One of the ways to think about China's Internet is as a Bizarro version of the World Wide Web. Facebook and Twitter are banned, but social networking sites like Sina Weibo and Kaixinwang operate freely. Instead of YouTube, there is Youku Tudou. And while Google does operate in China -- albeit intermittently -- the Chinese company Baidu dominates the search engine market. A foreign observer of the Chinese internet might conclude, to paraphrase Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction: "They've got the same stuff there that we do here, it's just ... a little bit different."

The sudden growth of China as a world economic power has alarmed a great many people in the West. For The Editors, a programme which sets out to ask challenging questions, I decided to find out whether China is the West's friend, or its enemy. People worry that China, which is still notionally Marxist-Leninist, will use its huge economic power to threaten liberal Western values.

Here's a fact: Nearly everyone in America loves Chinese food. Who among us doesn't have childhood memories of takeout dinners served in the distinctive white boxes, followed by a humorous reading of fortune cookies? And Chinese restaurants, with their lengthy menus and Lazy Susans, have been a ubiquitous part of the American landscape for decades. In order to get into the finer distinctions of Chinese cuisine, researchers at the Beijing Computational Science Ressn't difficult to find Northeastern, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Xinjiang restaurants -- all on the same block.

Thanks to the 2013 Chinese Training Program for EU Employees, some 30 officials got the opportunity to know more about China. Launched by the Hanban (Confucius Institute Headquarters) and organized by Beijing Foreign Studies University, the program, which lasts from July 20-28, is the first such cultural exchange platform in China designed for European Union employees, said Jing Wei, deputy director-general of Hanban.

Yesterday Freedom House released a report on Internet censorship in China based on information they collected for their Freedom on the Net survey. The report is especially interested in Internet censorship since the leadership transition that brought Xi Jinping to power last November. It not only examines the obstacles citizens face in getting Internet access, but also on what is censored, surveillance, and how citizens are punished by the state for their activities online.

A bipartisan group of U.S. Congress members are calling on the Obama administration to issue a strategic document articulating the pivot or “rebalance” to Asia. In a letter dated July 23 and addressed to the new National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-VA), Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA), Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-HI) and Rep. Madeleine Bordallo (D-GU) applaud the Obama administration on its decision to pivot to Asia, but express concern that America’s actual strategy to the region remains unclear.

Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang's trip to Washington this week to meet with President Barack Obama at the White House is being closely watched by observers of the bilateral relationship, both in Vietnam and abroad. There is a general sense among some observers that there is a historic opportunity to upgrade the current relationship to a strategic partnership.