Wonder why President Obama’s trip this week to China didn’t go more smoothly? Meetings between Obama and top Chinese leaders were reportedly stiff; the Chinese also limited domestic press coverage of Obama’s appearances. The explanation is disarmingly obvious: huge disagreements separate the two countries that can’t easily be papered over.

Anyone doubting that ought to take a quick read of the latest annual report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a group established by Congress in 2000 to examine the connections between the countries’ economic relations and broader issues of national security. The Commission has typically been more suspicious of Chinese policies and motives than many American analysts. This year’s report is no exception.

Angry young French minorities in dead-end banlieues have, in mo­ments of frustration, expressed themselves crudely. Some set thousands of cars and hundreds of buildings on fire amid weeks of confrontations with riot police in 2005, leaving Paris to decipher the smoke signals. In calmer times, some of those young men offer coarse, half-joking justifications for their troublemaking along the lines of, "I'll screw France until she loves me." All bravado and misogyny aside, French-Cameroonian author Gaston Kelman suggests that those kids are simply demanding that their country truly recognize them as French--despite their darker skin or exotic names.

Kelman makes this provocative assertion in his contribution to a collection of 19 personal, analytic, historic, and philosophic essays that respond to the book's title question: qu'est-ce qu'être Français? (what is it to be French?). The collection--authored by intellectuals, lawyers, politicians, authors, activists, and writers--is being released in late November to mark the fourth anniversary of the Paris riots.

National identity is touchy political terrain in France. On the campaign trail in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy linked national identity to immigration and integration when he decided to create the Ministry of "Immigration, Integration, and National Identity." The idea paid electoral dividends with nostalgic white rural voters tempted by France's popular far right, essentially guaranteeing Sarkozy's election. President Sarkozy later put the ministry (where Kelman acts as an adviser) in charge of the high-profile expulsions of noncitizens. Some have been shipped off to repressive African states and, more recently, to wartime Afghanistan. Needless to say, this goes against a key element of France's historic identity as a land of refuge--and troubles many people, including some who work closely with Sarkozy.

Last week, we got more proof of Wall Street's utter disconnect from the rest of the world when Goldman Sachs's chief executive Lloyd Blankfein was quoted as saying he's doing "God's work." Apparently, he's also a "blue-collar guy" and "everybody should be happy" that he and his peers are on track to take home billions in bonuses this year. Blankfein's hubris generated disbelief among the foreign CEOs and government officials attending a Chinese business conference, put on by a Swiss outfit called Horasis, in Lisbon last week. "Do you think those quotes might be made up?" one Latin American participant asked.

Sadly, no (though Goldman says the God comment was "ironic"). At the same conference last year, right after the start of the financial crisis, there was a surprising lack of ire at the U.S. for causing this mess. Now, with emerging markets surging ahead while rich countries face a low-growth decade, everyone felt emboldened to say what they'd been thinking all along: America is useless. Not only has the U.S. stashed financial bombs under everyone's beds, it's doing a terrible job of cleaning up the mess--and it's certainly not in any position to give economic advice. As Hong Kong real-estate tycoon Ronnie Chan put it: "If we listen to America, we're doomed. Leaders there are pushing aside all the rational voices [calling for greater regulation], and the next crisis is already brewing."

By Lauren Hilgers

When migrant worker Sun Zhongjie recently faced the Shanghai court system, the 19-year-old from Henan, China, guessed his chances for justice were better online. Sun had been caught in a police trap: persuaded to pick up a plainclothes policeman and accused of operating an illegal taxi. In a gruesome play for attention, he chopped a finger off his left hand and went public. "In 24 hours everything you say will be on the Internet," Sun's lawyer threatened a local judge.

For people like Sun, the Internet is changing the equation of justice in China. Netizens are bringing a new level of scrutiny to court cases and local government affairs. If you're the little guy, you want China's Netizens in your corner. If you're wealthy, well connected, or happen to be a corrupt official, you probably want to avoid them altogether. 

As instances of Internet justice increase, people like Sun are learning to use the Net to their advantage and government officials--facing a population of more than 338 million online Chinese--are finding it harder to escape scrutiny. With so many people surfing the Web, the ranks of an online mob can swell in an instant. In one of the most famous examples this year--the case of a female pedicurist accused of murdering a local official while he was trying to rape her--Netizens flooded the Web with more than 4 million Internet posts protesting the charges against her.

Barack Obama will signal yet another break with his predecessor's foreign policy this week when he takes his first presidential trip to Asia. While the Bush administration focused almost exclusively on the big players like China and India, Obama is very deliberately focusing on smaller countries as well. In addition to stops in China, Japan, and South Korea, Obama will make the first visit by a U.S. president to meet leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. This follows visits Hillary Clinton has already made to leading ASEAN member states, including Indonesia and Thailand, and it comes immediately after Kurt Campbell, an assistant secretary of state, last week became the highest-ranking U.S. official to hold talks in Burma in more than a decade. By comparison, Condoleezza Rice skipped two out of four ASEAN meetings. Douglas Paal at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says that when Bush visited Indonesia after Sept. 11, he was "in and out as fast as he could" and focused almost exclusively in many countries on terrorism. As Bush came to dwell more and more on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Paal says, it started to send a message that the U.S. cared about these issues to the exclusion of all others.

 
Bush and Koizumi, together again. (Photo by JIJI PRESS/AFP/Getty Images)

Some former presidents launch foundations. Others visit Arabian palaces. George W. Bush? He's over in Tokyo, throwing out the first pitch at the Japanese equivalent of the World Series alongside Junichiro Koizumi, the former prime minister of Japan. As far as foreign leaders go, Koizumi was the closest thing Bush had to a BFF. We're guessing they have lots to talk about, since both, you may recall, saw the political alignment of their countries shift under their leadership.

The Gagglers have the backstory.

By Benjamin Sutherland

How might the United States ratchet up pressure on foreign enemies and threats, wherever they are on the globe, while reducing the need to station warships, planes, and troops within striking distance? A new type of weapon might do the trick--and even facilitate President Barack Obama's efforts to reduce the U.S. arsenal of nuclear warheads, which are of limited use against terrorists anyway.
 
THE IDEA: The Department of Defense is designing nonnuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles, which could be operational in less than two years. Packed with conventional explosives, they would be able to strike pretty much anywhere on the planet within one hour. ICBMs travel above the atmosphere, so they avoid most radar systems and the airspace of countries en route. For this capability, the U.S. is "willing to pay a great deal," says Mark Lewis, the Air Force's top technology official until his retirement this year.