation.

Steven A. Tananbaum Senior Fellow for International Economics Robert Kahn analyzes implications of the recent slowdown in the Chinese economy.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon reports that agreement on a post-2014 bilateral security deal between Washington and Kabul is in sight.

The Human Rights Unit of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) prepared this mid-year report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict in Afghanistan, which covers the period of January 1 to June 30, 2013, and is mandated by United Nations Security Council Resolution 2096 (2013), which "recognizes the importance of ongoing monitoring and reporting to the United Nations Security Council on the situation of civilians in Afghanistan's armed conflict and in particular on civilian casualties."

Yanzhong Huang explains that "In Asia, the capacity of NGOs to contribute to public health, both within individual countries and at the regional level, has steadily expanded."