After declaring the nation “open for business,” Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has set a target of achieving free trade deals with China, Japan and South Korea within just 12 months. Can the recently elected leader succeed where his predecessors failed? Having stated at the APEC summit in Bali that he wished to swiftly conclude eight years of negotiations with China, Abbott told reporters at last week’s East Asian Summit in Brunei that he was adding the nation’s second and third-biggest trading partners to the target list.

In contrast to neighboring countries, former U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair welcomes the efforts by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to reinterpret the pacifist Constitution and bolster the nation’s defense capabilities, saying Japan needs to adapt itself to the changing security landscape of the Asia-Pacific region.

President Barack Obama has decided to test whether Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s “charm offensive” is a legitimate effort to reach an agreement on a more constricted and transparent Iranian nuclear program. With this decision, he embarks on the most transformative and important diplomatic initiative of his presidency.

Upset that the fiscal stalemate in Washington is threatening the global economy, China called for the U.S. dollar to be replaced as the international reserve currency as well as for broader steps to create a "de-Americanized world."

As the world's second largest economy, the fastest growing economy in the G20 and with more than a trillion dollars sitting in various sovereign wealth funds, China has quite a bit of cash to invest. And as the chart below shows, in recent years it has begun loosening the purse strings - in 2005, the Chinese government and Chinese companies collectively invested about $17bn (£11bn) in global assets, according The Heritage Foundation. Last year they invested almost $130bn.

Dancers perform the ballet "Concerto de Bach" at the Saint Peter's Theater in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Oct. 12, 2013. A ballet was staged as the opening show of the China Cultural Month here on Saturday. More than 150 artists from China will present the local audience with a series of cultural feasts such as ballet, acrobatics and art exhibitions from October to December, 2013 in Brazil.

California recently made foreign-policy history by becoming the first sub-national government to sign an agreement with China’s powerful National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), which oversees the country’s economic growth. Just as significant is the objective: fighting climate change by circumventing deadlocked decision-making in Washington and Beijing.

What if China was beating the US as its own super-power game in the Pacific and we didn’t even notice? While Washington distracts itself with shutdown shenanigans and failed attempts to control the situation in the Middle East, president Obama’s “pivot to Asia” looks increasingly shaky. Beijing is quietly filling the gap, signing multi-billion dollar trade deals with Indonesia and calling for a regional infrastructure bank.