Shared wariness over China is the main reason the U.S. and Vietnam have embraced each other. But it shouldn’t be the only one.

Yet his meetings with America’s top leaders, from President Obama on down, will be just as much a chance for Xi to size up the administration’s new policies toward Asia as they are an opportunity for U.S. officials to get a sense of whom they will be dealing with starting this fall.

Obama's administration is finally taking a tougher stance on Beijing after years wasted trying for cooperation.

It appears that China’s leaders are worried that Washington is getting smart, and trying to “westernize and divide China” through a culture war. And President Hu Jintao, who leaves office this year after his five-year term is up, has decided to make an Alamo-like last stand over culture.

Given what we have learned about China over the recent past, the answer to its aggressiveness is not more concessions--and certainly not the abandonment of a key partner in Asia's long peace.

The key factor in Asia's underlying instability may be China's rise relative to Japan's decline, so it will be important to managing the growing Sino-U.S. security competition so that rivalry does not lead to conflict.

It has become a ritual in Washington to "restart" military exchanges with China. Regular contact has been suspended a number of times over the past two decades and each new cancellation sparks a round of worrying over the causes of the rift.