The NBA is the first U.S. professional league to visit sports-crazy Cuba since the declaration of detente between the Cold War enemies late last year. Stars such as former MVP Steve Nash and Hall of Fame inductee Dikembe Mutumbo will open a four-day training camp Thursday to wage athletic diplomacy and boost the profile of Cuba's arguably fourth most-popular sport, after baseball, boxing and soccer.

In periods of the 19th and 20th centuries, the United Kingdom and United States maintained absolute dominance in a unipolar world, which was why they were called "British century" and "American century." Based on this, predictions of a so-called "Chinese century" must meet two preconditions -- a unipolar international configuration and absolute Chinese dominance.

How might a Republican White House engage Asia?(...)At a Council on Foreign Relations symposium on U.S. Rebalance to Asia held earlier this week, Daniel Russel, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, cautioned against the “politics of China” in the 2016 presidential campaign. Republican candidates might consider three elements in appropriating the rebalance within a Republican foreign policy rubric.

First and foremost, the Maritime Silk Road is designed to pacify neighboring countries threatened by China’s aggressive territorial claims in the South China Sea. Curiously, China has attempted to both aggravate tensions among its Southeast Asian neighbors and soothe them at the same time, contrary to its normal pattern of swinging back and forth between aggressive brinksmanship and diplomatic rapprochement (such as in China’s relationship with Taiwan or its cutting off and then reestablishing of military-to-military ties with the United States). 

Pope Francis, who has taken a public role in U.S.-Cuba relations, will visit Cuba on the way to the United States this fall, the Vatican announced Wednesday. (...)Pope Francis, who followed his predecessors Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II in visiting Cuba and calling for an end to U.S. travel and financial restrictions on the nation, wrote letters to Obama and Cubaan President Raúl Castro urging them to settle outstanding issues and clear the way for a deal.

The State Department has people now whose job is to challenge false online claims about the U.S. and our policies. If they’ve been successful, they should expand that effort. It won’t be easy: It has to be done fast and adroitly (two skills not always conjoined in the State Department) to be effective.

Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has emerged as a key broker of perceptions between the U.S. and China. He was a member of the Berggruen Institute's 21st Century Council delegation that met Chinese President Xi Jinping in November 2013 in Beijing and is currently director of the Asia Society Public Policy Institute.On behalf of the Belfer Center at Harvard, he has just completed a seminal report "U.S.-China 21: The Future of U.S.-China Relations Under Xi Jinping." Below are the key conclusions of that report. 

Policymakers in the United States, China, and other Asian powers must choose whether to deal forthrightly and sensibly with the changing regional power distribution or avoid the hard decisions that China’s rise poses until the situation grows ever more polarized and dangerous.