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.

Iranian-born composer Reza Vali, a Carnegie Mellon University music professor, will travel to Iran with the Carpe Diem String Quartet of Ohio for the Fajr International Music Festival in February 2016.

The U.S. military and Philippines armed forces kicked off their biggest joint exercises in 15 years on Monday, at a time of distress in Manila over China’s island-building program in the South China Sea.

Orlando Magic interim coach James Borrego will become a bit of an experimental gym rat when he visits Havana for a three-day trip that begins on Thursday. He doesn't speak much Spanish. He doesn't know much about Cuba. Never been, in fact. Not sure if he's ever experienced the taste sensation known as a mojito. But he knows basketball. And he knows about the power of sports to be able to bridge cultures and political ideologies.

With the United States and Iran currently negotiating a nuclear deal under which those sanctions would eventually be lifted, some American companies are now hoping for new business opportunities in a country that has long been off limits.

Although the Saudis like to emphasize their independence from U.S. policy, Western analysts say their actions thus far have not seriously challenged Western strategic interests in the region. The airstrikes in Yemen, for example, have not jeopardized the multinational nuclear talks.

When President Obama meets at the White House Monday with crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates, he’ll be in conversation with a small, deep-pocketed Persian Gulf country that has mastered the art of public diplomacy to practically re-engineer Hollywood’s perception of Arab culture.