The U.S. government shutdown has claimed some more casualties. President Barack Obama’s visits to Malaysia and the Philippines next week will be called off because the logistics staff who precede the massive presidential entourage aren’t in place. Secretary of State John Kerry will go instead. That might not be a big deal if Xi Jinping, currently in Indonesia on his first Southeast Asian tour since taking office as China’s president in March, weren’t just about to visit Malaysia too.

President Obama’s trimming of stops on a trip to Asia this month has raised questions locally about the US government’s two-year-old rebalancing of resources to the region, a shift embraced by allies such as Japan and the Philippines as their common rival China looms larger. Following a partial shutdown of the federal government this week, the president put off visits with heads of state in Malaysia and the Philippines. He is still evaluating whether to attend economic events in two other Asian countries.

On Sept 24, when US President Barack Obama gave his speech in front of the United Nations, he caused a buzz not by what he said, but by what he failed to mention. During his speech, Obama mentioned China once, and the Koreas, Japan, and India zero times, noted most prominently by Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group.

Chinese tour operators have given mixed responses to a new tourism law that will take effect in China on Tuesday, with some saying it levels the playing field in the tourism industry, and others taking a wait-and-see attitude.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says China and Southeast Asian nations should resolve territorial disputes in the South China Sea without threats or force. U.S. is making an effort to work more closely with Indonesia to help mediate those rival maritime claims.

In the winter of 2009, I was spending my weekends in the northeast Chinese city of Tangshan, and eating most of my food from the far-western province of Xinjiang. Like many minorities, the Uighur, the native people of Xinjiang, have made their chief impact on mainstream culture through cuisine. I have always favored their ubiquitous restaurants when traveling.

The flurry of speculation and polemic that has characterized U.S.-Chinese relations in the past decade or so reached a new intensity with the leadership turnover in China earlier this year. As Barack Obama started his second term in office and Xi Jinping assumed power in March, renewed debates emerged about the future of U.S.-Chinese relations, still perceived as the two greatest competitors for hegemonic status in international affairs. However, the reevaluation of this critical relationship has in fact known successive rounds.

With the international world’s increasing negative views of China, its rising economic power, and a history of ethnic unrest, how will changes in internet censorship in Shanghai’s free trade zone affect China’s economic growth and the Chinese people? As a way to stimulate economic growth, China will lift internet censorship in the Shanghai free trade zone of a number of foreign websites which includes Facebook and Twitter.